Bento #65

There are actually going to be a few bentos on this post but I am lazy to number them so I will just consolidate and name them as bento #65. ;)

I made the above bento for girl before she left for school. There were cherry tomatoes, carrots with mayo dip, udon with furikake on the side, and a fishball. No decor except for the leaf picks, and the fork & spoon punchouts on the fishball.

I also prepared this other bento of fruits but decided not to give it to her. I doubt she could consume it after having a piece of bread for her breakfast, followed by the bento above this. I decided to keep it till later when I go down to her school for parent volunteer programme this afternoon. It's a great idea, as I will be able to give her fresh food, as opposed to sending it to school with her and then by the time recess rolls by, it won't be as good. I have placed some mango, dragonfruit & a little container of blueberry yoghurt which grandma bought her.

Today's school snack is chocolate cake so a bento would be good.

This is my girl's other bento which I am taking to school. There's fishball, corn chicken sticks, anpanman potato, cherry tomatoes & ketchup.

I offered to make a bento for a friend whose girl is in the same school, as she requested for one a month ago. And since I have all the ingredients ready, it's just a matter of putting it all together in a box. Hope she enjoys it. :)

I'm very excited to have volunteered for today's 'life skills' programme at school. How else would we get to see the girls in school other than through this channel? I will finally get to meet her form teacher, whom I have not met till this day. But then again, I will be meeting her tomorrow for the parent/teacher meet. :)

I have to go get ready to leave for school now. Ciao!

Note - I left a lot of empty 'holes' in the bento due to former experience of having packed too much & thus girls not having enough time to eat. Experienced for myself what a rush it was to eat and play and go back to class.

Dinner - Spam with baked beans, Corn soup, Spam Omelette, Yong Tau Fu

Yong Tau Fu with crushed salted soya beans.

Ingredients -

Fresh yong tau fu of your choice
Crushed salted soya beans
Garlic (optional)
Sugar )
Dash of sesame oil ) mixed together with some water
White pepper )
Corn starch mixed with some water to dilute
Spring onions for garnish

Method -

1. I usually start off with boiling the ytf and getting rid of excess oil & salt. Remove and set aside.

2. Fry garlic till fragrant. Add ytf followed by mixture of soya beans, sugar, sesame oil & white pepper. Add more water if you want more sauce. Season to taste. Finish off with cornstarch to thicken sauce. Serve & enjoy.

Note - YTF is by itself ready-salted & there is sweetness from the fish paste, so bear in mind when adding seasoning. I did not include exact measurements for the sauce as I leave it to individual taste. Some might like it sweeter, and some prefer more savoury.

Baked beans with Spam is a comfort dish of my childhood. However, I can't consume beans now due to my arthritis, so I do miss it. Made this for hubby. Princess and I just used the sauce to flavour our rice. She does not like beans & mushy food. I find that kids have very exact tastes. They mostly do not like mushy. And they prefer to have crunchiness in their food. Basically, they are simple people who go for simple, uncomplicated food, from what I have observed. For example, she loves young corn which is crunchy, and broccoli has to be cooked just right, not overcooked else she'll not like that. I guess once it's overcooked, there's no texture left, so it doesn't taste very nice to her.

Omelette with Spam for the non-bean eaters. :P

Corn, carrot & onion soup cooked with chicken thigh. This is a very standard soup in most Singapore homes. I love it because it's so easy to prepare & the soup is sweetened with the carrots, onions & corn. No additional seasoning needed except for some salt and some white pepper.

Bento #64

A very simple and quick breakfast bento with two lotus paste baos, cherry tomatoes (oops one gone before picture could be taken), and a mouthful of wanton noodles just for little girl to try. It proved to be too spicy for her. These days, I am lazy to punch out seaweed faces, thus used a very fast and easy method of decorating with edible food colouring pens.

Bento #63

Had some leftover maki from last evening's dinner, so put them in a bento with 2 pieces of chicken sausages, cherry tomatoes, and golden kiwi. In a separate container, there were nuts, gummies, chocolate. Princess was given some of those sugar bunnies chocolate some time ago so decided to clear that from the fridge. She shared them with her friends.

Bento #62

My girl hasn't been eating well in the past week... very fussy with food and not much appetite, so I decided to start making bento... the problem is that the fridge has been pretty empty so had to top it up with her favourite veggies. I made her pasta with meatballs last evening to get her to start eating again. However, she preferred the artificial chicken balls to the fresh beef & pork mince ones I made. Sigh.

After having re-stocked my fridge yesterday, I had fresh broccoli, organic carrots, baby corn, cherry tomatoes. I decided to make this bento for her before she left for school today. The sausage bun is made with the Japanese fish sausage which I wanted to clear out. I have not tasted it before, so when she couldn't finish the entire roll, I took over from her and tried it for the first time. I found it not too much to my liking. It tasted very fishy like consuming fish oil. I much prefer the salmon cheese ones which taste like normal sausages.

I'm glad that she finished everything except half the sausage roll. In her bento were broccoli, sugar bunny-shaped carrot, baby corn, cherry tomatoes, cheese cubes, almonds, cashews & some flower biscuits.

Happy Mother's Day

A very happy Mum's day to all mothers out there! Enjoy your special day!

Bento #61 (Hello Kitty)

Just realized I haven't updated for a while. I decided to make a bento today as the snack in school is 'ham bun' so I thought it might not fill the little one up. I love the little Hello Kitty onigiri wrapper and couldn't wait to use them. I made a little rice ball for consuming before school as she only had some bread for breakfast. The main box is for recess time.

In the bento, there are cherry tomatoes with the vine on, as I think they look pretty that way. There are some marshmallow 'diamond' rings, not properly secured as it was pretty tough trying to screw the pick in, with the marshmallow being soft. I added some anpanman & friends fried potato bites, a flower made from fish sausage, and the odds and ends of that sausage were hidden within the inarizushi. Apologies for the unsightly pink ribbon on Hello Kitty as I had used edible pen marker on the bean pouch and it was really ugly the first time. I flipped it over to do it on the other side and the ink smudged onto the pretty ribbon which I had cut out of kamaboko.

All packed and ready for school.

Here below is my latest toy. I love it. Hubby got it for my birthday, but one glitch is that the battery lasts only approximately 1-1/2hrs, which is a bummer really. Maybe he'll upgrade the battery to a six cell one soon? ;P

I saw a gorgeous Vivienne Tam edition but it wasn't really worth paying the difference. Anyhow, I think mine is beautiful as well. It's got some designs on the cover, not just a plain boring black. I love, most of all, how it fits snugly into my little bag for me to take it wherever I go. :D