I made Pokemon bento again today because my boy wanted me to make some characters that he chose last week. Beside Pokemon, he also chose some other characters from Sonic the Hedgehog. I then ended up choosing Shaymin, who has a small hedgehog-like appearance. The character I made was its evolution type, a raindeer-like appearance. If your kids are a Pokemon fans then I believe you are very familiar with the 'evolution' term here. Evolving Pokemon usually has new powers or skills which make them stronger. I did a quick cooking this morning for kids' bento. Inside the box : rice, sliced omelet on the top of the rice, chicken rolls with teriyaki sauce, and stir fry veggies (green beans, carrots, big chilli). Today is another hot day to bear. If you are in the same weather with me, please take care and drink a lot so we can survive the heat.

Today is the Mid-Autumn Festival also known as the Mooncake Festival. Held on every 15th day of the 8th month in the Chinese calendar. As the moon plays a significant part of this festival, people are celebrating it by eating mooncake. As a Chinese descendant, our family also celebrates this festival. Nothing fancy or big, just bought some mooncakes and share it among us. Today's bento was totally inspired by this festival. I used colorful egg sheets to make the decorations on the top of the rice. I made Chang Er and Hou Yi, two characters that are very popular in one of the Mid-Autumn Festival stories. I did not have much time to do a proper decoration on the face, so the characters became younger version of Chang Er and Hou Yi. Oh well ... you get the idea right? Inside the box : rice, stir fry Chinese cabbage with garlic, cherry tomatoes, and sauteed pork slices-pork ham-chili-spring onion.

Wish you and your family a happy Mid-Autumn Festival!

祝你和你的家人中秋快乐!

I don't prepare any bento for this week. I don't even know what I'm busy at ... but I feel so lost. My boy was a bit disappointed because no bento for this week. Next week I will be just preparing bento for 3 days as I will be traveling to Singapore on Thursday morning and will be back on Sunday morning. I feel so unproductive in bento making now. This morning after the kids went to school, I prepared this step-by-step pictorial on how to make stuffed bread character as many of you have been asking for it. I'm so sorry that I didn't make this earlier, partly because I knew that you can find out from many bento books on how to do it. I can't take the credit from this pictorial but I'm happy to post it just to share it with all of you.

HOW TO MAKE A STUFFED BREAD CHARACTER

Make sure that all the tools are clean and hygiene before you use them.

You can combine different kind of sandwich breads like pandan bread (green), whole wheat bread (light brown), kabocha bread (yellow), yam and purple potato bread (purple), bamboo charcoal bread (black), choco bread (dark brown) ..... I even spotted pink bread that some of Japanese bento maker used. Alternatively, you can use food spray from Wilton to make different color layers from the white bread. Don't worry, even if you only get white bread to use, you can still make this stuffed bread character for your bento. I'm just showing some options that you can use so you can get more creative to make your own stuffed bread character.

These cuts are useful for folding the bread later.

If you are happy with the shapes then you can open the cling wrap. You might need to trim a little bit from the bottom part of the stuffed bread.

You can also use other things such as jelly balls, nori, bread crust, egg sheet, beans, cheese, food picks and a lot more that you can think of to decorate the character. I usually use what I have in my fridge and in my kitchen.

SOME TIPS

Hopefully this pictorial can be useful. Is not too hard right? You can always write your question in the comment box and I will try my best to answer it. Have fun in creating your own stuffed bread character and wish everyone a great weekend!!