Mantou Girl Bento (131)

I know I am not suppose to make a kyaraben today, but little girl has been such a good girl yesterday. Here is the reason:

We usually goto mum's place every Thu as I gotta attend yoga class nearby. Little girl asked to bring her along (as I told her she is allowed to go there only during weekend) the day b4, so I wanna her to promise me to play with her cousins only after finishing her home works. And she did keep her promise, she started doing her home works after dinner and shower (I left after her dinner) and she asked mum of permission to rest her hand once then continue again til I returned. Though she still have 1 home work remaining, I let her played with her cousin for 1/2 an hour before we went home.

Therefore, the kyaraben is a reward for her, on keeping her promise and being a discipline girl (as there r plenty of distraction sources at mum's place).

I used about 15 minutes to complete the mantou girl & bento.

Mantou girl made of mantou (sweet steamed bun), ham (for tongue), sausage (for eyes) and nori. The rest in bento: sausages, grapes and a box of smarties.

Note of the day

After school, little girl told me she was surprised to see the cute mantou and asked me why she able to get a cute bento, explained to her again and she proudly announced that she finished the mantou & sausages. When I checked her bento once home, found that she left only 3 grapes & a few smarties in the box, I am happy too! :)

Ketchup Fried Rice Bento (130)

Another small & simple bento, assembled in less than 10 minutes.

Little girl's favorite ketchup fried rice

Put in more veg/fruits as she didn't drink much water

Message of the day

I was giving little girl very small bento these days, however, she still not able to eat even half of the contains, sigh... She had only a few spoons of the fried rice, and didn't touch the rest today, what was wrong here? Was it the lack of time to eat? Or was it due to not able to talk in class and was feeling relieve til talking too much than eating during recess? I don know....

Guiness Shepherd's Pie

This is a back dated recipe I cooked for our X'mas party. I found the recipe here, a not so difficult or troublesome recipe, I altered the recipe slightly to best suit our taste buds, however, it still tasted too Guiness to us :p

Ingredients

1 tsp black pepper

500g ground lamb

1 large onion, finely diced

1 cup frozen baby peas

3-4 sprigs fresh rosemary

2 tbsp flour

1 tbsp butter

1 can Guiness stout

3 tbsp ketchup

3 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

2 tbsp Maggi's concentrated liquid chicken stock

6 (about 200g each) Russet potatoes, cooked, peeled

40g butter

125 milk + dairy cream

grated parmesan cheese

1. Preheat oven to 200C
2. Saute onions in the olive oil for a minute or 2, then add the meat
3. Season with black pepper and rosemary
4. Cook until brown then drain fat
5. Add the butter and peas
6. Sprinkle with flour and stir through
7. Add ketchup, Guiness, Worcestershire sauce and chicken stock
8. Let simmer til stock thicken. Season and remove from heat
9. Mash cooked potatoes until smooth, add butter and milk (and cream), stir until combined. Taste and season with salt and pepper
10. Grease a 9" x 13" dish with butter and add the lamb mixture
11. Spoon in mashed potatoes over top. Sprinkle with cheese
12. Bake for 20 minutes or til the potato is browned on top.

Fun Fried Loh Shi Fan Bento (129)

In order to encourage little girl eating more in school, I told her I will only make her kyaraben or cute bento for the next day if she clean the bento. Thus there is no cute stuff today, only a simple word FUN.

I cooked the fried loh shi fan as our lunch, assembled the bento in about 10 minutes.

Fried loh shi fan with julienned chinese cabbage and mushrooms

Skewers of sliced pineapple & grapes

Ready to pack into bento bag and off to school

Today's note for little girl

I used a piece of recycled paper cut from the unwanted envelop, as little girl said that I was wasting paper yesterday, gotta listen to her & save more trees :)

Kippy & Friends Bento (128)

Since little girl had Rabbita (her pet in Pet Society) for her bento yesterday, she asked for Kippy (my pet) today, and again, the Kippy in this bento does not have any similarity with my pet, other than the bear shaped face, however, little girl still approved it with a happy smile ;p

Bento was ready in 20 minutes, slightly longer as I had to blanch the crab stick, fish balls and broccoli, Also took a bit more time on molding the rice as my fingers were not cooperative enough to make it fast :p

Kippy onigiri (center) was made with rice, colored with sakura denbu and stuffed with pork floss. It is surrounded by broccoli bushes and crab stick flowers. There r 2 little fishball friends joining her in the bottom of the bento.

Fan shaped kiwifruits for dessert

Little girl DIDN'T CRY in school today!! She announced it happily when I picked her up from school, oh, I was so glad to hear that!

Actually, she gave a little drama when I sent her to the school hall, she stopped, hugged me again & again, repeating wanna me to pick her up fast after school (which I was a bit annoyed as she has repeated for the whole morning), I promised her again and let her walked over to the queue of her class by herself. I left after seeing her entered her classroom.

I didn't babysit her during recess, thus I secretly left this note along with her bento box. She told me (after school) she was thrilled to see the note and wanna keep it, hehehe....

Back to the bento, little girl ate only a wee bit from the bento, may be a bite or 2 of Kippy, 2 crab stick flowers, and a piece of kiwifruit! She told me she couldn't finish it in time, but when I pressed her further, she said she was busy talking to her new friends in stead of eating her food. Also, she didn't drink her water at all as she forgot to bring the tumbler to canteen and teacher don allow them to drink in class! Oh dear, I'd made her promised me to polish her bento and remember to bring her tumbler to canteen.

Hope she'll remember 2moro....

1st Day in P1 and Rabbita Going to School Bento (127)

It is an official school opening today and little girl reports to her new primary school. I was in the school with her til recess, she was fine thru out the day, only with a minor cry. I quickly walked to the canteen the moment I saw her pout her lips, acted as if I didn't notice ;p When I came back to her class, I was hiding from her, seeing her friends from ex-preschool comforting her. After a while, when the BM teacher started the class, she was ok again.

She asked for bento instead of the catering food in canteen, thus today is my official day to start bento again for 2010.

I had no idea on what to prepare her nor able to think of any theme yesterday, think the brain has been idle for too long, turned rusty, or is it the sign of aging? Sigh...

Used about 15 minutes to prepare this bento. The idea was popping only while I was preparing it, it just flowed in by itself, phew!

Rabbita is the name of little girl's pet in Pet Society, of course her pet looks much prettier than this. In the bento, Rabbita is laying on top of a thin layer of chicken and it was made of ham sandwich, it is wearing the nori school uniform (couldn't find any dark blue to match the uniform color). At the side of Rabitta are some balloons (cherry tomatoes) and tulips (cheese sausage) celebrating the school opening.

A container of mayo for the sausage & chicken and some fan shaped kiwifruit.

Little girl enjoyed her bento with a new friend (a girl who cried a bit too after her mum left). She almost cleaned the bento today, with only some chicken left in the box.

The Eve of New Year (2010)'s Eve Dinner

Hahaha... I like the title of this posting!

We had our New Year's eve dinner a day early as I had my yoga class on the New Year's eve. Little girl had requested for the cheesy chicken chop again for the dinner (just like last year), and so with limited ingredients left in fridge, made do this simple dinner:

This was my plate of chicken chop (without cheese) with onion brown sauce, aglio olio topped with a packet of dried chili (from Domino's) and some cucumber slices. Hubby had a similar plate but omitted the dried chili.

Little girl's plate of cheese stuffed chicken chop, oglio olio and cucumber.

Change of Plan

Due to some complications, sis & I had decided to close the Happiness Cookies website from public, however it'll be opened thru invitation. Email me at yeokel@gmail.com or give me a call if you are interested to order CNY cookies from us, we'll send an invitation email to u soonest possible.

Happy New 2010 Year!

Happy

New

2010

Year !

Loves from Kel & family

3 Flavors Sponge Cake

I adapted the French sponge cake recipe from Alex Goh's 'Creative making of cakes', with some additions.

Ingredients

(A)

5 egg yolks

20g sugar

(B)

5 egg whites

(C)

130g sugar

1/4 tsp cream of tartar

(D)

120g flour

1 tsp baking powder

(E)

80g melted butter

(F)

3 tsp strawberry syrup

1 tsp green tea powder

1. Put (A) into a mixing bowl, whisk until light and fluffy. Set aside
2. Pour (B) into another mixing bowl, whip until soft peak, add in (C) and continue whipping until stiff
3. Mix a small portion of egg white mixture into (A) mixture, then pour the remaining (A) mixture into egg white mixture, lightly fold til well blended
4. Fold in (D) til well combined
5. Stir in (E) slowly and mix well
6. Divide batter into 3 portions, mix in strawberry syrup and green tea respectively into 2 different portions
7. Spoon 3 colors batters alternately into a 9" round cake mould
8. Bake at 180C for 30 minutes
9. Remove the cake from mould immediately after it was out from oven.

The 3 colors in the cake

Kept telling guests the cake has 3 flavors and tested them, most of them got the answer right ;)