Tuna sushi and Lion

Bento No. 113

Bento No. 114

I made the Tuna sushi bento on Monday and butterfly pasta today.  Both have the same theme, "Lion"! Even when I asked my boy what kind of animal lantern he would like, his replied was "Lion". Reason being, I saw supermarkets like Cold Storage and Giants are selling LED paper lantern.  These lantern certainly will not catch fire and it would be nice to have to celebrate the coming Mid-Autumn Festival!   However,  the "Lion" shape lantern were sold out.  Probably, I need to run a few stores to search for the Lion lantern. 

Yesterday, I totally lost my cool and spiked off an argument with my spouse in front of my son.  I am worried some negative impact on him and how he felt about it at that moment.  I asked him again about the incident while getting him dressed up this morning.  He said he was scared and I apologised for what had happened  He gave me a big hug which I did not expect.  So sweet :)  Ideally and most experts will tell us not to argue in front of children.  It will leave a bad impression in their tiny little heads, being frightened or worst, they will turn the treatment right back on us once they are teenagers.  Really have to keep arguments under control in future....

Aeroplanes

This morning I told my son I am making aeroplanes sandwich for him.  And he gladly said "yes".  I am surprised that he did not opt for the train instead.  Because, he does that usually whenever I said that I am going to make sandwich for his lunch.  Finally, I had the chance to use the plane cutter. I also use it to cut the dragonfruits too. 

This is what he has today.  Ham and cheese sandwich, cherry tomatoes, cucumber, orange and dragonfruit.  And Emmi brand apple yogurt too!

Bento No. 112



Army Tank

Bento No. 111

We had seen many army trucks under orientation driving on the road on the way to school.  My boy would tell me immediately when he sighted one.  In one of his bedtime story about Harry and the Dinosaurs saving endangered animals, one of the dinos drew an "Army Tank".  He could not differentiate between an army truck and tank initially.  After numerous explanation, comparison and sightings, he eventually can able to tell me the correct name.
The idea of making an army tank onigiri striked me when I recalled I have seen it in Sakae Sushi restaurant. I inserted a strip of cucumber surposedly the machine gun on the square warhead. The hatch or cupola is a tiny square cucumber.  I hope I got all the description correct :P

In his bento, he has baked teriyaki salmon (which is well hidden underneath the onigiri), blanched cauliflower and asparagus, cherry tomato, dragonfruit and orange.

Salmon sushi

Bento No. 110

Can you spot a pandan ?  Yeah, it is in the middle of salmon sushi.  Needless to say, it is the same old sushi bento he normally has except that I have replaced edamame with cherry tomatoes for a change. 

We have  fun-filled and enjoyable weekend.  Papa has just renewed the Zoo family card and also bought the Bird Park family card.  And we went to the Bird Park last Saturday for the first time because my boy has been pestering Papa to bring him there two weeks ago.  The highlights would be the macaw which could respond with a "Hello" and the kings of the sky show.  The old suspended bridge was gone and it is now refurbished into a African theme bridge.  Due to time limit, we did not sight any hornbills which my son wanted to see very much.  We are all completely exhausted and had to carry my son at the end of the day.  Perhaps the next trip!

Chicken Bento



Bento No. 109

This is a simple bento I prepared for my son.  It consisted of steamed chicken with wolfberries, caixin, kiwi and red cherries.  And brown rice at the bottom!  I must admit I have run out of ideas for brown rice bento.  My brain juice is drained. 

Back home, I decided to steam pumpkin cake since I had some leftover.  This would be my second attempt.  Previously, my pumpkin cake did not crack like "Fa Gao" according to the receipe here http://food-4tots.com/2011/06/08/steamed-pumpkin-muffins/.  Unexpectedly, my second try also did not turn out well.  Hilariously, it popped up like a chicken pie or rather a sinking ship. 

Inside-Out California sushi

Bento No. 108

My son always finished his food whenever I packed sushi for his lunchbox.  It is not only healthy but easy to eat for the little hands.  So I made california sushi with avocado, crab meat and tamagoyaki.  He has his usual fare i.e. edamame, tamagoyaki and fruits like kiwi, orange and cherries. And a couple of safari animals foodpicks.

Today, I was the chauffeur for my son as well as my hubby.  Dropped the former to school and later drove Papa to Serangoon to see a Chinese physician.  His kneen cap was swollen and painful last night after a game of badminton.  Thereafter, we went to Great World City, "Toy Hunt" to collect his latest lego train set.  And, we went back to school to fetch my son. Guess what!  I spent most of the time on the road today.

Teriyaki Chicken roll



Bento No. 107



While I was preparing the marinate for teriyaki sauce last night, it smell of strong vinegar.  I began to wonder if the soya sauce has turned bad.   But the marinated chicken thigh I cooked this morning tasted fine.  Sceptical about it.  So I went to buy another bottle of soya sauce, a different brand to confirm whether my soya sauce has really gone bad. Honestly, it has never occurred to me to smell the sauce and I did now to discover it smell vinegar!

The meat does not taste as good as I expected.  May be I should add some sake or chinese wine into the marinate as well which I omitted last night.  I flattened the wholemeal bread with a roller pin and spreaded a thin layer of tomato sauce on it.  Then I sliced up the chicken and placed on top of the bread and rolled with cucumber.  Some cheeries, orange, kiwi and cherry tomato to go along with his chicken roll.  Plus his favourite strawberry yogurt!  The dinosaur was contributed by my boy :)

Angry Birds



Bento No. 106

 Angry birds!  I do not understand why kids like angry birds so much.  Even my little boy also loves it and only the red one.  But I did not make a red angry bird.   Instead, I mashed up pumpkin and mixed it with white rice since I made some pumpkin and onion soup today.  The face is made of nori, cheese and carrot.  And I baked miso cod which I marinated it with mirin, sugar and miso paste overnight.  Beside miso cod, he has blanched broccolli, cherry tomatoes, orange and apple.

Car

Bento No. 105

I, accidentally, dropped my laptop and it landed on my doggie's tail causing it to bleed last night.  What a horrible mishap! I panicked and quickly applied pressure on its tail to stop the bleeding.  So careless of me :(  This morning, I checked my doggie's tail again and the blood has dried up.  My doggie is still bouncing happily around the house as usual.  How am I going to clean the wound now?  Better to see a vet instead.

My boy has brown rice bento today along with baked char siu, fried long bean with egg, carrots and papaya.  I asked him what he would like to see in his lunchbox today.  He went to the kitchen, opened the drawer and took out the Disney pixar car - Lightning McQueen bento box. So I moulded the browe rice into a car shape and decorated it with cheese and nori for its wheels and face.

Bumble Bee and sushi



Bento No. 104

 Hurray!  I have finally recovered from my cough and sore throat after taking the chinese medicine prescribed from Eu Yang San clinic at Plaza Singapura.  So is my son.  Yesterday, he was telling me "Mummy, I have no cough.  I can eat chocolate and ice cream."  In fact, we went to his schoolmate, Sean Sean, 4th birthday party at RiverGate yesterday despite it was raining.  And he has already had chocolate dino cake there and eaten all the gummies/jelly beans in the goodie bag.  He has lots of fun with 20 children (and the parents)!  My naughty son was so obsessed with presents that he has his hands full on Sean's presents.  Despite he was given a few punches and being pulled, he stood there like a stubborn rock!  Papa later settled him down reminding him that these presents do not belongs to him but the birthday boy.  The party has interesting acitivies like making a pteranodon with colourful papers and puting on a dino costumes (a pair of dino's big foot and long tail) for a rally race, all handmade by the lovely host. And my son's team won the race!  Yippee!  But our silly boy returned the wining prize, a chocolate dino egg and later, when he realised the rest of kids has it but he do not have it.  He teared.  Oh dear, he is too soft.  On separate note, he also does not know how to stand up for himself which I have observed on several occasions.  I told him he need to tell them firmly that "I don't like it.  Please do not do it again" if he feel disturbed or being bullied.  Hopefully, he can grow tougher...

I made a pair of bumble bees with tamagoyaki and cheese for the face. I used dried spagetti as the antenna and bone foodpicks for its wings.  My son teased me by saying "it is a funny bee...haha!"  The rest of his food contains baked salmon sushi, edamame and green kiwi.

Frog Burger

Bento No. 103

My husband bought an oat round bread from Yamazaki bakery yesterday.  And it is just nice to make burger bento for my son.  He first requested a lion and after reading a book on animals, he wanted a frog instead last night.  His bento consists of ham and cheese burger, corn cob and an apple.  Simple, yet he did not like the taste of the bread, neither did he finish his lunch.  After school, he was screaming hungry.  Luckily, I bought a pandan cream cheese cake from Bengawan Solo.

Lately, I tried to include apple in my boy's lunch box.  Well, sad to say, this has never been his favourite fruit.  Because my lazy boy likes soft fruits.  And it took me half an hour just to cut and shape the apple..hehe.  I can see that he begins to eat it but not all the times.

Seal

Bento No. 102

My son has recuperated from his cough 90% but me, not in a good shape. I constantly getting migraine and cough a lot more at night with a very painful sore throat that always visit me during the night only.  In the day, I perfectly ok.  I am still pondering whether we should go to my son's schoolmate's birthday bash this Sunday.  For the last two weeks, I put on the faced mask when I prepared my son's lunchbox and did my cooking.  I wish there is a magic pill that can cure it!

Also, my bento-making has limited to brown rice lately because my boy likes it more than white rice.  I made a seal this time.  The idea hit me because we watched the dolphin and seal show at the Underwater World last Saturday. I stir-fried some pork tenderloin with onion/carrots and blanced some caixin and placed it around the seal.  Then I used a ring foodpick imitating the hoop.  And a few colourful musical notes foodpicks on red(purple) dragonfruits.

National flag

Happy National Day Singapore!!



Bento No. 101

 In conjunction with Singapore national day on August 9, I made our national flag by cutting it from an appple wedge. Pardon me for not able to crave out the exact shape of the stars.  For a three year old boy, I simply explained to him that our national flag has a crescent moon and five stars and it is red and white in colour.   Also, I boiled some sweet yellow potato which I cut into blocks supposedly representing the HDB flats.  Since we pride ourselves as a garden city, I placed leaves foodpicks on the kiwi and a musical note foodpick for the celebration.  My son has tuna salad sushi with cucumbers and blanched edamame too.  I like this bento very much!  Do you?