Cutouts to end the week

Low on energy. Did the most I could by giving them cute cutouts and carving some of the apple wedges.

More Variety (and Themeless) Bentos

And Term Two is on us! I'm not rested enough! (But who cares?)

Takoyaki has received some kungfu training in the bento martial art of sausage carving. I taught her a few basics and left the whole package of cocktail sausages to her. So on display today are some of her creations, together with some absolutely scrumptious kiwi berries, strawberries and a bottle of yogurt drink.

It's pretty much the same for Roast Meat, except for the fruits.

And tomorrow is another day.

Subway

I was still recuperating after the weekend, so I got some ciabatta loaves from the supermarket (no energy to bake), cut up some veggies and leftover roast chicken and stuffed them in.

Thankfully, both kids like this. It's not obvious but there are three little heart shapes carved into the top crust. I hadn't expected it to be so easy to peel the crust off. Perhaps I should have stuck to my original plan of making Totoro... Nah...

How To Make a Tomato Bunny

So folks, here's the tutorial for the tomato bunnies featured in Takoyaki's bento yesterday.  

WARNING: some gory and bloodshed ahead. Do not proceed if you cannot bear to see a tomato get dissected.

Here are the stuff that you will need.  The paring knife is actually good enough for all steps, but I took the Hapimogu carving knife out since I have it.

Cherry tomato, black sesame seeds, a small sharp knife, tweezers.

First, slice off lengthwise, a side of the cherry tomato. Make sure the piece you cut off is less than half the tomato.

Slice off less than half the tomato

Next, cut out a triangular wedge from the cut off piece. Discard the wedge (or eat it). What's left will form the ears.

Ear piece is done

On the main tomato, with the cut side down on the board, carefully slice at a 45 degree angle halfway into the tomato, towards the stem end. Do not cut all the way through.

Just in front of the cut, right above the stem end, gently poke two slits with the tip of a small sharp knife to form the eye slits.

Ouch! I'm blind

With the tweezers, poke a black sesame seed into each slit.

I was blind but now I see

All that's left to do is to insert the ear piece into the flap and the tomato bunny is done!

 

Tomato bunny complete! (in lots of gore)

You can also try this technique on other fruits. Here's a grape bunny.

Salmon Teriyaki Don this time

Takoyaki didn't get to eat any of the yummy fish yesterday, so she's having her portion (which was kept very safely in the fridge) today for recess.

I learnt a new skill yesterday - how to carve cherry tomato bunnies and I've put the result into the bento as well. Takoyaki thinks they're too cute to eat! Together on the side are noritama and fruits.

RM got some mini chicken pies from the bakery, some Garrett's popcorn, and fruits.

Very Japanese Bento

I woke up in good time this morning to prepare today's bentos, so I really have no idea why I ran out of time and we ended up leaving late for school.

From left to right: jasmine rice with furikake, seaweed chicken, tamagoyaki, cherry tomatoes and fruits. Same thing for both kids.

Workflow (which should have worked out): Total 30 min

1. Set seaweed chicken to toast (15 min).

2. Set rice to steam (10 min).

3. Wash and cut apple (5 min). Wash and peel clementine (1 min).

4. Take tamagoyaki out of fridge and cut into pieces (1 min).

5. Set rice and chicken to cool in front of fan (10 min).

6. Pack all in (5 min).

I think I really bungled up at the packing part. Couldn't decide which boxes to use, so ended up changing from one box to another. Plus the tot woke up (which only took less than 5 min to settle him down again).

The box would look much better without the barans (silicone dividers) but I preferred to keep the crispy chicken apart from the moist rice and tamagoyaki.

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!

Bunnies and carrots

Takoyaki went to the zoo today with her class, and they were going to split into groups for a picnic, so her contribution was to be fruits. So she brought grapes, six bunnies and six carrots, one for each bunny.

Mr Roast Meat will also be having a bunny and carrot, fried multigrains with prawns and Taiwanese sausage, and some cuke sticks.

And here's one more lunch bento for Takoyaki when she gets home (so I can take a nap with the little one), made of the same fried multigrains, Japanese-style pickles and rose apple.

Can you... Count?

So here is the supposed crowning glory of my Halloween journey, but alas, I don't think it quite comes through.

The food for both bentos are essentially the same - Nutella sandwich under the ham slice, ham-and-cheese rolls, golden pear slices and treats.

Takoyaki's Sesame Street Count bento

Roast Meat's Sesame Street Count bento

Mr RM couldn't recognise it so I had to tell him, imagine if the Count was standing in front of a wall that is exactly the same colour as his skin. Then he would blend into the background yes? I think he understood after that.

Frankenstein

My heart was itching to make a Frankie, so despite earlier protests, Frankie it is. Mr Roast Meat was actually ok with it, after he saw the finished product.

Frankie is slightly abstract on a cheese spread sandwich, the top slice of which is spread with kaya (coconut jam) to achieve the slightly green effect. The bat's on cheese with sesame seed eyes, and in the top tier is a very failed scallion and leek tamagoyaki (the pan is starting to stick very badly!) which I just chopped up and dumped in the silicone cup.

The hair, nose, mouth and scar of Frankenstein are all cut by hand, while the eyes are just little round pieces of cheese with a black sesame seed each. The nori bat is also cut freehand based on my memory of some of my friends' bats, placed on a sliced of cheese, left to soften a little, then I carved around the seaweed with my knife. The eyes are white sesame seeds, and I also gave Frankie a drop of sweat by sticking on one white sesame seed in his hair.

Bats

If it's not obvious already, I'm trying to do Halloween themes all the way till it's over. I must be batty, haha!

I put in some extra effort into this bento for Takoyaki, because I was supposed to give her one yesterday, but was so exhausted the night before that I fell asleep with the tot and didn't get up! So here's her bat-on-ham-on-cheese-moon, over a Nutella sandwich, together with some bloody fingers and fruits. I had a swift thought of putting eyes on the grapes but it vanished in the wink of an eye (haha! again).

I hope her friends don't get too shocked d:)

Since I had all these tools out anyway, I made the same cutouts for Mr Roast Meat at the same time, except that I marked out the eye slits with cheese (eeeeeevilllll). Over rice with homemade salmon flakes, and matched with a Halloween pumpkin (it's actually half a clementine, thank you to inspiration from my dear friends on the Facebook EZ Bentos group, and I think the Ah Ma of the idea is Ming of BentoMonsters). To fill up the box and add some fibre, I threw in some cuke sticks and capsicum slices. 

 

Tomorrow is a public holiday in Singapore (Hari Raya Haji), so no school and no bentos. Need to brainstorm for next week's Halloween themes!

Have a grrrrrreat weekend, everyone!

Eek! A Spider! Or a Crab?

I had meant this to look like a spider! Why does the end result look more like a crab??

Luncheon meat-and-leek multigrain rice stirfry (what a mouthful), which Mr Roast Meat also had for brunch this morning (time-saving tip). Together with cocktail sausages and grapes.

Buses

Yup. That's it.

Say cheese, Angry Bird!

I finally got up the motivation to try and make an Angry Bird lookalike. It's actually a BabyBel cheese (the one with the red wax), with part of the red wax removed thanks to my handy little carving knife. The eyebrows are pieces of nori, and the pupils are black peppercorns (because I don't have any black sesame seeds). The beak is a kernel of corn.

The peppercorns had rolled off by recess time, as Mr Roast Meat reported after school. No problem, since I showed him the thing before he went off to school this morning. The rest of the bento is made up of 2 kaya aeroplane buns (not very well done, alas), and some wedges of clementine.

Last bento for this term, it's the school hols!

Back to work

Takoyaki has a long day so she brought recess and will be buying food for lunch. Just some seaweed crackers, pork floss rolls (fall back protein when there's nothing else she likes) and half an apple. I think my Hapimogu carving knife is getting a little blunt.

Roast Meat's recess will be some fried rice and apple.  He LOVES his luncheon meat fried rice.

Happy appy

Sandwich bread is so versatile. You can make moulded buns out of it, sandwiches, mini sandwiches, bread rolls, bread cups (although I have yet to try this), breadsticks... So this week the main carb will be bread.

Roast Meat used to like apples, now he finds them time-consuming (seriously!). But I have to use up the apples, so in it goes. I did give him a "discount" - just a quarter rather than half an apple.

Nutella and cheese spread rolls, fish bites and halloween apple

Heartwarming

Lotsa love today for Takoyaki who insisted on bringing a bento. "You didn't give me a bento yesterday Mom!" This from the girl who didn't want anymore than 2 bentos a week when she first started. Oh, so heartwarming d:)

Cream cheese heart shaped buns, pork jerky, fruits and PB M&Ms

Mr Roast Meat's got quite a big portion today. Not originally intended; I just kept adding stuff till I realised it was time to stop d:P

Cheese spread mini-sandwiches, fish bites, cherry toms, cuke shurikens and PB M&Ms

The Tutorial for making cute moulded buns using egg moulds is here.

Lots of food and less food

Takoyaki has a long day today (supp class after which she'll be helping me out at preparations for our school carnival), so I dragged myself off the sofa last night to prepare this. Only the chicken was toasted this morning.

I was amazed that the largest box can hold TWO nori-wrapped onigiris. Ok, but they mustn't be too fat. The littlest Matryoshka is missing, because I don't have anything else to give her (and I don't think she'd be able to finish anymore during her short 30min lunchtime). Aw... they're so sweet!

Two floss onigiris, beancurd chicken, cucumber shurikens and jambu

Roast Meat will also be having an onigiri, but I can't trust him to unwrap the onigiri wrapper properly and slip on the nori without dropping everything onto the floor, so his has the nori on. Soggy by recess time, too bad. The feller was ecstatic to see "so few things to eat". Means he can go run at the multipurpose court after eating. Gah.

Floss onigiri, pork jerky and cucumber shurikens

Mad rush Wednesday

It's Wednesday, and since the ingredients are all so handy, Takoyaki and Roast Meat will be having more or less the same food. This is Mr Roast Meat's.

Tater puffs, assorted tamagoyaki and apple wedges

And Takoyaki's lunch in school (not hot this time, or the tater puffs will get soggy).

She's just got one more thing - kiwifruit

Rising to the challenge

At 5.45am, after having her breakfast, Takoyaki came and informed me that she has netball practice today, which means she needs a box. So within 15min I had to come up with something. You must be kidding girl?!

Purple wheat noodles with homemade salmon flakes, nori strips and sesame seeds. Mandarin orange for fruit factor

Mr Roast Meat was luckier, because I had accidentally made a nice batch of pitas the day before (long story). I tried out a new arrangement. It was fun, but I think I'll stick with my usual style after this.

Pita wedges with miso dip, sausage octopi and crabs, and grapes

How come there's no response from Bento&Co regarding my entry??