Happy 2017!

And here we go with Mouse's very first school bento. I hope he's able to finish it.

Simple kimchi-bokkeumbap (fried rice) with chicken bits as this boy loves rice and kimchi.

Last Bento of 2016!

I am looking forward to taking a goooooood loooooong break these upcoming holidays because once school begins next year, Mouse will be in Primary School and with his food allergies (and most of all, knowing his shy nature), I have good reason to believe I have to bento EVERYDAY.

Kimchi-jjigae for Takoyaki. Poor Sec 3 girl has extra lessons during her end of year holidays, so they can get started on next year's topics.

Soegogi-guk

The new food item is actually that unimportant-looking jar of soup. It's a lovely beef radish soup I learnt from Maangchi.com, pronounced "swe-go-gi-gook".

The rice is topped with soy sauce omelette and vegetables. So filling.

Kimchi Stew is back again!

This has been a very rainy year - May, June, July have all been wet and cloudy months. Takoyaki has often asked me for hot soup/stews to bring to school. And I'm more than happy to oblige if we have it the night before for dinner.

Hazy Days of Bento

Bentoing in a closed kitchen (thanks to the haze) is no fun at all. I recall how I planned the renovation of my new kitchen at my new home and really miss the fresh breeze coming through the windows. But life has to go on, right?

Takoyaki knew this was coming when we had it for lunch yesterday. Always cook more, I say! And use the planned overs (kept hygienically) for bento the next day.

Menu:

1. Kimchi soup (reheated this morning before going into the warmed food jar) 
2. Kiwi slices and grapes (washed, cut and packed yesterday)
3. Steamed rice (packed by Takoyaki yesterday)

Japchae Bento

For Takoyaki. I was so thankful I had these ingredients, because she threw a bomb at me late last evening that she had to stay back in school and I didn't have any planned overs. Cooking this took about 15 minutes excluding cooling time so I had, after Mouse had gone to bed, to whip it up.

The ingredients are sweet potato noodles, ground beef and baby bokchoy 小白菜. Not very authentic but at least the taste was near enough.

Yee-ha! Kimchi Fried Rice is here!!

If it isn't obvious by now, I like to dig through old bentos to find inspiration for bento. After all, one can only have so many new things to cook up. This was a VERY last minute decision because I completely forgot I had to bento today. Thankfully, there's some leftover rice and, most importantly, a fresh batch of kimchi I just made yesterday. Plus some leftover, rather sour kimchi I wanted to get rid of, muahahahaha...

It's not clear in this pic, but each of the apple wedges has been carved with a smiley, a "saddy", and a heart. 

While RM has only one star. It's been so long since I last did apple carving, that I am feeling rather rusty at it, but it was fun to add a little "fuss" to the bento.

Planned Over Thursday - Kimchi Soup

With Sweet Potato Vermicelli and Five-Spice Grilled Chicken. I got the recipe for the chicken from a Jamie Oliver cookbook and I must say, we really liked it. This will enter our regular rotation of chicken chop flavours, as we have been relying on Cajun seasoning for wayyyyy too long.

Thankful Tuesday - First Kimchi Soup of 2014!

Here's another from my bento food list, which Takoyaki loves. I topped her rice with the braised pork slices, some brown mushrooms and more kimchi!

Welcome to another episode of...

You Can't See The Rice For The Toppings!

On the menu are:

1. Korean style Soybean sprout

2. Sauteed prawns with scallions

3. Stir fried greens

Over a bed of white rice

Dessert:

Grapes

M&Ms

And Takoyaki's hot lunch today was...

1. Rice with gomashio
2. Noritama
3. Stir fried 小白菜 xiao3bai2cai4
4. 莲藕汤 lian2ou3tang3 or lotus root soup

Kimchi Bokkeumbap Bento

This was a filling lunch for me and almost-3yo Mouse (whose birthday is tomorrow), which we had in school as it was the Full Dress Rehearsal for the Teachers Day Concert. For more on my experience with the concert, please see my other blog.

I have been very surprised over the past few months as Mouse seems to have found a strong liking for spicy, sour kimchi. As long as we have kimchi on our table at home, he will always ask for it. That's why I did not hesitate at all when I felt like having kimchi fried rice for lunch in school today. As long as I cut down on the kimchi juice and it wasn't too spicy, I knew he would like it (and eat a lot).

My kimchi bokkeumbap is made of only kimchi, leftover rice (steamed up hot), and chopped ham. I topped it with a sunny side up and some strawberry cherry tomatoes. Learn how to cook it at Maangchi's website. She also has lots other scrumptious authentic Korean recipes (with video, yay!) on her site and that's where I learnt a lot of my Korean cooking.

Warming Korean Food For A Cold Day

There was an incredibly strong gust of wind in the middle of the night which blew all my clean laundry down, followed by lots of rain. So this day began cold and wet. I was glad to be able to pack some hot food for the kids to bring to school.

Menu:

Leftover kimchi soup with pork slices and sweet potato noodles

Roast Meat had some leftover yachaejeon (Korean vegetable pancake) from dinner last night, while Takoyaki had seasoned seaweed.

Moulded Hardboiled Eggs Bentos

Hardboiled eggs that have been moulded into different shapes were today's feature. For Roast Meat, he had his with Korean jiajiangmyun, apple slices and cucumber. His egg was star-shaped, and cut crosswise in half.

Takoyaki had hers with rice, Japanese style braised pork slices and broccoli. The heart-shape of the egg was not very well done, and it cracked when I sliced it. But she came back home beaming about her "fabulous lunch bento", which gave me lots of satisfaction d:)

There will not be any bentos tomorrow because our school is having a fundraising mini fair and I'm up to my neck making preparations including a simple pinata and lots and lots of makizushi!

Minnie's Dinner - Sesame Oil Chicken

I get to pack TWO dinner bentos today, because there's also one for my sis, who will be eating her dinner considerably later and I am a little fearful of whether the food will keep.

Minnie gets a cute little onigiri with a girl's hair and face.

Minnie's dinner bento

This is for my sister, Mummy to Minnie Mouse. My onigiris started to fall apart when I was rolling them in the furikake, so they look far from awesome d:( In addition to Minnie's food, she gets kimchi and some Korean-style seasoned soy bean sprouts.

Last resort - instant noodles

This only happens once in a blue moon, when I run out of bread, am too tired to cook rice and don't want to give biscuits. Mr RM gets his favourite kind of instant noodles - Korean-style soy bean paste noodles aka jiajiangmyun.

The noodles are topped with boiled shrimps, kimchi and some nori strips. There are cherry tomatoes and grapes in the little box.

Takoyaki happily brought some pork rib lotus root soup, to complement her canteen-bought rice or noodles.

1st Bento of 2013

And so the new year begins. Today is the first day of school for Takoyaki and Roast Meat, who are both in the morning session (for the first time). I will have to bento many more times in the morning before getting them ready for school, and then chauffeuring them to school. Don't wanna think too much ahead, I'll just take one day at a time.

It will be the same food for both as far as possible, which will be really tough to plan since they have such opposite likes and dislikes. For today, I'm thankful that both accept kimchi soup with pork, multigrain rice and apple.

I've decided that I will add a workflow to my posts just to give an idea of how the whole thing got done. For today:
1. Steam rice (leftover) - 10 mins.
2. While rice is being reheated, carve apple and place in bowl of slightly salted water - 5 mins.
3. Place apple into boxes.
4. Boil water to pour into thermal jars. Leave for 5 mins.
5. Place rice in front of fan to cool for about 5 mins.
6. Boil up kimchi soup, pour away hot water in jars, pour soup into jars.
7. Pack rice into boxes, top with seaweed strips and take photo!
8. Close up all boxes and pack into bento bags.
Total time taken = 25 mins including photo taking

Happy New Bento Year!

Back to Simplicity

I shall take a really long break before charabening again. The kids seem tired of all the Halloween themes, but it was nice to rise up to the challenge!

Today's bento for Mr Roast Meat is simply yachaejeon, some lovely organic dark chocolate cookie sandwiches and grapes.

Yachaejeon again

Using leftovers of crabstick, spring onions and shredded cabbage. Roast Meat complained, the first time I gave him yachaejeon, that he was still hungry after eating, so there's more this time d:) The animal forks are sitting on apple bunnies.

Kimchi soup repeat

We were supposed to have this for dinner last night but I remembered at the last minute that I had a meeting in school, so we ordered pizza instead. Takoyaki was sorely disappointed (she'd been looking forward to the soup) so I promised I'd make her some when I came back, for her recess today.

Pork kimchi soup with Korean-style dangmyun (sweet potato glass noodles) and kiwi. Made with the last of my batch of napa cabbage kimchi, which is very sour by now and only for cooking or frying. I used shabu shabu pork slices - fast to cook and yummy, plus that's all the pork I have on hand.

Roast Meat brought a simple not-much-fuss box - just quadrattini, a wedge of cheese and some sliced red bell pepper.

Too many Korean dramas leads to craving for Korean cuisine

I set the alarm for 15min earlier this morning because the requested japchae cannot be made the night before, but the tot woke up as well so I ended up wearing him and bentoing at the same time. Argh. I hate that. I am so thankful that I had the foresight to prepare the fruits box last night, else it would just be a mess.

Takoyaki wanted japchae, so I blanched leftover sweet potato noodles (aka tangmyun), some chicken meat from Ah Ma, added sesame oil, soy sauce and sugar, then added leftover cuke sticks (thinly sliced) and spring onions and tossed them all together. Boiled up last night's lotus root soup and poured it into the Foogoo. Time taken: 25min. If the babe had not been on me, it would have taken me probably 15min, since everything is precooked/precut and only reheating was necessary.

Japchae, lotus root soup, kiwi and longans

More leftovers for Mr Roast Meat - fried rice from leftover rice, leek and crabsticks. Lots of spring onions on top, this guy is the king of spring onions.

Leek and crabstick fried rice, and apple wedges