Speedy Sardine Sandwich Bento (204)

The sardine was leftover from last nite's dinner, I pre-mashed it last nite too.  Thus, this morning, I just need to spread it onto the breads, and done.  Used less than 10 minutes to get bento ready (I did 2 bentos, another for little girl's breakfast).

Contents of bento: grape tomatoes, sardine sandwich and grapes.

Today, we waked up a bit early, then left to mum's place, as we wanna meet up with my step grandma and aunt who flew in from HK.  However, didn't get to talk to them much, cos they were in a rush leaving to Ipoh :(

Pasta Salad & Cutie Quail Eggs (203)

The box of this cute pasta has been sitting in my pantry for so so so long, finally dig it out and use it for the lunch and bento.

If not inclusive the time cooking and printing the quail eggs, the bento was ready within 15 minutes, for cooking the pasta, mix it with diced cucumber, a dash of mayo and pinch of pepper.  The grass jelly was cut last nite, thus only place it in after placing the pasta.

Pasta salad with 2 quail eggs, grass jelly, grapes and a tub of furikake

Close up of the quail eggs, can u see the dog and rabbit print?

Note of the day with Pankunchi

Little girl said that it is too fat :D

Little girl started her full revision yesterday for her coming exam, I let her study/doing the workbooks for an hour then rest for 1/2 hour and repeated for 3 times.  By the time she finished her revision, it was close to 5pm, we brought her to the TTDI park, to rest her mind and eyes.  She gotta eat her favorite lamb chop for dinner and had a spa bath (with the fragrant bath powder I bought from Japan) to relax further, boy, she really had fun and enjoyed her 'spa' so much.  Promise her that she may get to have spa bath on every exam (only on those Sunday b4 exam), and she now won't say that she hate exam :p

Matcha/Green Tea Kasutera Japanese Honey Sponge Cake

When I set my eyes on the previous Kasutera Cake, I oledi put this green tea kasutera cake into my must-bake list too.

The recipe was adapted from Angie's Recipes, I followed all ingredients to the dot, only cut down slightly on the sugar.

Ingredients

125g bread flour
10g matcha tea powder
50g honey
50g green tea drink
5 eggs
140g caster sugar (used only 120g)

1. Line a 44x12x6cm wood box or an 9 inch baking pan with parchment paper (I used the loaf pan)
2. Fill half of a large pot with water and bring it to a boil
3. Stir together the honey and green tea drink in a small bowl
4. Combine the flour, matcha tea powder and sift twice and set aside
5. Preheat the oven to 175C/350F
6. Place the eggs and the sugar into the bowl of mixer.  Set the bowl over the pot of hot water and whisk the mixture until lukewarm and the sugar is dissolved
7. Remove and beat over medium speed until the mixture starts to thicken
8. Lower the speed and continue whisking until it is thick and smooth.  When you lift the whisk, the peaks drops slightly
9. Beat in honey water mixture in a few additions until incorporated
10. Sift in the flour in a few additions and whisk on low speed until fully incorporated
11. Pour the batter into the prepared wood box or the pan.  Place in the hot oven and bake until the cake is golden brown and it feels spongy not tacky to the touch, about 50 minutes.
12. Cool on the rack for 10 minutes, and remove from the pan

The kitchen smell pretty good while the cake was baking in the oven, a mixture of honey & matcha :p  I able to stop myself from stuffing the cake into my mouth right after it just cool off this time.  I wrapped it in sling film, kept it in a container and waited patiently til this morning.  Slicing it nicely with the help of a very sharp knife and wet towel, I managed to get a perfect cut matcha kasutera cake :D  * clap clap clap to myself *

Verdict:  The taste of matcha is strong but not too overly, it blend pretty well with the taste of honey, yum!  Great with a cup of green tea latte or just plain green tea.

Note:  If you put the batter into muffin cups, bake them for 20 minutes with the same temperature.

Happy Mother's Day 2010!

Here is a greeting card made by little girl:

Front

Middle

Back

And here, a song from my favorite HK band-Beyond: 真的愛你, specially dedicated to all of u mummies out there, enjoy and 'Happy mother's day!'

Mashed Potato & Azuki Bento (202)

Spent quite a long morning in the kitchen, cooking breakfast, little girl's fav fried bacon & egg, then prepared the bento.

I can't really tell the time used today, as I had been in & out, doing this & that simultaneously.

Azuki (one of the Cinnamonangels) is made of mashed potato stuffed with a halved cheese cocktail, crab stick for the flowers & mouth and seaweed for the eyes

The rest in the bento r some flowers made of crab stick wrapped with egg sheet, hearts cheese cocktail and pear slices (at the top right corner)

A little container of mushroom gravy and some bit & pieces from the cheese cocktail and crab stick

Little girl's Azuki purse and note of the day

There was an incident happened today which really worried me at the beginning but ended with a good laugh.  As little girl's teacher called me during mid school time, she informed me that little girl was having tummy ache, went to toilet couple times and looked really sick.  I was so worried after putting down the phone, quickly rushed over to the school, and as always, there would be traffic jam whenever u need to hurry, and it took me about 20 minutes (usually a less than 10 minutes drive) to reach school.  The children r having recess when I reach there.  And when I walked near little girl's class, I saw her skipping happily from the canteen, with no sign of any sickness at all, o.0  We met little girl's teacher, I thanked her for calling and after confirmed that little girl is fine, little girl told us she wanna continued the remaining classes.  Actually she didn't have any diarrhea, though went to toilet for couple of times, really poo only once, and she claimed that she felt ok after the poo-poo.  Phew, what a relief...

Angel Hair with Bolognese Sauce Bento (201)

It was a quick to pack bento this morning, just need to cook the angel hair, heat the Bolognese sauce (I precooked & safely froze in the freezer), stirred in the cooked pasta, chopped the pear and done.

All went into box in about 10 minutes.

Angel hair with Bolognese sauce, pear and marshmallows

Note of the day

Black Bento (200)

It is such a coincident that my 200th bento and the birthday of Kel's Place (Kel's Place will be 3 yrs old on 9 May) fall in the same month :)  I can't imagine I'd been bentoing & blogging for this long and still enjoying it so much :p

I really don know what to make for the 200th bento, since I had kyaraben for the 100th (Kirby Mouse Bentos), I thot of doing it again, but was pulled back by my laziness :p  And moreover, I can't make a big bento for little girl as it fall on Wed, which is her duty day.  With all of the constraints (or excuses), I ended up making sushi/maki, little girl's fav.

At the beginning, I thot of making something like this, however it didn't turn up as what I expected, and I gotta quickly transformed those failures into something else...

... to something like this

When little girl saw all the black maki laying in her fav My Melody bento box, she told me that she don wanna an ugly bento, ok, fine, gotta think think think again....

I spent approximately 1 and half hour for this bento, of course was due to the failure, spent so much time on wrapping the maki nicely, sigh...

The end result: black maki (layers of rice, egg, mayo, cucumber, cheese cocktail and rice), garnished with some rabbit & butterfly shapes egg sheet and a tube of soy sauce

Dessert: grass jelly & orange slices

Me:  Girl, what can u see in this?  * pointing at the dessert box *
LG:  Z
Me:  No, 'tek', wrong!
LG:  * looking hard at the desserts * TWO!
Me:  What else?
LG:  2 bear bear!
Me:  Hahaha... wrong, guess again...
LG:  200!
Me:  Bingo!  U r right!

Note of the day

Since it is a special day, I added Piano into the note to cheer up little girl :p

Pasta, Fish balls and Quail Eggs Bento (199)

Boiled a big pot of water this morning, able to cook noodle, pasta, fish balls and quail eggs in the same pot of water, hahaha... save plenty of water d :p

The pasta was mixed with some gravy leftover from the Hakka stewed pork with black fungus cooked by mum, added some leftover fried veggie and the rest were in box in about 20 minutes.

Pasta with veggie, pearl fish balls, quail eggs, some grapes and grape tomatoes

Note of the day

I drew the bear based on the bear from my Friends Forever mug, and little girl complained that I didn't add in the rosy cheek, ok, here u go...

Note of the day with colors

Lazy Monday Bento (198)

This is what u get when mummy got hit by the Monday blues, and with no notes too... lol  Bento was ready in less than 2 minutes.

Contains of bento: 4 pieces of sweet potato bread spread with nutella and a bunch of grapes.

Talking of the sweet potato loaf, oh, it's very yummy, good to eat as it own and best with a little nutella, even the crust is so tasty!

Sweet Potato Loaf

Hey, look at this, my very 1st rectangle shape load, hurray!

Had 1 big sweet potato left in the pantry, decided to bake a loaf with it.  I adapted Carol's honey and pumpkin loaf, but changed the pumpkin to sweet potato.

Ingredient
150g sweet potato, steamed and mashed
280g bread flour (used 200g bread flour and 100g superfine flour)
1 egg
3/4 tsp instant yeast
1/8 tsp salt
20g honey (used 2 tbsp)
30g milk (used 1 tbsp milk powder and about 50ml cold water)
30g unsalted butter

1. Except butter, mix all ingredients into the mixing bowl, knead for 7-8 minutes
2. Put in butter, knead for about 15 minutes or until dough turn soft and not sticky
3. Place dough into an oiled container, let leaven for 60 minutes or raise til doubling its size
4. When dough has doubled its size, punch out the air from the dough, shape it round, cover it with a wet towel and let rest for another 20 minutes
5. Separate dough into 2, roll and place into loaf tin
6. Spray some water on the dough and let it have 2nd leaven for about 50-60 minutes or til the dough filling 80% of the loaf tin
7. Cover the loaf tin, preheat the oven to 200C
8. Bake for 40 minutes
9. Remove loaf from loaf tin and let cool on rack

Aw... just look at the fluffy texture

I still haven't eat the the bread, thus can't comment on the taste, I'm sure it taste just as good as its look :)  I'm so happy today with the result of this loaf.