As promised yesterday, today I posted my bread mold collections for your reference. I have put some tips too just in case if you needed it. But I think most of you already know how to use it. I usually use my bread mold to prepare breakfast for the kids. This is very useful if you want to put bread instead of rice in your bento. We are doing a quite intensive packing and moving stuffs for the next few weeks. So I will take a break from making bento for a while. Hope I can get back to post something very soon.

POCKET BREAD MOLDS
Create a clean sandwiches with the closed edges. Very convenient! You don't have to worry the filling spill everywhere.

POCKET BREAD MOLDS with CUTE CHARACTER STAMPS

SMALL BREAD MOLDS with CUTE STAMPS




2 and 4 CUT OUTS BREAD MOLDS

TRIANGLE POCKET BREAD MOLD & SMALL BREAD MOLDS


COOKIE CUTTERS with CUTE CHARACTER STAMPS
These cute cookie cutters can also be used as bread mold. Just cut the bread with the cutter and press down the stamp on the top of the bread to get those cute characters.

HOW TO USE POCKET BREAD MOLD



(1) Open the pocket bread mold. (2) Put a bread on the bottom part. (3) Close the mold with the upper part and press it gently. (4) Open the upper part and you can see the outline on the bread. (5) Put the filling in the center - in this picture I put strawberry jam and 'pandan kaya' jam. (6) Put another bread on the top before you close the upper part. (7) Press it very hard with your hand, up-down-left-right-center. (8) Open the upper part and you can see your pocket bread are cut perfectly. (9) Remove unwanted part.
For successful pocket bread, remember to not put too much filling and check the size of the bread, and try to use soft bread. If the bread is too small then you are likely to find some of the edges are not closed perfectly.

USE VARIOUS SIZE CUTTERS AS A POCKET BREAD MOLD



(1) Take one of the cutter and press it down to the bread. (2) Make 2 cut outs with the same cutter. Put the filling in the center. (3) Take another cutter which is one size smaller and put it upside down with the sharp edge facing up. Press it down to the bread. (4) You have a pocket bread with the closed edges.

Today's snack bento only contained mini pocket sandwiches and fruits. I put pork floss and sesame seeds with butter inside the mini pocket sandwiches. The size of this Melody box is not too big so it is perfect for snack bento. Tomorrow I will post some of my bread mold / bread cutter collections. I use them to prepare kids' breakfast. As you can see from my lunch bento, I rarely put bread / sandwich inside kids' bento. Only because I prefer they have rice for lunch and bread for breakfast and afternoon snacks. This snack bento was easy to prepare, only took 15 minutes.

This week is the final exam week for the kids. Everyday they will have 2 subjects for the final exam and will be dismissed from school earlier at 11.45AM. So this week, I will just only prepare snack bento for their 15 minutes break between each subject. Hope they will always remember 3 important points that we always tell them to do. In this box : 2 layers crab stick on the top of fish 'kekian' rolls, 2 colors dragon fruit balls, grapes, and orange wadges.

This happy bear bento is my 100th bento. Blogging about my bento making has been so much fun. I got so many friends from around the globe who share the same passion in bento making. Love you all ... thank you for being so supportive through your comments that keep me excited to learn more on how to prepare a good bento.

Today I used egg sheets, nori, and crab stick to make the happy bear and flowers in the blue box. I thought that the party hat pick was perfect to celebrate 100th bento in a simple way. In the pink box, I put ebi furai, sauteed cucumbers, crab stick balls & edamame, and grape tomatoes. Tomato sauce was put in a different sauce container (not in the picture).

And it's Friday again ... so wish everyone a great weekend!!

Today's bento was a quick and simple bento from me. I made 2 bugs from golden raspberries and grape tomatoes. Facial parts were made from crab stick and nori. Chicken fillet and potato stew were from dinner leftover. So this morning was not so much for cooking, just stir fried the Chinese cabbage with garlic and simply put everything inside the round bento box. The flowers were made from kamaboko and I sprinkled some furikake on the top of the rice.

Our house moving progresses ... Yesterday, some of the new furniture have been delivered to the new house but only kids' bedroom sets that have been installed. The others will be installed during this week and next week. After that we will need to do the major cleaning before we move more stuffs from the current house. We will put the 'house for sale' sign this weekend. We are trying to enjoy our slow moving :)

Two little yellow bears for today's bento. Can you guess what I used to make the yellow bear? Yup, I made it from hard boiled egg. Cut the egg white with bear shapes cutter and colored with turmeric that I mixed with water. The face parts were made from crab stick and nori and the flowers were from cucumber and carrot. I got some new food picks last month and decided to use the cute hat sets food picks for the yellow bears. Love those cute hat picks! Inside the other box : strawberries, chicken & corns meat balls, stir fry bean sprout with fish cake.

This month BOMB challenge is still going on. The theme for this month challenge is FLOWERS. You can read the details on Hapa Bento, thanks to Debra for organizing this fun event every month. Please join this event! You can enter as many as you want :)

Hi everyone! I'm so sorry for the lack of post during last week. My father-in-law got a stroke on Tuesday morning after playing badminton and fell down during the game. Nothing happened when he was in the badminton court until he arrived at home, suddenly he couldn't speak at all. He tried to call my brother-in-law with an unclear voice. My brother-in-law was already on the way to his office and he immediately drove back home, picked up my FIL and brought him to the hospital. My husband went to the hospital directly from the office. I was in shock too because my FIL was very healthy and very active. My husband and my brother in law took turn to spend the night at the hospital. Yesterday after lunch time, doctor said my FIL could go home. A lot of improvement after day 2 in the hospital. Now, he will need speech therapy and motoric therapy for his right hand and foot. Thanks a lot to friends on twitter, who read my tweets ... Thanks a lot for all the supports and prayers. Really appreciate it!

On Friday, me and my husband took a 1 day trip to Kuala Lumpur to watch West Side Story (Original Broadway-South East Asia Tour) and flew back again on Saturday's afternoon. We had to leave our father because we could not cancel the trip. We almost canceled the trip because my FIL was still in the hospital. But my husband decided to keep the trip on schedule because we have already paid the hotel, airline tickets, and show tickets early this month. Our FIL and bother were very understanding fortunately. So we tried to enjoy this little blessing in our life. We enjoyed the show very much. It was a great show! And a great time spent together without the kids :)

Today's bento was very simple (hope tomorrow I can do a better one). I made the flowers from egg and crab stick. Put them on the top of the rice and made flower shapes carrots as baran around the rice. Since this month theme for BOMB challenge is Flowers, I think this bento is qualified to be entered into BOMB challenge. You can read the details from Debra's blog, Hapa Bento. Please join this fun event!

Inside the box : rice topped with egg and crab stick flowers, sauteed Chinese okra with egg and tofu, and sauteed Weisswurst sausage with onion.

Start a new week again and felt like 2 days for the weekend passed so quickly. And now is the time to get back to the routines. For the next 2 weeks, the kids will be busy reviewing their lessons for the final exams. So many quizzes will be given as I saw on their school agenda. I will need to sit together with my boy, help him to review. But my girl will be on her own.

Today I just prepared a quick and simple bento. Made 2 butterflies from egg sheet, crab stick, and cucumber. All were done with various cutters, saved me so much time. The rice was layered with the curry tuna in the middle. And I put flower shapes carrots and baby corns, sauteed garlic asparagus, and fried Indonesian fish cake (called otak otak). The tomato sauce was separated in the small sauce container.

Today's bento was made from 3 colors egg sheets without food coloring. How can I get 2 different kind of yellow colors there? In Indonesia, we usually have 2 types of chicken egg. One is from broiler chicken and one from non-broiler chicken. They have different kind of egg yolk, egg from broiler chicken will have a yellow egg yolk and egg from non-broiler chicken will have dark yellow/orange egg yolk. This time I separated the egg yolk and the egg white, so I could get 3 colors for my egg sheets.

Inside the box : (green box) rice decorated with mama chicken and little chicken on the top ; (yellow box) fried shumai, fried egg tofu, stir fry green bean with scramble egg, flower shapes carrot, and cherry tomatoes.

After making this bento, I remembered that my sister in Melbourne and some of the blogger friends would celebrate Mother's Day on May, 9 . As for me, we will celebrate Mother's Day in Indonesia on December, 22. I think this bento fit the theme ... so I wanna say loudly .....

Wishing You A Happy Mother's Day !!
filled with love and warmth

Should I say it again that I am a bento addict? Yes, I love to collect all the bento stuffs for sure. And I don't have a cure yet to stop it. The only way to stop in my best opinion is that I should stop bento making which is quite impossible 'cause I am enjoying it right now hehehe ... :D This time I wanna show you why recently I prefer to buy silicone food cup more than other types of food cup. I am still using the plastic food cups, paper food cups, and aluminum foil food cups though. Usually I use food cup to store some food that I want to divide from other food in a bento box. As most of my bento boxes are without divider, food cups come in pretty handy.

The following are the different types of food cup available for bento plus their advantages and disadvantages :

SILICONE FOOD CUP

Advantages :
> Colorful, various shapes and sizes, very elastic, microwavable, washable, can be used in oven, can be used in steamer, freezer safe, dishwasher safe, reusable, high temperature resistance 230°C and low temperature resistance -40°C (but please read the pack as it may be vary).
Disadvantages :
> The silicone may have a peculiar odor of silicone at first but the odor will gradually fade out after several times of washing.
> Can't be used on direct heat.

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PLASTIC FOOD CUP

Advantages :
> Colorful, various shapes and sizes, washable, reusable.
Disadvantages :
> Not elastic, can't be used in oven, can't be used in microwave, can't be used on a direct heat.

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PAPER FOOD CUP
Note : This paper food cup for bento is a little bit different with the paper cup for cake. If you rip it then you can see the paper is actually laminated with thin plastic material.

Advantages :
> Colorful, various shapes and sizes, elastic, cute printed pictures.
Disadvantages :
> Can't be used in microwave and oven, can't be used on direct heat, not washable, disposable.


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ALUMINUM FOIL FOOD CUP

Advantages :
> Elastic, can be used in oven, can be use in steamer.
Disadvantages :
> Not washable, disposable, not colorful, can't be used in microwave, can't be used on direct heat.

Now you can see the reasons why I prefer to buy silicone food cup now. It is more value for money and it has a lot of advantages from the other types of food cup :)