Cocktails Snack Bento (133)

Cooked some burger patties yesterday, bento was ready within 10 minutes. Used a little tray recycled from Ferrero Rocher chocolate to hold the cocktails.

Left: burger cocktails with layers (bottom to top) of bread, cheese, burger and lettuce.

Center: tomato cocktails with layers of bread, cheese, cherry tomato and lettuce.

Right: fruit cocktails with layers of watermelon and grape.

Notes of the day

When I dropped off little girl at school this afternoon, at the beginning, she was fine, talking to me at the side of the gate, until a lady standing nearby said this: "噢！ 你今天沒有哭哦！(Oh! U r not crying today!)" Yeah! Thanks for reminding, little girl started cling to me and tears dropping non-stop later... sigh, was so angry...

After school, little girl told me she ate most of the bento (she left the tomato cocktails) & drank more than half from the water bottle, which made me really happy.

LG: Mummy, why r u calling me baby (in the notes)?

Me: Bcos u r my baby!

LG: But my friends r laughing at me!

Me: Ok, I'll put something else once u stop crying at the gate, and stop acting like a cry baby, can u do that?

LG: I don know... I don want u calling me baby...

Me: Tell ur friend u r my baby, and she is her mummy's baby too, there is nothing to laugh to, alright?

LG: ...

Star Sandwiches & Fish Balls Snack Bento (132)

I am going to prepare small & simple snack bento now as little girl kept telling me she didn't have enough time to finish her bentos during recess. I will slowly increase the volume once she is able to justify herself with the time.

2 nutella filled star shaped sandwiches, 2 fish balls and some cut watermelons

Note of the day

Little girl has fever yesterday, but has no sign of it this morning, I let her attending school, hope that the fever won't return and disturb her learning in school.

Yogurt Peach Cake

My 1st bake of year 2010, baked this on new year's day, for MIL's birthday. I adapted the recipe from Alex Goh's 'Creative making of cakes'.

Ingredients

(A)

2 egg yolks

30g sugar

(B)

1/2 tbsp lemon juice

50g peaches

zest of 1/2 lemon

(C)

2 tsps gelatine powder

25ml water

(D)

100g yogurt

(E)

130g whipped cream

(F)

80g peaches, cut into cube

(G)

peaches, cut into thin slices

1. Prepare a 9" round vanilla sponge cake
2. Whip (A) til light and thick
3. Mash the peaches from (B) and then sieve the mixture. Mix with the rest of ingredients in (B)
4. Premix (C) and melt it over a hot water bath
5. Add (B), mix (C) into (A) then blend all ingredients in (A), (B) and (C) together
6. Add (D) and (E) and mix well
7. Add (F) til evenly blended
8. Cut the sponge cake into 2 horizontal layers
9. use the above filling to sandwich the cake layer
10. Cover the whole cake with a thin layer of whipped cream
11. Arrange the peach slices on top
12. Refrigerated for 1/2 hour to let it set
13. Glaze the peaches by brushing instant jelly topping glaze onto them. Serve.

The yogurt mixture was so yummy...

BIL made this beautiful jelly.

It was so coincidence that our theme colors were so similar

BIL made this soya jelly too

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.