The Tan's Diary: May 2014

Wednesday, May 7, 2014

Mommy's bento-making (Part III)

My biggest challenge in bento-making is I have to look for food that I can prepare within 30 minutes or so. Any thing that needs longer time to cook, such as rice, will mean either I have lesser snooze time, or I'll be late. Hence, my bentos are usually limited to sandwiches and pasta, or off-the-shelf snacks.

April - May 2014

Here I made tuna mayo using animal pasta the kiddos received from bro Jonathan Teo. Just cook the pasta in boiling water for about 8-10 minutes, add salt. Drain the pasta and then add tuna mayonnaise.. and wah lah!

I have to admit I have never watched any "Anpanman" cartoon. I happened to see an "Anpanman" bento made by another mother and then googled on it. It is a very popular Japanese cartoon series that has been around for 20 years. I suppose it shares similar level of popularity in Japan as that of Barney in Singapore. Hmh....What was I doing in my childhood that I never heard of Anpanman till now?

Made this cutie teddy bear bento for Deborah on 11 Apr 2014. I can remember the date clearly because it was the Friday when we celebrated David's 5th birthday in school. Hence, I was given his "permission" that I do not need to prepare a bento for him that day.

Love the colours of this bento. I got compliments on this cute teddy, and it certainly made my day!

Decided to make a pair of chicks - male and female since David complained that the hello kitty bento I made recently was for girls.

This is a bigger version of the dog bento I made.

The earlier one was using just one slice of bread rolled up like a swiss roll.

An elephant bento which delighted David to the max, because it is his favourite land animal.

I made this bento after a long break from bento-making, and wasn't doing much homework. Shortly after I started preparing the necessities for bento-making, to my horror (minus the screams, since it was 5am in the morning), I saw a lizard staring at me from the sink. I lost concentration and quickly simplified my bento to just this face that probably reflected what I look that morning.

Frog bento - used cucumber slices, cheese and nori for the eyes, crabmeat for the cheeks, cheese slice for the crescent-shaped mouth. Also added blackberries and red seedless grapes.

Hello Kitty bento. I finally made it! I couldn't find a hello kitty sandwich cutter that could fit the size of Gardenia bread. The cutters are usually bigger than the bread slices. I improvised and came up with this simpler version. And I specially bought those hello kitty cookies for this.

A mickey mouse cutter that I found it too small. And then, this way of making it came to mind and it turned out well too.

Remember this popular computer game in the 80s - Pacman. It was one of my favourite games when I was young.

Snail bento, with octopus sausage. The "shell" is actually strawberry swiss rolls bought from Polar.

Thanks to Jason and Sherlyn, I received several new animal sandwich cutters last week. This squirrel is one of those. Of course, I couldn't wait to use them to create more interesting bentos.

Mommy's Bento-making (Part II)

Here are the bentos I made in the month of February 2014.

Soon after, I started purchasing sandwich cutters that could help make bento-making more interesting and fun. And this car bento was one which David went "wow" when he saw it for the first time.

I fried a pancake to make this Doraemon's face. It turned out uneven and patchy because I was using those frying pan. Maybe I should invest in a pancake maker soon....

In this bento, I had the three round donuts and decided to put a message for Deborah. It was quite cool to make a 3D-heart using a red strawberry. I also added the colourful biscuits I used to have them when I was at David's age.

This is a sheep bento come with animal-shaped biscuits with names on it.

I used a flower-shaped sandwich cutter for the sheep's face, cheddar cheese slice for the ears, ham for the nose and nori for the eyes.

I bought those animal biscuits from Fairprice. There are a lot of cute biscuits in supermarkets nowsadays. In fact, I would be looking out for cute biscuits available in the supermarket while doing grocery shopping these days.

This snoopy bento was made on a Sunday morning for the bigger kiddos (Jason and my hubby) who were envious of the bentos I made for Deborah and David during the week.

Well, who say adults don't deserve bentos.

I used "President" cheddar slice cheese for the Tiger's face. Cos I haven't invested in those professional cutters for face-making, so it took a while to cut out the eyes, nose, mouth and stripes. But still, I get this great sense of achievement to be able to come up with this, since I am just an amateur.

Anyway, now you know what to get for my birthday this year? (*hint, hint*)

March 2014

I begun doing a lot of research on bento-making on the internet and I found so many other mothers who are much, much better skilled and creative, and it was really mind blasting to see their bento creations.

By March, I have a long list of animal bentos I wanted to make. Here are what I had managed to produce, with my limited and humble skills.

Butterfly sandwich bento made with heart-shaped cutters. The patterns on the wings are made with frosty loops cereals.

This chick bento is really so cute, I simply love looking and re-looking at it. I used black sesame seeds for the eyes, carrot for nose. And added Milo ball cereals and baby asparagus as sides.

This is the second cow bento I attempted. The first one which I made in January was much simpler.

I know this Elmo bento looks somewhat awkward, but this was the best I could do without a cutter for the face.

This fish bento is also one of my favourite. I also prepared star-shaped peach jelly for this bento... if you could see it. Haha...

This silly-face bento is some thing original I came up with. I woke up in the morning not knowing what to make. So I let my fingers do the talking, and came up with this cute, silly face.

Ladybird bento with papaya, blueberries and strawberries.

Leopard bento. The spots were made using a chopstick dipped with nutella. And the effect turned out really good.

Monkey bento. Regretfully, this is one bento I am most dissatisfied with. Kids couldn't make out what it was when I showed them the picture. I will do my research and make another better-looking monkey-face for my cheekie monkies soon.

Mushroom bento made with long buns and sausage. The polka-dots are made with cheese.

Owl bento. I used almond chips for the feathery effect on the body.

Penguin bento, with edamame, peaches and strawberries.

My second Pig bento.

This is a simple tree sandwich. I was too tired that morning so I did not add details on the trees.

Tuesday, May 6, 2014

Mommy's Bento-making (Part I)

Since Deborah started Primary One this year, I have found a new interest -- bento-making. Preparing cute-looking bentos for Deborah and David has become part of my morning schedules. It has given me a lot of satisfaction, especially when the end result can sometimes surprise (even) myself.

Bento-making has helped me realised that there is so much I can do when I am willing to give it a try and just do it.

Here are the photos of the cute bentos I have attempted in January this year.

January 2014