Bento4Japan

An onigiri bento to encourage the people of Japan during this very difficult time. May they know that there are many people in the world who care and are with them in thoughts and prayers. I know that I am a bit delayed in sharing this bento but it's never too late to donate. To find out how, check out this link. Bento4Japan

In the bento is a whole plum cut in half, 2 onigiri, Oreo star biscuits, Japanese nuts and 2 friends made from picnic ham joined in love. That is the message that I would like to send to our friends in Japan. Never give up hope. God bless.

Ballerina bento

Today is the last day of school. Hurray!! Right after school is piano make-up class (due teacher got dates mixed up and didn't turn up on Wednesday). While waiting to be done with class, I decided to update with today's lunch bento post. I made her a ballerina complete with hair tied up in a bun. I love the cute fringe which reminds me of my princess. The girl is made of rice with furikake in the middle. There are two cherry tomatoes, a strawberry, half a goreng pisang (banana fritter), a piece of Sea Shanty and some edamame. The word 'BALLET' is spelled out with alphabet pasta.

I couldn't take a better (sharper) picture as she was hungry when she got home and was rushing me to let her have her lunch.

Enjoy the holiday kids!

A birthday gift

I made these two bentos for a friend's kids. It was meant to be a birthday gift for her girl, but I didn't get to meet her till a week after the day. I'm glad the kids were thrilled with them.

For CJ, I coloured her rice a shade of pink. The seaweed stood out against the light background and you can actually see it looked like an elephant. There were cherry tomatoes, a piece of seaweed chicken, baby corn, and some edamame on a pick resting on a bed of lettuce.

In the bottom compartment, there is broccoli, a fierce-looking Doraemon fishcake, and a lobster fishball. To finish off the meal, there was a packet of chocolate, a gummy worm, and some sweets.

JD had the same things except that his rice was coloured a greenish shade (I was going for a grey look but did not have the appropriate seasoning). JD's little elephant didn't stand out that well.

These were made in February but I had forgotten all about them till I was transferring photos out this morning. Stay tuned for another bento post coming right up.

Happy Valentine's Day

I made bento dinner for us all. The first bento is for the girl. As my fridge wasn't well-stocked and I had limited time to prepare, this was the best I could come up with.

In her bento, there is heart-shaped rice with minced meat filling which I had prepared earlier in the day, 2 pieces of ngoh hiang, cherry tomatoes, tulip-shaped strawberries, a small tangerine, hamburger biscuits, broccoli, tofu fishcakes, and edamame, as well as a packet of apple juice.

Hubby's portion has a can of beer instead of juice.

This is my portion with exactly the same things, minus a drink.

This is what the bento box looks like, a CNY gift from a friend.

A lovely gift from hubby... my new Canon Ixus 130 camera and a rose each for the girl and me.

Pokemon bento

This bento was made on the day we got back from our holiday. I had bought some pokemon-shaped seaweed and have placed pikachu on the onigiri. There was a fish sausage which was supposed to be an octopus but the girl was very hungry and pestering for her lunch, so I couldn't give it eyes and a mouth. There was blueberry and corn bits and a chewing gum wrapped in pikachu paper. In the bowl is seaweed soup with pikachu sprinkles which cannot be seen.

Mickey Bento

Just taking a break from updating blog re: Japan trip, to bring you this bento I just made for snack this morning. In my newly-acquired Minnie bento box, I lined it with Mickey aluminium foil, pity it's all covered up. There are pieces of palm-shaped dragonfruit, strawberry with chocolate filled daifuku and a piece of strawberry banana cake with a cute imprint of a tiny strawberry on it.

My first Pokemon bento

This is my first character bento in a long time. It's all due to the food colouring I got hold of a few weeks' ago, but have been too lazy to do anything with them.

Thinking I should make use of them soon, I chose to go with the red seasoning and created a Pokeball. I got the girl to draft out for me what it looked like, what colours I needed etc, and she did a great job.

The bird on the bottom right was for the hardboiled egg which I added at the last minute due to her request for one. I'm pleased that she has started eating hardboiled eggs, even though it's her first time today. In the Old Chang Kee curry puff which she had in the afternoon, there was a piece of egg and she said it was nice, and that she liked it. After confirming with her that it was an hardboiled egg that she liked, I decided to add it to this bento, not that a chick had anything to do with Pokemon, or does it? Who knows?! I don't even know the characters.

As I've not made bento for a long time, I couldn't find my tools at the last minute, especially my punchers thus the chick's eyes are super tiny. They look really weird on a big body. ;P

In the bento was a rice ball, a skewer of chicken balls and crabsticks, cherry tomatoes, a tempura prawn, blueberries and some lettuce.

Bento for the family

I finally made dinner bento for us all. Bought 3 bento sets around the Chinese New Year period. I didn't pick them up personally, but according to friend, they were quite cheap so I got her to get them for me. They seemed too big at first, but after using them this evening, they aren't too bad. I just wish there weren't so many gaps in-between. Anyhow, I thought it'd be fun, for a change, to serve dinner this way. The girl was excited and ate everything except the baked teriyaki wings. There is a serving of black pepper salmon, xiao bai chye with crabsticks, some maki, green kiwi for her and a slice of orange each for hubby and me. I sprinkled some seaweed pork floss on our rice , whilst hers had some beef furikake, a mini pack of Milo and to round off, we all had a Ferrero Rocher each.

Hello Kitty moonie bento

I made two simple bentos for the girls this morning. Nothing that needed any cooking. Just the pandan cake I baked 2 days ago, mooncakes which I bought yesterday and sliced apples. My girl's bento had cherry tomatoes, and J's one had some biscuits to fill the gaps. I'm not sure if J eats mooncakes, but they were too cute to resist even though they don't look like the real kitty. :)

Super simple bento

I prepared this bento for school last week. It's rather sparse as the shortbread cookie was very fragile. If you look closely, you can see that the neck of the snail is broken. I couldn't possibly put anything under it as I was out of bread that morning. I love the cutie peas in a pod baran as well as the peapod food pick. In the bento were also blueberries, tamago sushi and homemade orange cake.

Some new toys

I'm a lucky gal. Dear friend, M, got me these on her recent trip overseas. These are a few things I've been eyeing for quite a while now, and the bonus was this Care Bear bento box. I love it, and so does she. It was tough trying to decide which colour to go for, but in the end, pink won!

Last Tuesday was a day off school to make up for the National Day holiday. We made plans with a friend from ballet to go for a movie and a playdate. As we had to leave home early that morning for my regular check up appointment at the hospital before going to meet her friend, I packed her a simple breakfast bento. I knew there was no way for us to have lunch before the movie began at 12pm.

In the bento was a lotus paste bao, blueberries, a Piglet biscuit, a slice of homemade lemon cake, a piece of Laughing Cow cheese and some pieces of bak kwa.

Squirrel bento

Princess came home with 2 slices of chocolate bread from her playdate yesterday. They were so pretty I had to do something with them. I recently got hold of a set of cookie cutters and have been wanting to use the squirrel one. I think it is perfect. So pretty, although it kinda looks more like a skunk now haha. The bit on the nose was there by chance. Didn't realize I had cut off a bit of the chocolate part of the bread thus it worked really nicely for the nose. I punched the nose and mouth out of nori and just placed them on. Dragonfruit was cut for yesterday's bento so putting this all together was easy peasy. A piece of Sirotan cake fits nicely into the little section on the top right. I also included an apple in case the bento is not enough for her.

Have a happy weekend!

3 bears bento

We planned a playdate after school yesterday with a kindy friend of Princess', since she didn't have to stay back for extra class. I offered to make bentos for the kids and though exhausting, having spent 2hrs on preparation, I'm glad I managed to complete them on time. It is my first time making these bears. I had a tough time at first, coming up with a theme. Planned to make a boy bento and two girly ones, but in the end, decided that bear was the best for all. It made things easier for me seeing that these two mums made them recently, so I chose to use theirs as guides. Angeleyes made a teddy while Lia Chen made doggies, but they are generally the same shape. Thanks to them, it made my job all the more easier.

The 3 bentos contained mostly the same things except Princess' one had some fried breakfast noodles to cover up the gap, and T's one did not have mangoes as the box was too full. There is a cocktail bear each in the boxes as well as dragonfruit, carrots, cherry tomatoes, chicken and some sweeties.


We had a fun time at their house and the kids couldn't bear to part with each other. It's been a long time since they'd played together. We used to go over to their place for playdates but since going to primary school, this is the first time it has happened. We also hope to plan a sleepover but that will need proper planning, and having to find a time most suitable to both parties. Look forward to more playdates in the future. Thanks J!

My breakfast bento

I haven't been feeling all that well the past couple of days. A bad ear infection was keeping me awake most nights and the pain was so intense in the left ear that I could only sleep on one side. I don't usually like to visit the doctor but am glad that I made the trip to the clinic this time, even though I had to stand outside waiting an hour to see him. I never like to sit in the clinic knowing there are all kinds of germs in there. The anti-biotics helped a lot in clearing the infection out, but even though most of the pain and swelling is gone, there is still discharge so hopefully it will dry up soon.

There was a breakfast date yesterday with 2 mums, which was cancelled at the last minute due to an impending storm, thus I ended up having breakfast at home. Of course, the storm didn't really happen in the end but we were treated to light showers instead, despite the sky being a scary black, with lightning blazing across the sky at 6am while I was up and getting ready for school.

I decided to prepare a bento for myself with chee cheong fun that I had bought the day before. While that was steaming in the wok, I made a sealed floss sandwich, packed some biscuits in, and made a cocktail bear and used a cherry tomato to fill up the gaps. The Pooh bear biscuit was bought at school fiesta while the star-shaped shortbread was a gift baked by a friend. If I am not wrong, this is only the 2nd or 3rd bento I have ever made for self. Was very pleased with the end result even though it was simple. :)

Rilakkuma wanna-be

To be very honest with you, I didn't do my homework before setting out to attempt this Rilakkuma bento. Everything else worked out fine except for the nose and mouth bit. I should have taken out the oval cutter I needed before starting work on it but as I did not and later could not locate one, I ended up with a weird-shaped piece of cheese instead of Rilakkuma's oval mouthpiece. Oh well, lesson learnt.

In the bento are a pair of mid-joint chicken wings (I had cut them in half so it's easier to eat); two-tone rice, the pinkish part was mixed with some tomato sauce to achieve the desired colour; some cherry tomatoes; apple donut with carrot in the middle; dragonfruit; and two small onigiri with spam cutouts of rabbit and car; and Rila's face is made from Japanese fishcake.

Brownie Bear on a picnic

A good friend from out of town gave me a packet of instant brownie mix when she was here recently, after 10 years of being away. I am so glad that she visited as she had been a very dear friend and I missed spending time with her. We even got to meet her 6-yr-old boy for the very first time. :)

I have not baked in ages and just couldn't get the engine going. But I had to start somewhere, and what better to bake than instant something. I have another 3 packets of mixes but this one was calling out to me, and I've also been wanting to make use of these bear silicon cups, no they are not new, just thought they'd be perfect for the brownies. I made two of those, one for Princess and the other for her bff, the one I've been making bentos for lately. It's finally Friday and I can take a break from bento-making, yippee! While I was at it, I even made cheese cutout biscuits. What a fulfilling day it was. :D

The main character in the bento was the bear so all I needed was to place everything around it. Princess' box had a lot more food items compared to J's. There was golden kiwi, blueberry, baby corn sticks and cherries. They both had apples, chicken nugget, homebaked cheese biscuits, a snail made from mantou for the body and half a cocktail sausage for its head, a Daim chocolate and a small container of tiny sweets below the bear's head.

Mini Onigiri bento

The idea behind this bento started here. While Angeleyes made little apricots and cut her bread using her round cutter, I didn't bother with mine. All I did was to cut the skins away. I did a trial run last evening for the princess and discovered that they turned out to be more triangular in shape than round. I guess for a round shape, I really have to use the cutter.

These are pretty cute and they are the perfect shape for onigiri. Don't be fooled by the size of them as they are equivalent to 2 slices of bread even though they are tiny. Princess' onigiri breads are filled separately with nutella and peanut butter (she doesn't like the floss) while J's ones had nutella and seaweed floss (she doesn't like peanut butter). Haha. These little breads took almost 20mins to prepare. From cutting the skin, to spreading them with filling, to forming them and decorating with seaweed. They took up the bulk of my preparation time but thankfully everything else was easy to put together. They were worth the effort as they turned out super kawaii.

I have included meatballs, seaweed chicken, fruits, hamburger biscuits and some little seaweed star puffs (which are kept in the little container). I hope the girls like their bento today. :)

Princess has a chat session with her form teacher at recess today so hopefully she gets enough time to eat. That was her reason for requesting a bento for today. I must be in a bento making phase and it's all thanks to J's mum who has inspired me. Let's see how long this will last, me waking up at 5.30!

The wheels on the bus go round and round...

A hastily thought up bento made with mashed banana and chocolate rice sealed sammie, kueh lapis acting as the windows of the school bus, hamburger biscuits for the wheels and an assortment of fruits.

My initial plan was to make a simple, non-decorative bento and just dump everything in the box, all boring. But just as I lay the sammie down to rest and placed the 3 pieces of lapis on top, a sudden thought of a bus came to mind.

Placing the fruits was easy enough, but had to rack my brains on what to use as the wheels. Saw some hamburger biscuits nearby and decided to make use of them. I did think of making cheese animals but as it was already 6.05am, I didn't have time on my hands. Looking through my latest sets of picks, I found these animals which worked out perfectly as the bus driver and passengers on my school bus. Decided to spell out the word bus using smoked cheese.

As today is Racial Harmony Day in Singapore, I had planned to make a bento in that theme, but didn't plan it well enough. However, I think it worked out pretty well with the animals. They are showing racial (species) harmony by living together... a panda, rabbit, lion and elephant? It doesn't happen in the real world, but we could always make believe.

This is how I filled my sammie. My initial plan was to spread nutella over the slices and add mashed banana, but had totally forgotten that I had run out of that. Thankfully, thinking on the spot, I remembered I could use some chocolate rice, and it worked out fine. Still a chocolate banana combi at the end of the day. The scents were so yummy it made my tummy rumble.

Happy Racial Harmony Day! Remember to wear your orange ribbon for the month of July. :)

Bento for the girls

I have to admit it's been a pretty long time since I woke up to make bentos early in the morning. When the alarm went off at 5.30am today, I pressed the snooze button once (buying myself an additional 9mins of sleep), and that was the most number of snoozes I allowed myself. Any more, and I'd be in trouble. I was responsible for 2 girls' meals today and no way was I going to fall back to sleep. J's mum had so kindly offered to make my girl a bento yesterday and knowing that she is tired from waking up early in the past weeks preparing bentos for her girl, I offered to prepare 2 bentos for her girl this week. With eyes half-closed, I made my way in the dark to the kitchen and turned on the toilet light so some light would come through while I went about assembling the ready items in the bento, such as the yummy chocolate croissants and sushi.

When my eyes got accustomed to the light and I had awaken a little more, I put a pot of water to boil while I cut the legs of the octopus on the cocktail sausages. Ever since friend pointed out that I should not give the girl too much sausages, I have cut down a lot on that. :) However, just last week, Princess asked for octopus sausages, so I decided to give them one each here. I stored both in Princess' box as the box for her bff is pretty small. They contain mostly the same stuff except J gets more apple while my girl gets a combination of cherries, blueberries, strawberries and apples. They have a piece of Laughing Cow cheese each and to finish their meal on a sweet note, there are 2 milk bottle gummies each, as well as Hello Kitty chocolate balls, not forgetting a mini pack of Milo.

I hope they both enjoy their bento, and look forward to doing them another each on Thursday. :)

A quick and simple breakfast

This bento took me a few minutes to put together. Even so, it wasn't quick enough for a very hungry girl one morning. While preparing it, I had to give her a small bowl of cereal as she waited, impatiently. I love the effect of the jam peeking through the heart. I've seen it for years on blogs, but just never did it. Such a design is most likely inspired by jam-filled cookies. Using my egg cutter with the cracked shell imprint, I drew Hershey's sauce on it, picking the idea up from a friend. I really admire her for drawing on the details of Anpanman and his friends at 5plus in the morning. I had trouble enough doing these few zigzags. ;) Egg-shaped sandwich has nutella in it. There was also flower ham and custard cake and some mini hamburger biscuits. They could almost pass off as macarons. Rounded it off with a glass of milk.