Last School Bento for Term 2 2013

I forgot to plan, heehee. And had bad dreams overnight of not having anything to give RM at all, nor time to prepare. Serves me right.

So my last resort was a packet of instant ramen, to which I improved the nutrition by adding some boiled prawns, edamame, and corn. I barely had time to cool everything down and take a pic before rushing out the door with the kids.

I'm looking forward to the June holidays!

Leftover-Roast-Chicken Salad and Onigiri

These bentos were speedily made last night after dinner, with only minimal washing and cutting (fruits and veggies). Really convenient for me because these last few weeks I have not been able to get up earlier to bento in the mornings. 

Salad: Shredded roast chicken with drippings, chopped up red and yellow capsicums, chopped tomato, topped with a dollop of fresh tomato salsa made by Takoyaki. This girl is getting to be quite the cook and baker! (when she wants to be, which is not very often, alas.)

Onigiris are simply rice mixed with furikake and homemade gomashio. We had some for dinner. Yum. I hope Roast Meat unwraps his onigiri successfully *gulp* He's never done it before but I have given him instructions. My biggest fear is that he will drop the whole thing on the floor while trying to unwrap. Uh... better not to worry too much huh? d:)

Here's my video on how to use an onigiri wrapper.

Takoyaki has a kiwifruit.

RM does not

And tomorrow is the last school day of this term! I only have ONE last bento to make, for RM. What shall I prepare?

Garlic and Herb Butter Pasta

The same homemade spread I use for garlic herb toast tastes superb with hot cooked pasta, but unfortunately RM will be having his cold because one of the fundamental rules of bento is making sure everything is cooled to room temperature before packing to avoid spoilage. He will still love it anyway, especially since there's practically a mountainload of grated Parmesan cheese on top.

 

Ingredients:

Blanched broccoli

Surimi crabstick

Garlic herb butter

Cooked fusili

Grated Parmesan

Clementine

Counting down to June hols 2013

It's the last week of school for both kids, and only 4 days, so they are jubilant d:) I'm starting to wind down a little, but still intend to make hay while the sun shines and prepare nutritious bentos for them to bring to school while I may.

For today, both had the same - pork jerky sandwiches with grapes and cherry tomatoes.

Takoyaki's box, which she didn't finish!

Roast Meat's box which he DID finish

And tomorrow is a holiday so the week ends early.

Yay!

Those are macadamia nuts in the panda

Perhaps it's because we have all been taking turns to fall sick, but I am so low on energy, even though I've been going early to bed every night. It will be good to take a rest and not have to wake so early this Vesak Day weekend.

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.

Penne Napolitan

I got up on time for once this morning and cooked up some pasta for Roast Meat. Had to put the whole box in the freezer for a bit to cool down, else the food would still be too warm to cover up. I hope he likes it. Forgot to add the grated Parmesan, which he loves.

The recipe is from Just Hungry. I've always wanted to try making this. Only thing is I don't have any bulldog sauce (which he hates) or steak sauce (which he likes) so I just skipped it.

Just for Takoyaki

Today was one of the very few days where Takoyaki had a box but Roast Meat did not. The reason is, RM was ill and home. 

We had a BBQ at the beach yesterday with our neighbours, so we were all exhausted by evening. Plus both my boys are ill, so I am very short of sleep. I barely managed to drag myself out of bed this morning to make a box for Takoyaki.

The food was simple - kaya sandwiches, bratwurst with mustard and strawberries. She did like it, that's the most important.

Bentos for a Fuss-Free Saturday Dinner

Why not? Since I cooked so much food on Friday night and nobody was hungry - meaning there was really a lot of leftovers. Couldn't be helped. When I cook claypot chicken rice, I cook it in bulk.

So together with Takoyaki, I packed everything into heatproof containers to be reheated up tonight. Erm, that would be last night, since it's already 1.30am.

There's one each for my husband, Takoyaki, Roast Meat, and myself and the Mouse to share.

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

Fallback on Pantry Stash

And boy, am I thankful for it! Simple affairs, no matter how simple, are always accepted by my Roast Meat.

More of Ah Ma's chicken wings, some love letters, a clementine and tomatoes.

Beat The Heat Bentos

We've been having such warm weather in Singapore these last few days that I can see my children melting by recess time. So I hope they'll be cheered up (Mother Tongue paper today, tough) as they cool down with some cold noodles.

First up is Roast Meat's. He's got some udon (the dried type) and here I've given him less noodles because he needs to lose weight (no kidding). Mixed in with the noodles are some julienned Japanese cucumber, and the whole thing's topped with some boiled carrot rings. There is a separate little container of mentsuyu (dippng sauce). Frozen.

In the other tier are some, oh dear, I don't know the English name for it, but in Teochew it's called ngoh hiang 五香, which means five spices. The filling is made of minced pork, carrot, and waterchestnut (mixed with five spice powder and a couple other ingredients), rolled up in tau kee (beancurd skin) and deepfried. My Mother-in-law makes THE BEST ngoh hiang in the world, and she gives us lots to bring back each time we visit. RM loves this.

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Next up is Takoyaki's.  Doesn't like ngoh hiang, period. Subbed with Ah Ma's fried chicken wings, that she loves. More noodles for the adolescent girl, who is really skinny.

The flower shapes are cut out using these cutters.

Plagued by tummy bugs

So I didn't manage to make anything for Roast Meat to bring on Monday. Thankfully, he didn't whine or fuss at all when I told him that morning that I had not been able to prepare a bento and happily collected some pocket money for recess.

Today was only a little better because I'm still weak from the tummy bug. I managed to throw together some chopchop sandwiches for both of them to bring to school. After all, today was exam day d:{

In each child's box is a coupla pork jerky 肉干 sandwiches, quarter of an apple (sliced) and cherry tomatoes.

I'm feeling good enough to cook most of the ingredients for tomorrow's bento, and they're all put away in the fridge to be packed tomorrow morning. Nite world!

Stainless Steel Cutters for Bento

I recently got these cute little cutters from Daiso ($2 for a set of 3), thanks to an alert from Maysatch Lin. 

These come in so useful for ham, cheese, bread, hard veggies such as carrots, and more. I have a bigger version of the one in the top right, but the carrots are not always thick enough to use it on. So these are perfect!

Basic

One of the great things about having a bento stash (certain foods that you buy or cook or prepare in somewhat of a bulk to use over a period of time) is that anytime I feel like giving more variety, instead of say, just one carb, one meat, one fruit, one veg (my usual deal), I can just pull something out from my pantry and throw it in. Well, there's not much THAT much variety to speak of here, of course, but I like seeing different colours in my bentos and I'm sure the kiddo does too.

So to end this first week of exams, RM brought some garlic toast, seaweed chicken, quadrattini wafers, pear slices and cherry tomatoes. It helps that this box has its own compartments to keep the foods separate.

Bentos for the Commencement of Examinations

Today, Takoyaki and Roast Meat began their official mid-year exams, and although it wasn't tough yet - Listening Comprehensions in both English and Mother Tongue - tomorrow and the following week will be gruelling. They both don't seem particularly stressed, however. Should I, instead, be stressed? *gulp*

 

Here's another convenient bento made of leftovers from last night's dinner. Nutritious stuff they both dig - rice, blanched greens, roasted chicken wings and a lovely honey murcott each. Oh, the lotus root slice was from the soup we had, which they didn't want to bring. I love how the pretty flower pattern adds some natural decor to the box.

More Simple, Boring Stuff

Hence the combination into one post.

Yesterday's bento for Roast Meat consisted of his favourite bakery mini chicken pies and assorted fillers.

And today, he had some mini aeroplane buns (tutorial here) filled with kaya, a ham flower, some pear slices and a chocolate wafer snack.

Tomorrow will be better.

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:)

Not worth posting

But here it is. I ran out of dishsoap on Thursday night (yes, really) so I didn't want to do anything fancy, because that would involve more washing up.

There were certainly no complaints from the boy who would rather eat anything he brings from home than buy from the tuckshop.

Starting May with leftovers

Oh yum. We had guests over for dinner last night so I cooked a lot of extra food, knowing I can pack some of it for them to bring to school today.

Roast Meat's is macaroni with pesto (he can't get enough of my pesto d<D ) and a few grilled prawns. The rest of the bento consists of roast chicken, noritama, cherry tomatoes and grapes.

 

Rather eclectic, this meal.

Takoyaki's seems plainer, because her macaroni is only tossed with chicken drippings (no pesto please, Mum!). 

The mid-year exams will be upon us in just a few days. I hope to support and encourage them with bentos that they like, both aesthetically and gastronomically.