Edamame Rice Bentos

I burned the mid-night oil again on Monday night, 28th March as I had mentioned before in my previous post. So whenever I need to stay up, I'll start 'stalking' my favourite bento blogs and search for ideas, designs to make in the morning. Actually I already had in mind that I'm gonna use one of the packets of colored vegetable seasonings (Dekofuri 3 colors) for sushi rice and make onigiri bento but had no idea what I'm going to make. After 'stalking' for awhile, I came across "How to Make Edamame Rice" on Bentolicious blog and changed my mind. Natural food colorings are alot better than artificial ones.  

Messy's Edamame rice Bento. She requested some apple wedges because it is part of their school rules for every students to bring fruits and only plain water on every last week of the month for their Green Day to promote healthy eating habits due to a high raise of obesity in young children nowadays. The green colored rice is the leaves of the Sweetcorn and the scrambled eggs (Tamagoyaki recipe) on top of the plain rice are the corn kernels.

Cheeky's Edamame Rice Bento. I molded these two bear Onigiris with cling wrapper. I stuffed some scrambled eggs inside the bigger bear so that it won't taste so plain and used spaghetti to stick two quail eggs for the ears.

Both of them LOVE the taste of the Edamame Rice！Messy finished up everything except the cherry tomato. She don't like because they are not sweet (I can't seems to find those sweet & juicy ones anymore) and knows that I only use to decorate... Hee...
Cheeky ate the remaining 1/3 small bowl of the Edamame Rice for her breakfast in the morning but came back home with her bento ALMOST untouched (apple and quail eggs gone) because one of her classmate celebrated her Birthday in school today and they have got cake to eat that she said she 'forgotten' about her bento. Anyway she did finished the green bear in the car after we had dinner out with my parents. Too bad the other big bear had turned bad due to prolong hours in the lunchbox.

More Bento Tools！

Today Messy came back from school and told me happily that she got full marks for her English spelling. All along I had this "Spellings Rules" imposed at home to motivate them in a way, another is because both of them are so lazy when it comes to studies (I believe majority are.. LOL) and all kiddos LOVE gifts, presents so I brought her to Daiso together with my mom. 
I wanted to get a few bigger food containers as mine are all too small and can't put too much food in. While browsing thru the things at the Kitchenware section, I saw these new food cutters and grabbed them immediately！

Food Cutters

Silicon Food Containers & Food Drawing Pen with 2 different sizes changeable tips. I LOVE the Penguin Food Containers & the Drawing Pen！ 

This is the electric-eraser that Messy always wanted when she saw it at my cousin's house. Finally she got it as her reward and chose another for Cheeky. 

When we got back home, my helper saw my new gadgets and told me : By the time we move to our new house, I'll need to use a BIG BOX to put all my tools！Hahaha

Sunflower Egg Raisin Bun Bento

This was made on 24th Mar, Thursday when Messy had Math Remedial in school. Her Math is very weak since the first year she attended former school. I had tried teaching her on my own but in vain because no matter how much I tried explaining to her, she don't seems to understand and nowadays' Math is so complicated！Both of us were so much under stress during that period of time. In the end, I gave up and decided to get her a tutor which is the only best way out for both of us and YES！She really did showed so much improvements in her Final Year End Exams and all her results improved by 50%！Great！What a relief for the 2 of us.
But as her level goes higher, the difficulties go higher too. She doesn't has a very good foundation in Math (she hate this subject the most), LAZY to solve the sums, so ended up with Math Remedial every year.

I decided to make this Sunflower Egg Raisin Bun Bento because I just bought the raisin buns and Messy wanted bread for that day as she already had rice the other day, so I went online to search under my few favourite blogs for some ideas and saw this interesting, fun looking sunflower from Cute Food For Kids? I did a few pots of mushroom from chiwaku, 2 small chicken sausages of flowers and covered those empty spaces with frozen mixed veg.

Actually this was my 2nd Sunflower Egg cooked on that morning. The 1st one failed as some of the "petals" couldn't stick and fell off. Maybe I didn't put in the cheese sausages earlier before the egg white starts to cook.

Sunflower Egg Raisin Bun Bento

Kiddy Mushroom Meat Bento

The week passed so fast and it is Saturday again. Last week, Messy was still having her one week school holidays！Cheeky will sulk and complain that she doesn't has any school holidays, it is so unfair！But this time she was on school holidays too because there were too many Hand, Foot & Mouth Disease (HFMD) cases in her ChildCare Center. The Center need to undergo 3 days of full sanitization, supposed to go back on Friday but as more and more new cases came up during that 3 days, we're advised to keep them away until next Monday. Luckily Cheeky did not contract HFMD as I've suspected her to have it dued to her previous sore throat and one ulcer in her mouth. She ate too much fried chicken drumsticks, 2 days in a row！ *Phew* 

SCHOOL HOLIDAYS = MY BONUS OFF-DAYS FOR MAKING BENTOS.

This bento is for Messy on 22nd Mar, Tuesday when she had Chinese Language (CL) Learning Activity which is combine with all classes in the whole school and it's compulsory. As usual, I'll ask them what they'd like to have for their bentos and Messy wanted her favourite Bunashimeji mushrooms, Japanese cucumber and baby carrots with the minced pork that I cooked in the Bibimbap. The only difference is that I fried all the ingredients together with the marinated minced pork with slightly more sauce here. I also added 3 pieces of Tofu Fishcake with minced pork and minced Chinese mushroom fillings, her favourite and mine too！

Kiddy Mushroom Meat Bento

My New Bento Tools

U may call me crazy or spendthrift but I just can't resist myself from buying more and more bento tools and cute stuffs！Frankly, I don't make bento everyday neither will I use ALL the tools that I own but I just love to collect and hate the feeling of not having that particular thing when I need to use it, so I will buy, buy, buy and tell myself : I'm sure I'll use it and need it, even if it is not as often, I'm sure it will come in handy...

Hello Kitty Sushi Roll Set & Mini Hearts Sandwich Maker from J-Mama & Baby I ordered these thinking to myself that I can make more food and save time for parties, gatherings.

Multi-cutters with 3 different designs. Able to have more fun with other foods and not just Nori and sesame seeds anymore.

Mickey & Minnie Punch+Cutters+Molds and Multi-faces Shoe punch. These punchers are so much better than those I bought in Diaso, just one punch down and the Nori are so nicely cut.

Alphabet Cutters, Mini Alphabet Cutters, Hat Picks, Angel Wing+Bow Picks. Although they are the same-Alphabet Cutters but size difference！

Now I'm still waiting for my last batch of orders (hopefully) somewhere this mth-end or April.

Bibimbap (Korean Mixed Rice with Vegetables) Recipe

This is my 1st attempt cooking Bibimbap when I saw NTUC supermarket promoting their new products on Korean chilli sauce, marinating sauces, instant Rice Cakes (Ddukbokkie), Starch Noodles (Japchae) or what we call glass noodles or Dong Fen (东粉） in Singapore and they did come with some brochures of recipes. As a big fan of Korean and Japanese food, I happily read thru all the recipes listed on the brochure, took one a tub of chilli sauce and a small bottle of Bulgogi Marinade (non-spicy) and bought all the ingredients needed. As there are no instructions on what seasonings to add in all the vegetables, I just added little salt to taste.  

My Korean Mixed Rice recipe from the brochure.

    Ingredients For One Serving :

• Bean Sprouts - 30g
• Carrots - 30g
• Zucchini - 30g
• Spinach - 30g
• Shiitake Mushrooms - 20g
• Minced Pork/Beef/Chicken Meat - 50g
• Bulgogi Sauce for marinating meat - 2 Tbsps
• 1 Bowl of Cooked Short-grain Rice
• Salt to Taste
• Pepper to Taste (Optional)
• Little Water
• Little Cornflour
• Korean Chilli Sauce (Optional) - 1 Tbsp

    How To Cook : 

1. Marinate meat with Bulgogi Sauce (or any other of your favourite sauce/seasonings) and put in fridge covered for half hr.
2. Cut all vegetables into strips.
3. Stir fry all vegetables separately using little oil, add little salt to taste, set aside.
4. Add in cornflour to meat and mix well. Pan fried meat with little oil until almost cooked, add another 2 tbsps of Bulgogi Sauce, pepper to taste (optional) and little water. Stir well until meat all done.
5. Use a SUPER BIG bowl (for easy mixing when served) to contain cooked short-grain rice and arrange all the vegetables on top of rice in a circle.
6. Place the meat in the middle of all vegetables and topped with the chilli sauce (optional).
7. Mixed all well and serve！

Alternatively, you can click HERE for an authentic recipe from Cooking Korean Food with Maangchi. I found this website last few days ago and I'm going to try the recipe soon！

Pan fried marinated minced pork

 

Bulgogi Marinade for the meat

The tub of Korean chilli sauce I bought

Messy and Cheeky LOVE the marinated minced pork so much and requested to have it again！As promised, I cooked the meat again the next week and was with sliced red onions, another of their favourites. Cheeky had her 2nd helpings of rice (about 1 small bowl) that night for dinner which is rarely seen unless she's too hungry (not very often either). I was happy to see her eating more than usual.

Will be updating with other recipes soon.

My Previous Bentos

All these Bentos are made from the past 2 mths in Jan & Feb. Most ideas are found online where else some are just created with Messy & Cheeky's fav food. As time passes by, I noticed that I'm beginning to run outta ideas！ Especially when I'm staying up for the night, mind not working！

Messy made the sandwich & I made the bear + salmon fish. She woke up half hr earlier than usual to make her own sandwich. 

Really must use LARGE EGGS for the egg molds if not this is how your Star & Heart eggs turn out to be. As for the rice, I steamed the normal rice grains and added little soy sauce to stir for taste. 

Made this on one of the Sunday when my niece came over, afraid that she may not like to eat 'mee hoon kueh' so I shaped out the dough made by my mom specially for the kids. 

The girls, especially my niece were so amused by those shapes and all of them finished up everything！

This is for Messy, sandwiches for recess time & rice for her lunch in sch as she had got CCA on. This is one of my fav bento among all. Imagine, I spent almost 2HRS on this！I believed all of you can tell how much Messy loves to eat sandwiches！

This is for Cheeky. As I had mentioned in my earlier post,  I had more time to prepare Cheeky's bento, Messy always says that hers aren't as nicely decorated as Cheeky's and vice verse. 

My 1st Bentos

I made my very 1st bento on 27th Jan 2011. I woke up very early at 530am to prepare and cook what I had learned from YouTube - Tamagoyaki and Octodogs. Also the 'girl' design sandwich from Susan Yuen, the most famous Bento Cookbook author in Hawaii.

As I couldn't find the rectangle pan for cooking tamago, I just went ahead using the normal round non-stick pan. As for the seasoning in Tamagoyaki, I just used what I can find in mom's kitchen (we're staying with my parents currently and waiting for our new flat) and also using the most simple recipe found online because I still can't get what's mirin and dashi for at that time! Anyway it still turned out nice！ 

Messy was so happy to see her sandwich bento so 'nicely & beautifully' decorated for the first time but at the same time she was getting anxious because she's going to be late for school! We rushed through doing the last decoration for the other 'tanned' girl made by Messy and I hurried sent her to school. I took the pic in the car while we were waiting for the car to warm up... Luckily she was just in time for school. *pheeew*

This is also the FIRST TIME Messy didn't nagged/complained about not leaving the house before 7am because I can tell from her facial expression : "mommy send me to school today！" & "mommy make me a special lunchbox today！

 

Messy's 1st sandwich bento with mixed veg salad & a heart-shaped Tamagoyaki.

 After sending Messy to school, I went back home to continue with Cheeky's bento. Although she's in ChildCare Ctr, there are food for her provided but she also wanted a special lunchbox.

Cheeky's 1st sandwich bento with 2 Octodogs & a heart-shaped Tamagoyaki.

 As I had more time to prepare for Cheeky, hers was more nicely done than Messy's. I'm slow in doing things when it comes to decorations, so I told myself : "I must get up much more earlier to prepare！" which I know that I sure cannot make it！ So from then on I'll stay up throughout the night if I were to prepare bentos for them... Lucky I only have to prepare for them when Messy needs to stay back in school for extra activities which is 2-3 days per week or when I feel like doing if not I'll become panda bear very soon！

My Newly Found Interest

I started with my very 1st bento this year in Jan 2011 when I saw my cousin's posting of her bentos for her kids in facebook and fell in love with it immediately！
I started to find relevant infos about bentos in YouTube, watched almost all videos for beginners！ The first thing that I learned was to make Tamagoyaki and Octodogs. I wrote down every ingredients, every steps and decided to start trying out few days later after I got the basic gadgets.
I went to NTUC supermarket searching high and low for those basic tools for making bentos but only managed to find some cookie cutters. Found some cute design punches from Japan home and went to the nearest Diaso to get more！

Messy was as excited as me when I told her about bentos and that I'm going to make for them. She went to Diaso with me and once we reached there, both of us were like going crazy over all their cute stuffs！ We only managed to get 1 nori face punch as the rest had already sold out, some cute picks, cookie cutters, rice molds and 2 lunchboxes ( 1 for her & 1 for Cheeky). Although not many things but we were happy with our buys.  

All these are my collections so far and there are more to come！

  Got them from Diaso, NTUC supermarket, Japan home, J-Mama & Baby, KidzCottage.