MTM for goddaughter

My dearest goddaughter has been asking for curry udon so I made a date with her to come over last Tuesday since it was a day off school. I made them curry udon, chicken karaage, strawberries which I drizzled with chocolate sauce and yoghurt. Princess had soya milk instead of water, and that was the only difference.

Happy Teachers' Day!

I mentioned before, that I was going to make Teachers' Day bentos and the day has finally dawned. I was very excited and along the way, stocked up on some bentos from Daiso, carrier bags and chopsticks. I really had no idea at all till the last minute, on what I wanted to do. But I planned to make it as colourful as I could. My idea of 'traffic lights' cherry tomatoes & kyuri stick came from HK Choo and then there were the flower-shaped sausages from Jap bento blogs. I steamed some corn and topped with flower carrots, baked some chicken karaage, cut up some strawberries, added a few grapes, small piece of brownie & wrapped up a ball of rice for each teacher.

A lot of the preparation was made the night before, as princess was in the morning session on the eve of Teachers' Day. I too had volunteered to help out at school while the teachers had the day off. Thus, there really was very little time to do anything in the morning. Rice was the first thing I cooked, followed by boiling the corn, sausages etc. In fact, was really proud that I got everything ready by 6.45am except for the rice. So I decided to bring both bentos along with me, rather than sending them with the girl.

Her form teacher was thrilled when I passed her the bento. She thought that the cookies princess gave her earlier in the morning was her only gift. I had instructed her not to inform the teachers so that it would be a real surprise. Her form teacher came over to thank me after the concert. Said she was proudly showing off to the rest of the P1 teachers haha, and yes, she shyly admitted that she did take photos of it. Hehe. Well, I'm glad she loved it. :)

I made another bento for a teacher not from her current school as we were meeting her for breakfast on Teachers' Day itself. Thankfully it was only the one bento as it was a real rush in the morning to leave the house.

There is a ham & cheese sandwich, flower ham, a flower sausage, octopus sausage, cherry tomatoes, strawberries, grapes, brownie, marshmallows and a stick of Merci chocolate.

I love this little cute octopus. :)

More bento updates

This is the first time I'm trying to do a checkered apple. I think it is very pretty but you need lots of patience. This is a simple bento of prata, steamed cake, flower ham, cherry tomatoes and apples.

This bento was indeed a heartbreaker. I got both ideas for the heart-shaped sealed sandwich and the Hello Kitty in a suit from shopping mum, and I put in lots of effort to get it right. It was perfect at first, but while I was moving the fruits around, I accidentally destroyed my HK. How sad I was after all the intricate work put in. Sob sob. But at least she got to see it before it got destroyed.

I have been eyeing for one of these bento trays since I spied them in a Korean shop. However, I didn't like the design on the Korean one. I did come across a Thomas one and was hoping very much that they produced it in Sanrio characters. And I found it! So very happy. This is my new 'muffin tin' tray. Hehe. In this tray there is meatball spaghetti from the hawker centre and apple-flavoured Yakult.

MTM - Muffin Tin Meal

Following in the footsteps of my fellow bloggers, Peony & HK Choo, I decided to make a muffin tin meal for princess one evening. Her dad and I were having curry chicken for dinner so I had to find alternative food for her. Apparently it's the latest trend to serve kids their meals in one of these tins. It has the same philosophy as a bento, and makes meals fun for little kiddos, enticing them to eat up. I am hoping to get my hands on a silicon one. A friend likened it to meals served in the Army. And it fact it does remind me so, of those mess tins used for their meals. I think it's kind of cute, but not something I will do very often, or so I hope. ;)

In this tin, there is Yakult with jelly by the side, fishball miso soup, tamago and cherry tomatoes, organic golden kiwi, plain rice with Cinnamoroll seaweed and chicken bak kwa. She finished everything except some tamago and tomatoes.

It's the first time that I made checkered apple. I found it a little bit tedious although it's beautiful. I tried the rest of the apple to make a rabbit but it didn't turn out well so here I have something which looks like a mouse. She also had prata, flower ham, cherry tomatoes and a steamed cake which I learned from Little Corner of Mine. My version didn't turn out so well but the little girl said it was nice. I felt it tasted too eggy, because during the mixing process, I had no energy to beat the egg into fluffy thickness. I think that was what went wrong. Will try it again another day.

Muffin tin meal in a bento?

I love this bento box of mine with 4 little dividers. I usually use it without the compartments but with muffin tin meals being the rage now in the blogosphere, I thought I could incorporate it into my bento. I did a colour co-ordinated set today with yellow being the colour of choice. I think the bento is enlivened with the colourful paper cups, rather than just using the compartments alone, don't you think? I boiled some young corn and cut them into smaller bite-size pieces and put Mama Duck in charge of them. I made cutout strawberry cream cheese sandwiches and got princess to eat two of them up as they couldn't fit into the compartment. :P There are strawberries watched over by Papa Duck, and a little pastry that grandma bought her. I'm not really sure what it is, but there seems to be a little cheese in the middle.

This is what my muffin tin bento meal looks like closed over. I think it's lovely. :)

Soccer bento

This bento came about with the help of the little boy pancake which grandma gave. I got hubby to pick up the lian rong bao from the bao shop near my place and seeing the boy and the white bao gave me the idea of doing a football. The fillers include strawberries, raisins and pretzel fish.

Lately, I've found that she leaves some food behind, whereas before, she would clean out her entire bento. She says she doesn't have time to finish her food. I'm wondering if it's because these days she is in a hurry to go play with her friends. Since she started bringing a trolley bag to school, she has been putting her bento inside it, and I've told her that it messes up my 'work of art' ;P. Her answer was, 'Please don't make anymore nice bentos, just simple ones'. Gosh! Ok, I will try.

Last evening's dinner came about from thinking on the spot. My initial plan was to cook curry chicken with the half chicken that I had. However, at the last minute, I found myself attending the funeral mass of a dear old friend's mum, whom I've known since I was 7. Me and my friend lived in the same neighbourhood growing up. She was in the block beside mine, and we went to the same school and were even classmates. She as well as another friend of ours, M, are the oldest friends I have. We used to go to each others' house to play after school. I remember my growing up years as having lots of time for play, unlike kids these days, it's homework, homework, homework, and computer. We played imaginative games, and our favourite in those days was 'The Famous Five'. We will each 'be' a character from the books and my sis or one of the younger ones would end up as the dog. It was fun breathing life into the books we loved so much. I loved reading a lot, and my dad would take me and sis every weekend to MPH in Stamford Road, and we would be allowed a couple of books each. I 'ran' a little library in my home and loaned books out to friends complete with library cards, date borrowed and date returned. Those were very fun days.

It was indeed a very beautiful funeral mass and everything from the hall, to the church, to the music, to the singing, was perfect. Hubby attended the wake with me the night before, and I was impressed with how lovely and serene the church was. I told him that when I pass on, this is what I want my funeral to be like. I'm very glad that SS & I managed to be there for our old friend. She was very composed throughout, even while her sis was falling apart. I pray for God to give them strength during this difficult time. May you rest in peace, Auntie Jenny, as you prepare to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. And I will remember you always.

Coming home from mass, I knew I didn't have the time to prepare curry so I decided to quickly season the chicken with teriyaki marinade, butter some garlic toasts, and dumped some veg in to be roasted. It turned out to be a lovely dinner, hub's kind of dinner. The pasta is extra from what I cooked for the princess, so it went on his plate.

Ice-lollies & bentos

Primary 1 - 5 kids were given the day off on Thursday and yesterday due to the Primary 6 kids having their oral exam. Since I had my regular once every 3 months' doctor's appointment, I left princess with grandma as I do not like bringing her to the hospital. There are all sorts of germs and bacteria there so it's better to be safe than sorry. It's an arrangement I've made with mum since the girl was very little. I don't have help at home, so I dump leave her with grandma every time I have an appointment. However, these days, I tend to arrange for it to be after the girl leaves for school. But once in a while, something unexpected comes up, like this holiday which I had no idea of.

We met mum for lunch at Ion, at the B4 foodhall. All the scrumptious Japanese food were calling my name. I saw the takoyaki counter and remembered reading about it in a write-up a few weeks' back, and made a mental note to go back for it. There wasn't a queue at all. However, my mission was to go in search of the wassant which my girl loves. I found the bakery and was told to go back in 10mins. Meanwhile, I went back to the takoyaki counter and guess what???? A queue had formed of say 8 people?! Argh, why didn't I just buy it the first time?? *bangs head* So when my turn came, they had sold out the first batch and I spent 15mins standing in line! Thus, I missed my wassants. When I finally got hold of the tako balls, I went back to get the wassants but guess what?? The batch had sold out! Huh?! It goes that fast???? Apparently it's true. Each time a batch comes out, they just fly off the shelves. The first lot I got was 10. After lunch. I only had 8 left as princess had 2 on the spot. It is THAT addictive! I thought to myself that I ought to get more else there'd be none left by the time we got home. Hahaha. And while I was at it, I decided to buy more, some for my doc, so all in yesterday alone, I bought 25 wassants! Goodness! I saw a lady who balanced at least 40 on her tray. Haha. Just from that little bun alone, the cash register wouldn't stop ringing!

I left them after lunch and the 2 of them wandered around Ion, window-shopping before making their way to The Esplanade where mum had some work to do. She very kindly bought princess the little star silicon ice-tray, and later in the evening, a lovely cosmetic case which princess was eyeing and thinking about the entire afternoon. She was very good though. Grandma offered to buy her both items but she declined at first. She chose the ice-tray. But by the end of the evening, after I met up with them, she decided she wanted the case after all, so she can use it as a pencil case. Reason being 2 of her classmates had the same ones!

We made Ribena ice-lollies this afternoon and she enjoyed them very much. I'm not sure if sis remembers, but when we were young, I used to love to make Milo ice-lollies in ice-trays. I am actually very keen on picking up pushpop-type ice-lolly moulds which KY got. Can't wait to get them. :) For now, we're happy with this star straw one. Love the glitter on the straws.

Poor hubby had to work till 2am today and only had his dinner at that time. On his way home, he stopped by Mac's and he was telling me how crowded it was at that time! Singaporeans sure eat at all times, don't they? As long as an eatery is open 24hrs, you'll be sure to attract a crowd.

Since he only had to go to work at 5.30pm today, I decided to make him a bento so he won't have to starve. In his bento, there is fried rice, samosas, Ikea meatballs, siew mai and tamago. I also gave him a fruit bento of strawberries and plum.

While I was preparing hubby's bento, princess came into the kitchen and asked if I was doing a bento for her. I said no, and that I was doing it for daddy. She said she wanted 1 as well. Thankfully I had baked extra meatballs and steamed extra siew mais. Haha.

We ended up going to a Japanese restaurant for Aunt's birthday dinner, after visiting my grandma. I gave her the choice to eat from the restaurant and told her she just had to eat the stuff in her bento minus the rice. However, she insisted she wanted her bento. So phew, didn't waste my food. :P And she even ate the rice, since she loves sprinkling it with furikake.