California Rolls Bento (279)

On Tue,

LG:  Mummy, can you make sushi bento for me on Thursday?
Me:  Why sushi?
LG:  Bcos G (the boy sitting next to her in class) loves sushi, can u make sushi for us?
Me:  Ok.

Then I saw Masa posted a pictorial on making California rolls 1 or 2 days ago, this would b a good chance for me to practice it :)

It didn't take long to prepare the California rolls, I would say it was much easier as compare to maki, I managed to get 2 perfect rolls (I usually gotta eat the 2 ends after cutting the maki as they were so ugly).

The California rolls had the filling of: leftover fried salmon flakes mixed with mayo and shredded cucumber.

2 California rolls cut into 16 tiny pieces

Honey dew & grape in sticks

(LG: Mummy, remember to tell everyone that I skewered the fruits myself, ok?

Yeah, girl, I kept my promise)

Closer view of the California roll

Squid, Dried Scallop & Fried Salmon Porridge

Bought 3 fresh & beautiful squids from the night market last night, as I still can't decide on how to cook the squids for dinner, I used 1 to cook this porridge for lunch.

Little girl loves seafood and porridge, that was why I cooked this.  But whenever I cook porridge, she'd demand to have dried scallop added, else she'd definitely pull a long face.

Have I ever mentioned on the tip to speed up the porridge cooking process?  Well, you just need to leave the washed and drained uncooked rice into freezer until it harden (I leave it overnight as I cook it in the morning), then cook with boiling water for 10 minutes and done.

The lazy me threw the frozen rice & dried scallops into rice cooker so that I was able to continue with other tasks (prepared bento and fried the salmon) and don't have to check upon the fire or porridge at all.  When 10 minutes b4 the rice cooker ends the cooking process, put in the cut squid to cook.  Season the porridge with salt once it is ready.

Serve the squid and dried scallop porridge with fried salmon flakes, 

top with some shredded lettuce and fried garlic oil

(Oops, I'd forgotten to add the fried salmon flakes, sorry :p)

Sweet & Savory Bread Rolls Bento (278)

I could use the header as 'white and yellow bread rolls bento', but then I reconsidered again since I gave a similar header for yesterday, better think of a new one :)

For me, bread is the easiest to manage/prepare ingredient for bento.  If u have followed my blog closely, u may find that I made bread bento on most Wednesday (as little girl gotta eat fast so that she may perform her class duty before the class starts).  So since it's Wed today, I decided to use the remaining pumpkin bread for a sweet roll and Gardenia white bread for the savory roll.  Used only 15 minutes for the bento preparation.

Actually, little girl is one dislike pumpkin, but she was not aware that the bread was made of pumpkin, she ate it happily without any complaints :p  Haha... one good way to trick her into eating this healthy food :)

Yellow sweet roll - pumpkin bread spread with kaya and thick slices of butter

White savory roll - white bread spread with mayo and lots of meat floss

Top - mango pudding

Bottom - 6 grapes

Black & Yellow Rice Balls Bento (277)

This was a quick bento as I used only 15 minutes to complete it :)  I like the color combination of the rice balls, do u?

Black rice balls - with crab stick filling and covered with sesame seaweed

Yellow rice balls - with cheese filling and covered with meat floss

2 hearts made of cheese cocktail

Grapes & honey dew sticks

Seremban Hakka Mee 芙蓉客家面 Bento (276)

Hubby & little girl had a sudden interested with the Hakka noodle lately, thus I cooked some thick wantan noodle to go along with the minced pork stew which I kept in the freezer.

For the bento, I only need to cook the noodle & broccoli, heat the minced pork stew and cut the fruits, used approximately 20 minutes for all.

Hakka Mee with some blanched broccoli

Grapes & golden kiwifruits

Honey Pumpkin Loaf and Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

Comparing the color of pumpkin bread with Gardenia's

Can u see the bright yellow turned out in the bread, such a nice & bright color :)

Actually, I didn't plan to bake anything originally, bcos
1. I thought I'd used up all the high protein flour in mum's place
2. Don know what to bake
3. Lazy to think and bake :p

Then, when I was at mum's place after lunch, mum told me that the cream corn loaf had made a hit in the family and the in-laws (SIL's parent).  Mum requested the loaf again (she missed it so much) and had 'ordered' SIL to get a can of cream corn, also telling the lazy me that god mum had passed a kg of high protein flour over (o_O)

While waiting for SIL's return, I told mum that I was eyeing on the pumpkin that was sitting at her kitchen  (dad said it must have been there for at least 3 months!), she gave me the green light to 'slaughter' the pumpkin and here is the pumpkin loaf I got :)

An almost perfect loaf

I adopted the recipe from Carol, slightly adjusted the ingredient as I got plenty of sweet liquid after steaming the pumpkin.

Ingredient
150g mashed pumpkin
280g high protein flour
1 egg
3/4 tsp instant yeast
1/8 tsp salt
20g honey
30g milk (changed to 1 tbsp milk powder and 30g liquid mentioned above)
30g butter

Here is a closer look of the pumpkin bread comparing with the Gardenia bread

As for the pumpkin seed, I scooped all out from the pumpkin, gave them a good wash, sprinkled a bit of salt and let it sun-bathed for about 1/2 an hour trying to dry off the water.  It was ashamed that I didn't take care of the roasting part, as I was busy 'building walls' (mahjong-ing), sis & mum baked the loafs and seed as the same time.  Sis kept asking me is it (the seed) ready, however, the careless & busy me were not paying attention, thot that she was asking me about the loaf, I kept telling her to relax, it won't burn at all, just follow the time.  So the seeds ended up nice & crisp at the outer layer, fragrant while bite open the skin, but bitter at the inner part :(  It could be very delicious, such a waste....

The beautiful looking pumpkin seeds

Nutella Mochi 糯米糍 Snack Bento (275)

Made some quickie nutella mochi for little girl as snack during our journey back to Seremban.  It was so easy that I got 6 mochi done in less than 30 minutes which inclusive of the cooking time.

Ingredient
1/3 cup glutinous rice powder
2 tbsp sugar
1/3 cup water
2 tbsp corn flour / potato starch
6 tsp nutella

1. Mix all ingredients in a big bowl, cook mixture in microwave for 2 minutes on High
2. Stir mixture once time is up, microwave for another 1 minutes on High, the mixture will form a gooey mochi
3. Remove mochi from microwave oven, set aside to cool off slightly
4. Microwave corn flour or potato starch for 1 minutes on High, set aside to cool off
5. Scoop a tablespoon of mochi, dust it with some cooked corn flour to avoid stickiness (handle this carefully as the mochi is very hot)
6. Flatten the mochi, spoon a teaspoon of nutella on to mochi
7. Fold mochi up to cover the nutella entirely and roll it into a ball

I ate 2 for tasting purpose (> _ 0), love the gooeyness, and the nutella match so well with mochi.  I was wondering if little girl would like it, it turned out that she loved it so much that she ate all the mochi in 1 go and complained that I made so few for her        (－_－；）

Pari Pari Pasta, Seaweed and Baitfish Pizza Bento (274)

Happened to bump into a very interesting site last nite => Masa の 料理ABC, the owner is a Japanese chef who stationed in Taiwan.  I enjoyed reading the site and his recipes very much as he is very humorous and his recipes were filled with detailed pictorial.

I was hooked into this recipe - Pari pari (crispy in Japanese) pasta, seaweed and bait fish pizza, the pictorial showed that it is easy to make and the ingredients are very simple too, thus here is my version of the pari pari pizza.  The only thing is, it took me almost an hour to get the 'pizza' cooked as using low flame for the entire cooking process.

Ingredient
1 handful angel hair
80g mozzarella cheese (I mixed it with cheddar cheese)
2 seaweed sheets, tear/cut into tiny pieces
40g whitebait fish (or ngan yu cai 银鱼仔), soaked and drained
2 tsp olive oil

1. Cook the angel hair in boiling water til al dente, drain
2. Mix the rest of ingredients into angel hair
3. Cook the angel hair mixture in a non-stick pan with low heat
4. Cook til both side turn golden brown
5. Serve with okonomiyaki sauce

Cut 2 pieces of the 'pizza' into bite size in the bento, along with some grapes, cucumber and a container of okonomiyaki sauce

 The taste of the 'pizza' is yummy with the creamy cheesy cheese and hints of seaweed & baby fish, however, it is on the oily side (as the cheese released plenty of oil while cooking) and the pasta turned hard instead of crispy （－_－; ）

Fried Meehoon Bento (273)

Simply throw together the meehoon, shredded cabbage, crab sticks and fried egg for our lunch and bento, was totally blank this morning through slept a bit early last nite.

From the start of decision made on frying the meehoon until finished packing the bento, I used about 1/2 an hour for the entire process, kind of speedy this morning.

Fried meehoon

Honey dew cubes and strawberry jelly

Fried Rice Wraps Bento (272)

Actually I made 3 fried rice wraps with lettuce originally,  when little girl was awaked, she told me she wanna have seaweed instead, I agreed to changed only 2 for her.  Then she was happy to see the color contrast in the bento, I was glad that she approved the bento finally, phew... * wiping sweat *

This is how I made the wraps:

1. Place a small cube of cooked chicken (I used leftover KFC chicken thigh) on a big piece of lettuce or seaweed (I used Korean seaweed)
2. Squeezed a good dollop of ketchup onto chicken
3. Spoon 2 tsp of fried rice on to the ketchup+chicken
4. Wrap everything carefully with the lettuce or seaweed

2 seaweed wraps, 1 lettuce wrap and 4 pieces of KFC chicken skin

Laici pudding jelly and grapes

Another presentation of the fried rice (little girl's lunch), with some shredded lettuce and meat floss

Green Tea & Soy Milk Loaf

Has wanted to make a swirl loaf but the careless me didn't place the loaf properly during the 2nd proofing, and it ended up as a U shaped loaf :(

This is the 1st time I was using the water roux method 汤种 for the loaf baking, not as troublesome or difficult as I imagine :p  I use the recipe base on Carol's Soy milk loaf, altered slightly on the green tea bread dough.

Ingredient

A) Soy milk water roux:
250ml unsweetened soy milk
50g high protein flour

1. Mix flour into soy milk, make sure it is lump free
2. Pour into sauce pan, cook mixture with medium heat til thicken and gooey
3. Able to use after cooling off, can be store in fridge for 3 days

B) Soy milk loaf:
100g soy milk water roax
230g high protein flour
20g wheat bran
1/2 tsp instant yeast
1/4 tsp salt
20g sugar
120ml soy milk
20g corn oil

C) Green tea loaf:
100g soy milk water roax

250g high protein flour

1 tbsp green tea powder

1/2 tsp instant yeast

1/4 tsp salt

20g sugar

120ml soy milk

20g corn oil

Despite its ugly look, there is no doubt that it is the best and softest loaf I ever bake, I managed to down 2 thick slices for my breakfast this morning.  I had the 1st slice plain, able to taste a hint of green tea but there isn't any trace of soy milk at all.  Whereas for the 2nd slice, I spread a thin layer of peanut butter onto it, the combination of peanut butter & green tea tasted pretty well, none the less I adored the softness of this bread the most.

Loh Shi Fan Kon Low Bento (271)

While on the bed last nite,

Me:  U wanna have loh shi fan or rice for lunch and the bento 2moro?
LG:  I don want rice, loh shi fan please, and I want it just like how Ah Boh (that is the way she call my sis, in Hainanese) cooked
Me:  But I don know how Ah Boh cook that?
LG:  U give her a call lah...
Me:  It is too late, she must have sleep oledi.  Did she cook it with mushroom?
LG:  No
Me:  Never mind, I'll try to cook something, and I'll put in your favorite mushroom, ok?
LG:  What mushroom?
Me:  The fat-fat mushroom (eryngii mushroom)
LG:  Yes!

So, this morning, started at about 9.30am, I peeled plenty of shallots & garlic, fried them individually cos hubby and little girl love fried shallots and fried garlic very much.  Did all this hassle also due to kon low (noodle mix with black soy sauce) taste best with fried garlic oil and the minced pork stew taste superb with fried shallots.

Then I diced the mushroom, cooked the minced pork stew, blanched the loh shi fan and edamame.  By the time I finished all the cooking and packed the bento, it was close to 11am, oh my... gotta rushed little girl to eat her lunch fast, cos we gotta leave home at 12pm.  Luckily, she liked this loh shi fan kon low (loh shi fan with black soy sauce) and ate quite fast without me kept reminding her :)

Loh shi fan kon low with edamame (for the color)

Pineapple cubes, pudding jelly and nectarine wedges

While having lunch,

Me:  So, does the loh shi fan taste like Ah Boh's?
LG:  No, her loh shi fan was not black in color
Me:  Huh, just the loh shi fan and the pork only?
LG:  Yes
Me:  Ok.... (o_o)'''

Hello Kitty Bento 2 (270)

Little girl requested for a HK theme bento again, to make my life easier, I just put in 2 HK cakes bought from the pasar malam to satisfy her.

Bento was ready in less than 5 minutes, there was neither cooking nor heating involved, just packed and cut the fruits only.

2 marshmallows, 2 HK cakes and a chocolate waffle (was given by cousin bro who brought all the way back from Germany)

Pineapple and nectarine sticks

Hello Kitty Bento (269)

Little girl requested sesame & seaweed onigiri for her bento last nite, as I got her a new Hello Kitty bento box, I shaped the onigiri into Hello Kitty as well.  She is very happy to have this cute bento to start her school after a long break.

I used about 30 minutes to complete this bento.

2 sesame & seaweed onigiri in HK shapes, 1 cheese sausage, 4 fried wanton and some edamame

3 nectarine bunnies and a bear container of ketchup

All in the new HK bento box

Cream Corn Loaf

Have been idle from bread baking for a long time and I'm yearning for a loaf this few days, at last manage to bake it on Sunday, in between of the family mahjong session :p

I altered Carol's custard loaf to this cream corn loaf, the result is superb, the loaf is very soft, spongy and it is good as its own too.

Ingredients
100g cream corn
250g high protein flour (I used 200g high protein flour + 50g superfine flour)
1/4 tsp salt
20g sugar
3/4 tsp instant yeast
130g milk (I used 130ml water + 4 tbsp milk powder)
20g butter

Can u see those tiny bit of corns?

The bread stay soft even after a day old, I believe it will be as soft when I eat it 2moro, I'm so happy with this bread, will definitely bake it again soon (this Thu) as I still have 1/2 can of cream corn in the fridge.

Assorted Roti Canai Rolls

Didn't know what to eat for breakfast this morning, we were out of bread, then hubby suggested roti canai, ok, here r some roti canai rolls I made from 2 frozen roti canai, fast, easy and yummy!

This one here is the roti canai top with spring onion omelette and rolled with a thick layer of mayo and meat floss.  Hubby and me like this very much.

Whereas this is rolled with a chicken frankfurter and cheddar cheese which is little girl's favorite