Minnie's Dinner - Herby Couscous Meal

Now that school is out, I am glad to still have an occasional chance to bento for my little niece.

Tonight's menu:

Couscous with parsley

Cilantro chicken

Baked halibut with herbs

Blanched broccoli

Cherry tomatoes

I hope she likes the bento!

Minnie's dinner - Three Colour, Rice Bento

Minnie's dinner tonight is a selection of foods from our own family meal this evening. On the menu are: 

1. Chinese-style braised chicken with sesame oil aka 麻油鸡 (ma2 you2 ji1) {brown}

2. Stir fried 奶白 (nai3 bai2)vegetables with dried shrimp {green}

3. Baked halibut fillet with Italian seasoning {white}
over fragrant Jasmine rice drizzled with some chicken gravy and wolfberries 枸杞子.

Baked Fish Rice Bento - And Minnie Too

Baked halibut and blanched choy sum to go with rice and fruits for Roast Meat.

I gave Minnie some tomato bunnies to cuten (is there such a word?) up her box.

Udon Salad Lunch Bento

Lunch for Takoyaki and Roast Meat today was delivered fresh as I had to attend to some PV duties in school. The menu was a last minute decision because I had forgotten about the duty and had originally intended to bring them out for lunch d:)

Takoyaki's Udon Salad Bento

RM's Udon Salad Bento

The weather is so hot! So I prepared cool udon noodles with a clementine-based salad dressing, to be eaten with shiozake (panfried salted salmon), hambaagaa, blanched baby broccoli and carrot flowers, and grapes.

Feedback from the children: I've been asked NOT to make this salad dressing again, sob sob! I should have tasted it first before finalising the sauce. Heehee.

New Bento Receiver - Minnie Mouse

It was with great pleasure that I presented her first bento to my niece, a lively 6-year-old, whom we shall call Minnie Mouse (not to be confused with my youngest child, Mouse). Minnie will be receiving occasional (and hopefully to become more regular) dinner bentos from me on some weekday evenings, as an effort on my part to relieve my parents who are caring for her and her 2-year-old little sister while their parents are away at work.

I had wanted to begin with some spaghetti to get her comfy with the idea of dinner bentos from 二姨 (Jee-Yee or Second Aunt as she calls me), because Minnie Mouse LOVES noodles, but it seems she may not like the pesto which I'd planned, so I gave her rice instead (which was what my family was having for dinner).

Menu:

Salmon-filled onigiris with gomashio (on the ends)

Cold boiled chicken with gomadare (sesame sauce)

Blanched 小白菜 (bokchoy)

Cherry tomatoes

Teriyaki Salmon Don again

Again based on leftovers from dinner, today's bentos feature sockeye salmon and carrot tamagoyaki. This is Takoyaki's box, with more fruits.

RM's box is the same less the kiwifruit.

Recipe for Teriyaki Salmon is here.

End of Mid-Year Exams. Bento! Celebrate!

Yay! Today's their last day of exams, so I made something pretty for them to enjoy at recess. Hopefully it'll take some stress off the paper that is AFTER recess, which is one of the Math papers. We will taking them out for a Japanese buffet lunch to celebrate d:)

The food is simply rice, mixed with salmon flakes and edamame beans, and topped with carrots cut with my new cutters. Same for both kids, except the flowers are different (if you look closely). The sides are quail eggs, cherry tomatoes and pear slices.

Takoyaki's bento

Roast Meat's

Diligent Sunday Night

We had takeout last night so there would be no leftovers. Oh well. I was in the mood to cook. Today's bentos were cooked completely from scratch and packed last night.

Freshly cooked rice with gomashio topping, a cocktail sausage and a piece of panfried batang (mackerel) steak, all in an egg cup, which is just a very thin single egg omelette seasoned with some mirin and salt (my tamagoyaki recipe). Same for both kids.

The box is a little less full than it should be to keep the contents from moving around, but I was afraid they wouldn't have time to finish anymore. I did remind them to keep it horizontal.

So since I cooked my usual portions (enough for our family of five) and had a lot of food leftover, here's a box for myself and the little one for our breakfast this morning. Steamed hot and topped with a huge mound of kimchi d:)

Bento&Co Contest 2013 results

Are out at this page and wow! the bentos of the winners are absolutely splendid (but of course). Better luck next year for me d:)

Bento&Co needs the public to vote for the 20 finalists at this other page, oooh! I am salivating over the prizes they have in store. I've voted.

RM's bento is a simple toasted pocket sandwich with sardine filling.

Cold Somen for Hot Tuesdays

Roast Meat's long day again, so he brought both recess and lunch together this morning.

Recess was popcorn chicken (cold, he likes it), longans and biscuits.

Lunch was somen topped with salmon flakes (learn how to make your own at JustBento), cherry tomatoes and pork dumplings. The dipping sauce was in another container.

And now, back to my Korean drama! d:P

All leftovers again, oh yeah!

So all I had to do was heat up whatever needed reheating eg. rice, salmon, chicken. Convenient, quick, fuss-free. Makes things simpler for when you need to cater to the very different tastes of two children.

RM's comes with sauteed prawns, pan-fried salmon and grapes.

Takoyaki's has salmon, a chicken wing, some kimchi and watermelon.

I should have trained them to eat the same things, or better still, EVERYTHING. Not that I didn't try, though.

Workflow:
Steam rice and toast chicken and salmon (7 min).
Meantime, take out bento boxes, then wash and cut fruits.
Place rice, chook and salmon in front of fan to cool (5 min).
Meantime, have a cup of tea while deciding how to pack everything else in to look its best.
Pack. Remember to provide cutlery (sheesh to self).
Take photos!
Total time taken = 20 min

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.

Teriyaki Salmon Udon Bento

It may seem surprising since I cook Japanese meals so much of the time, but I've never made Teriyaki Salmon before, although the chicken version appears every now and then. I finally decided to try it out today, by using my teriyaki sauce recipe on some lovely, fresh salmon steaks from a whole fish I bought a few days ago.

This was Roast Meat's lunch - panfried salmon teriyaki with udon, cuke sticks and grapes. The udon was tossed in some leftover fish marinade which I boiled and simmered for about 5 mins to boil off the alcohol content. The tot and I had a few leftover udon noodles, and gosh, was it yummy!

Recipe for Salmon Teriyaki

500g salmon steaks

2 tbsp mirin

2 tbsp soy sauce

2 tsp sugar

Combine all ingredients in a medium bowl, cover with clingwrap and refrigerate for at least 1/2 hour to allow the marinade to penetrate the fish. Remove from fridge let sit on counter for at least 10 min before cooking.

Heat a non-stick frying pan over medium-low heat and brush the surface with a little oil.

Place salmon skin side down, cover and cook about 3 min. Flip steaks and continue cooking another minute or two. Remove from heat and let sit for 5 min. 

Meanwhile, bring the rest of the marinade to a boil, reduce to simmer for about 5 min. Pour over fish or toss with udon.

This hodge-podge bento was RM's recess and is here purely for my reference.

Week Two Day One - worse than last week

I am completely zombified. Was up till late last night baking a spinach mushroom quiche for a birthday potluck today, and my Fisher & Paykel fridge has died, so it's a frantic rush to sort out which foods can be kept for a bit and which ones must either be eaten up chopchop or chucked. There'll be a number of seaweed chicken bentos this week d:)

Seaweed chicken, salmon onigiri and clementine.

Workflow:

1. Steam rice plus salmon flakes (about 7 mins).

2. While rice is steaming, toast seaweed chicken (10 mins).

3. Prepare clementine and pack into box.

4. Let rice cool about 5 mins, shape into balls and pack into box.

5. Take seaweed chicken out to cool about 10 min.

6. Pack in chicken and take photo!

Total time taken = 20 mins

The secret lives of fruits and vegetables

Takoyaki wanted to buy food today but agreed to bring a box of fruits (which she shared with her clique). There's a cherry tomato masquerading as a grape which is masquerading as a balloon.

Mr Roast Meat got some fish nuggets, grapes, more masquerading cherry tomatoes, and a Nutella sandwich with a smiling striped cheese bear (I still have about 3 striped cheese slices left).

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!

Almost-picnic lunch

It's Wednesday again, but this time I had to be in school for a Full Dress Rehearsal for the Teacher's Day concert (taking place this Friday). After mulling over my options, I decided to do a combined bento for Takoyaki (who was waiting for me in school) and myself (and the tot).

Wrapped up are ham-cheese-cuke sandwiches for us, plus one little liver pate roll for the almost-2yo. The rest of the bento is made up of fish bites, cherry tomatoes, longans and kiwifruit.

I'm using my Tupperware tiffin cake box. On days like today, I WISH I had a proper picnic bento box in the Japanese style. Sigh...........

Somewhat Nautical

I had to spend the morning in school (Teacher's Day Concert rehearsal) so this box for Roast Meat was prepared last night. The row of boats on the right are simply kaya sandwich cutouts, decorated with leftover chocolate fudge icing from Takoyaki's cakes. The foil packet contains some breaded fish bites I'd previously panfried and just needed reheating. To prevent the different foods from contaminating each other, the clementine wedges (and silicone cup) were wrapped up in clingwrap, while the pistachios (bottom) were wrapped in some printed green tinfoil.

Finally! He gets to bring the Lego box to school again. I am considering letting him bring the Foogoo soon since he's not leaving his bento on the table and running off to play anymore.

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.