DIY Batman costume

Junior version of batman

Halloween is just around the corner.  And I am planning to join in the fun at the 'not-so-creepy' Halloween held at the Science Center.  Ironically, it was his first Halloween celebration and also his first costume made by Mommy!  My first masterpiece too!! :P  I googled for very simple DIY costume and I stumbled on twindragonflydesigns.  What caught my eye was that the caption said "NO SEW" Superhero costume and it appeared manageable for a person like me who did not sew well.  I have also bookmarked another blog for making the batman's mask at thethriftinessmiss. I did not glued all the parts of costume.  Instead, I choose to hem the two pieces of felt together and sew the ribbons attached to the body suit.  I am proud to present the junior version of batman above.

Materials for the batman costumes:-

• White drawing paper (for the mask)
• Black and yellow Felt**
• Elastic band (for the mask)
• Multi-purpose glue
• Ribbons (for the body suit)
• Button (for the belt)
• Black marker (to draw the pattern on the belt)

** I bought the felts separately from Daiso and Popular bookstore (in Singapore).  And the quality and textures varies from each other.  The one from Daiso was softer and not as stiff like paper compared to the felt from Popular bookstore.  Therefore, I used the softer felt from Daiso for the body suit only.

Happy Halloween!! :D

 



Chicken rice

Bento No. 324

I cooked chicken rice for lunch as requested by the little man yesterday.  My first attempt was successful.  The aroma was heavenly when it was cooking in the rice cooker.   Thanks to my niece, Yin Yee, who is a chicken rice lover, enlightened me during her trip here in Singapore that it was really easy to prepare. Here is the receipe without any pandan leaves since I was unprepared and unplanned.  I just did it with whatever ingredients I found in the refrigerator. :P

1/2 portion of Sakura chicken
1/2 tsp sea salt (more or less to your tasting)
3/4 tsp grated ginger juice
1 cup uncooked rice
1 stalk of lemongrass - lightly pound
4 garlic gloves - lightly pound
3 slices of ginger
1 tsp sesame oil

1. Rub grated ginger juice and sea salt onto the chicken and steam it.  Retain the chicken broth to cook with the rice later.  Plunge the chicken in ice cold water and set aside.
2. Add 1 tsp sesame oil in the wok.  Fry lemongrass, garlic gloves and ginger till fragrant.
3. Add uncooked rice and continue to stir-fry for a few minutes.
4. Pour the mixture into the rice cooker together with the chicken broth  (add more water or instant chicken stock if you did not get enough broth)
5.  Once the rice is cooked, drizzle some sesame oil/light soya sauce on the steamed chicken and served.

I simply cut out some carrot flowers and arranged it together with some leaf shape Japanese cucumber, Shanghai green, chicken drumstick meat and rice in the box.

Under the sea

Bento No 323

Could you spot some fishes, an octopus, a crab and a jellyfish?  From the right, a jellyfish made of yellow cheese, nori and ketchup stripes as its tentacles nicely seated on a rice onigiri that I wrapped with baked salmon.  Then, come the octopus and crab which, obviously, cut from hotdog.  Little green fishes swimming at the background that I used edamame for its head and pink heart shape foodpicks for the tails.  There were oranges decorated with seaweed as well as leaf cucumber. 

 

The other day, we picked up some brown leaves around our neighbourhood.  Some of which my boy used it for leaf painting and some, he said it's for his 'collection'.  And he took a pigeon minifigure, placed it on/around the dried leaves and snapped pictures of it with my handphone.  I was amused by his creativity!  Monkey see, monkey do!!  He learnt well from mommy's bento-ing! ;-)

 

Mommy and baby chicks, Learn to let go

Bento No 322

I created mommy and baby chick from egg sheet using a different size of heart shape cookie cutter. To achieve the bright yellow hue, I only used egg yolk for making the egg sheet (which was leftover from making swiss meringue buttercream that only required egg whites).  Carrot for wings, nori for the eyes and baby chick's beak.  Mommy chick's beak was a pink heart shape foodpick.  On the sides, my boy has soba noodles, blanched cauliflower, sugar bean, carrot and pan-fried chicken breast patties.

I got emotional the other day when Papa mentioned he wanted to visit Ah Ma in Malaysia together with my son for a few days.  And I have to stay back in Singapore to look after our pet dog, Nitro.   Thinking of being apart from my son across the country left me very bitterly sad.  I did not know that I have to learn to let go of my child so quickly.  Was it the 'empty nest' syndrome set in so early?  Since I became a stay-at-home mum, we have never been apart except a few hours alone with Daddy.  My life has been revolved around my son from schooling, playing and even cooking his favourite dishes.  When the topic was first brought up, my boy did not buy the idea of separating from me either.  When I talked about it again the next day, my boy assured me that he would be fine with Papa and even asked me "Are you ok with it?"  I replied that I was not sure about it.  To my surprise, my sensible boy told me to give it try.  I was speechless!  Yeah, he was right!  It's time for me to let go.......   He's no longer my baby but a little man yearning for independence.

Elephant, Ninjago cake (with swiss meringue buttercream)

Bento No. 321

My boy celebrated children's day at his kindergarten on Thursday with his favourite food spaghetti/ sausages and pop corn. According to him, bouncing castle was also set up within the kindergarten compound and there were "activities" for the kids too. Mommy made an elephant sandwich spread with tuna mayo green apple for his lunch.  I used corn bread from Gardenia.

• Ears and trunk -  crust of the loaf, yellow cheese and nori
• Face -  corn bread pressed out from a circle cookie cutter, spread with tuna mayo and diced green apple
• Eyes - Japanese cucumber, yellow cheese and seaweed
• Mini carrot - Japanese cucumber for its stem and of course, the real carrot!

After school, I decided to allow my boy to indulge some more goodies.  We baked 'dark moist chocolate cake', a premix gifted by Yin Yee jie jie. It was an easy receipe which the little one just poured all the ingredients and mixed everything in the bowl.   My boy was not only having fun in the kitchen and he also loved sampling the batter.  The next day, I did the frosting with swiss meringue buttercream which I found the receipe here.  This was the best frosting I ever made so far and happy that it turned out successful; glossy and creamy despite it was my first attempt.  Not too sweet, just the way I like it. (Note:  For a peace of mind and safe consumption, I would have to ensure the mixture of egg whites and sugar registered a temperature of 65 degree celsius or 160 degrees Fahrenheit next time.)  I did a simple Gold Ninjago cake (which I have seen one of the his ex-classmate's mother made it for her son's birthday).  However, as you could tell from the picture below that the spreading was not even, neither it was smooth.  Pipping was quite a mess too. :P  The chocolate cake though was nice but I felt it was tad too sweet.  Nevertheless, we enjoyed the process of making our own cake and laughed it off on my poor decorative skills.  




Licking good the chocolate batter

 

 

Wacky pose

Swiss meringue buttercream - added lemon yellow colour



Gold Ninjago



Dark moist chocolate cake

 

Linking up with :- 

 

Batman, Toilet roll penguim

Bento No. 320

I think my batman puts on weight!  Haha...  Face was made of orange cheddar cheese and the rest of the details together with the bat and spider were all freehand cut out from nori.  Then, I glued it onto the egg sheet with some sticky peanut butter.  Underneath the box, he had fried mushroom noodles with cabbage, carrot and cube chicken breast.  On the side, I placed some green and red carrots (ingredients I used to boil the soup) and green kiwi which I decorated with transportation foodpicks.  As part of the growing up phase, my son has a liking towards superhero and villain play nowadays.  At the playground in our neighbourhood, I observed that boys at his age or older ones played pretend fighting with masks and gears like those of superhero and, weapons like knife, sword, guns were seen dishing out to the group of kids to play with.  It was worrisome sight watching them because I need to constantly reminded him not to get hurt himself or hurt another child or even turned violent (never happen) when they were pretend fighting.  And also be mindful of the fact that there were babies and toddlers at the playground too.  These weapons, some of which, has pointed ends that also got me spied them with a hawk-eye to avoid possible accidents which we never knew it might happen.  Even though my son loves to play guns and weapons, we discouraged it at home and never bought any toys of such.  Hence, he often made his own weapons using lego blocks.  I thought that was a brilliant idea and literally killed two birds with one stone; encouraged creativity and saved lots of dollars.

Despite all the boy stuff about guns and weapon, he still loves crafting with Mommy.  We did a toilet roll penguim. Material we used:-

• a toilet roll
• black paint
• some black, white and yellow paper for its wings, flippers, chest and beak
• wiggling eyes
• glue
• Optional : pipe-cleaner and bottle cap to make it look more hip hop ;)