I received some emails from some bento lovers who want to make a simple bento because they don't have much time to prepare bento for their kids, and said that they were not artistic enough to make kyaraben bento. So why not? Simple bento always works for me. Go for it. I made this quick and simple bento this morning. All I need just a small straw to make circles on my yellow egg sheet, flower cutter to make carrot flowers, and food picks to secure the carrot flowers so they didn't fall of. If making egg sheet is too troublesome, you can use nori and punchers to make some variations on the edge. Or you can use zig zag scissor that you get from your local craft store and cut the edge of the nori for onigiri wrapping. As simple as that, so don't be afraid in making bento. You can see that my early bento looks so awful but then I learn to make a better bento from bento friends and reading some bento books which help me a lot. In the end, only choose the style that suits you and you feel comfortable to work with. Everyone will have a different style in their bento making. This way, the bento making will be more fun and exciting. Inside the other round box : red paprika omelet, curry tofu, and braised pork minced meat with potatoes.

I bought these new picks from Bento Craft online store and added them into my collections. And good news is that I will also GIVE AWAY these 3 sets of food picks for my lucky blog reader. All you need to do is to leave your name and email address in the comment box, tell me whether you prefer to make a simple bento or a kyaraben bento. I will draw for a lucky winner on Friday, 29 April 2010.

UPDATE!!
The lucky winner for the giveaway is Cynthia (Comment No.1).
The package will be sent out soon. Enjoy!

I just need to make one bento for my girl today. One of Little A's classmates will have a birthday party during lunch time. So lunch will be provided for the whole class. I made one happy girl holding a green balloon. I thought I still had some cherry tomatoes in the fridge, but they were finished already. No time to change the theme so I just took calamansi (jeruk kunci in Indonesia) from my backyard. Ok, I know it looks weird. Even my daughter said that was a big fan and not a balloon. I made daikon soup with beef stock that I put in a thermal box to keep it warm. And cooked beef shank with spices (turmeric, ginger, lemon grass, garlic, and chili). I only used 2 red big chili so the beef would not be too spicy for my girl. Recipe will be coming up soon on My Bloglicious.

Happy Easter!! Hope you have a great time over the long weekend with your families and friends! Kids are finally back to school again today after one week holiday. Grade 6 students had their school final exam last week so all the grades below them got 1 week holiday. It is common here that Grade 6 students will have 2 final exams, one from school and one from government. Big A had some school projects that she had to finish at home during the holiday. Both kids were  playing with their bicycle almost everyday in the morning and in the afternoon. Big A can ride by herself now while Little A still learns to ride by himself. He doesn't need anyone to hold on his bike now. He is getting more confidence with himself. Kids will have their final exam at the end of the May before the long school holiday begin on June. Hope they can give their best later. One more month to go.

Two weeks ago, I had a problem with the images for both of my blogs, My Bentolicious and My Bloglicious. Some images disappeared. With the helps of Cindy from Forever Tulip, I finally could fixed the problems. I started to make some posts over my new blog - My Bloglicious last week. If you have time, please hop over there. I will  post non-bento post over there from time to time. I won't make bento forever so I decided to blog about something else, food related still. So when I'm 'retired' from bento blogging, I still have something to blog. But don't worry, the retirement won't happened very soon :)

Today's bento theme is Easter. I know, I am a bit late to post this. But kids were happy with the yellow onigiri and the tempeh bunnies. Quick cooking for this morning, I put stir fried green beans and carrots. Also put chicken teriyaki inside the box.

Happy Monday!! Hope everyone had a great weekend and is ready to start the new week. Happy bugs bento for this morning. It was very quick and simple to make from onigiri wrapped in nori and put some face details. Food picks for bug's antenna ... whoalah! only needed 5 minutes to create the happy bug. I cooked sauteed chicken & bacon with celery, mun tofu, tamagoyaki, and steamed carrot flowers. Put the foods together in one box. Then use silicone cups for the happy bugs, just to keep the onigiri dry. I will only make 3 bentos this week as my kids want to have their lunches from school catering on Tuesday & Thursday. And they want another Pokemon bento on Wednesday. So I have to start looking on what I should make for them. I might need to read their Pokemon Dictionary or search from Pokedex.

Please check out Bento4Japan HQ for the latest news and Bento4Japan auction on eBay is still going on.

We passed a pet shop yesterday after school. Kids shouted very loud 'hamster'! I think they missed their hamsters. But if they ever asked me (which didn't happened yesterday), then my answer would still be no for the time being. I planned from last night to make 3D hamsters from hand mold rice but got lazy this morning, so I changed the plan and made this 2D running hamster. The round box will just be perfect for their running wheel. I use egg sheet to make the running hamster. I hope you all are not bored yet with the egg sheet. Please bear with me! I punched some music notes from nori but it kept shrinking when I put them on the top of the rice. I tried to use my music note picks but they are too big, just didn't match with the hamster. So inside the kids' bento no music notes, I put those 'fake' music notes for the picture only. Inside the other round box : fish with soy sauce & ginger sprinkled with sesame seeds, stir fried Chinese cabbage & carrots, and stir fried green yong tofu. I got the green yong tofu from the supermarket couple days ago from the chiller section. The texture is firmer than tofu, tastes a bit salty like fish cake.

I think dry season is finally coming now. The hot temperature just hit us at 31 degree Celcius in the morning, and now outside feels like 38 degree Celcius ... *phew, sweating just to take some limes in the garden. But the weather has been going crazy lately, so maybe it will be raining in the afternoon, who knows? Today I took out my large onigiri box from Sanrio and filled in with rice and decorated with Goofy. I haven't use the onigiri box lately for kids' bento. I should use it more often. In the other box : sauteed pork & onion, stir fried carrots & baby corns, sauteed chikuwa, and dried sweetened red cherries.

Happy Monday! Week by week passed very quick. I have been busy last week with some matters so I was not online much for blogging and tweeting. I will try to reply some of your comments after posting this. Kids' lunches have been provided by school catering last week during my absence to make bento. This morning, I am back to prepare kids' bento. I cooked beef & potato stew in my rice cooker. My rice cooker is multi-functions rice cooker that not only can cook rice in it but also it can be used to cook soup, stew, porridge, and some other functions. It is very convenience for cooking in the morning. Especially to cook stew, it is very quick plus meats are tenderized too. I don't know about other kids but my kids are a little bit choosy when it comes to beef. Most of the time when I cook beef for them, I have to cook it very tender. Otherwise, they won't eat it and complain that the beef is too hard to bite. I put beef & potato stew in the thermal box. And inside the stainless box, I put stir fried chayote, salted duck egg, cherry tomatoes, and rice rolls. Decorated the plain rice rolls with grandpa rabbits. I used hard boiled egg, nori, egg white sheet, jelly balls, and hat picks to make the grandpa rabbits. Happy bentoing!!