Bentolicious

Happy Chinese New Year

2012-01-23T20:31:00.000+07:00

Happy Lunar Year to all of you who celebrate it!
May the year of dragon brings to you and your family
a good health, prosperity, and the happiness.

Due to my health condition at the moment, I won't be able to blog everyday but don't worry nothing serious. I will still put some posts each week in this blog. So please kindly check it if you have time. And I do love to read your comments as always.
Happy bento-ing friends!!

Bentolicious #232

2012-01-12T11:18:00.003+07:00

I was happy this morning when I saw the sun finally shined. But just when I finished making bento and wanted to take the picture, the sky went dark. Probably the baby that I made for today's bento got surprised too LOL :D I tried my best to take the picture, a bit dark though. I don't think I need to explain the ingredients that I used to make the surprised baby and his doll. Can you guess all of them?

Kids will be going home at 3PM today, so here am I, sitting at the Starbucks, typing the post, and probably after this trying to find an idea for tomorrow's bento. I'm thinking about making a character from Sanrio right now. But sometimes the idea will just switch to another idea. Anyway, I wish I can have a cup of coffee with all my bento friends. Wouldn't that be great?

Inside the boxes : rice, stir fry veggies (carrots, green beans, baby corns), boiled quail eggs, cucumbers, and five spice chicken.

Bentolicious #231

2012-01-11T10:57:00.006+07:00

This morning started with cloudy sky. Couldn't barely see the sunshine from the balcony. It has been raining since Monday and we will still expect rainy days for the whole week. I'm bringing my umbrella today just in case. I need to go to some places that doesn't have basement parking. A day like this, basement parking is a life saver.

Kids are back into their normal routines right now. They even already started new project and did their homework yesterday. All the students in Grade 6 are free from extra curricular activities this semester so they can concentrate for their final exam on May. I know ... this is just the first week of the new semester and I already talk about the final exam? Okay, I wouldn't talk about it far but Big A has been preparing for the final exam even from the last semester. Depressing enough? Let's move to the other topic then hehehe ... We got a good news that the new school that we applied for the kids has accepted them. Both of the kids will move to this new school in July when the new school term normally starts here. Hope they can adapt well later.

Inside the box : rice, pink twins (made from rice that I mixed with decofuri, nori, egg sheets, jelly balls, food picks), fried prawns, tamagoyaki, cabbage & carrot stir fry, and cherry tomato. Mayonnaise was put separated in a small container.

Bentolicious #230

2012-01-10T12:26:00.002+07:00

Hi everyone! Happy New Year!
It has been a while since the last post in My Bentolicious. Our has been blessed so much by God! The kids has finished their first semester last December and got excellent results for their report card. I'm very proud of them for their hard works and hope they will keep up the same efforts for the second semester too. We had a family vacation in Melbourne and Sydney in December. We spent the Christmas and the New Year there. We had a great time there! Big A almost couldn't get in because of visa matters. We never realized that she had to use Australian passport to get into the country because she was born there. Luckily, at the night when we were in the airport there was an officer from the Australian embassy. So after almost 1 hour my hubby tried to sort it out and Big A was permitted to travel this time with Indonesian passport. We met my sister and her twins. Couldn't believe that the twins are 2 years now. They are already running around and speaking. I still remembered when my last visit to Melbourne, the twins were still in the hospital because they were born premature. We also met some of our friends there. Kids were excited to see new friends. Big A and Little A even drew a happy family picture and gave it to me and my husband.

God has given so much His blessings last year to us. I'm really thankful for that. I hope this year, no matter what will happen in our life … I believe God will always be with us and give our a way when we face an obstacle in our life. I hope the same for all of you too. God bless you all in this new year!

New semester has started yesterday. I did make bento yesterday for the kids but didn't take any picture so I didn't blog about it. Today, I made the Dragonite bento. A character from Pokemon that my kids asked me to make last night. And I agreed because I think it's appropriate for the first post in the new year as the Chinese New Year is coming soon too on January, 23rd. This 2012 will be a dragon year.

Inside the bento box : rice, steamed coriander meat ball in garlic soy sauce, fresh cucumber slices, and quick stir fry (potatoes, tiny pork sausages, corns and big red chili).

Bentolicious #229

2011-11-29T10:19:00.002+07:00

This week is final exam week for 1st semester. School will dismiss at 11.30AM during the final exam week so no bento for lunch as the kids will eat at home after school. This small portion bento was however prepared for Little A because he will finish the exam at 11.00AM, so there is half an hour wait for his sister. I got this 2-tiers round box from Sanrio. They are pretty small and just perfect for my kid's small portion bento. I'm still on Christmas theme bento. Hope I can do some more before the school break comes. I have been thinking to make an angel since last night so I can use the wing picks again. I haven't use my wing shapes food picks for a long time. I might just have a little time to get online this week, pretty occupied with the final exam things. Pray that the kids will do well in their final exam and looking forward for the school break & Christmas holiday very soon :) Inside the boxes : rice sprinkled with furikake (decorated with Christmas angel from egg sheet, nori, wing shapes food picks), braised thin sliced pork belly & egg, and stir fry bean sprouts.

Bentolicious #228

2011-11-24T06:15:00.001+07:00

I was trying to picture what are the characters that always show up during Christmas time. Of course, Rudolph the red nosed reindeer is one of the famous Christmas icons. So today's bento is once again inspired by my Christmas spirit. Many malls, shops, and cafes are decorated with Christmas theme already. Unfortunately, I never see big window showcase for Christmas at the big malls here. Something that I always love when I traveled to overseas during Christmas time. Inside the box : rice, cherry tomatoes, stir fry veggies (carrots, bean sprouts, leak) with wood ear mushroom, fried boneless chicken thigh with homemade yellow Indonesian spices.

Kids are excited for Christmas holiday but first they will have to do their 1st semester final exam first next week. 2 weeks after the final exam then they will have school break until January. We don't have so many school breaks here. Only on December/January and June/July. So kids are looking forward for the break soon. Just to remind you, if you love bento making please don't forget to join Bento Contest held by Cooking Gallery. You can read the details here. I know some of you probably busy cooking and preparing for Thanksgiving. I would like to say Happy Thanksgiving to all of you who celebrate it!

Bentolicious #227

2011-11-22T10:35:00.002+07:00

Simple and quick cooking for today's bento. I used my cutters to make the rabbit and X-Acto knife to shape the bottom part of the rabbit. The pink whiskers were made from pink dry somen and eyes from nori. I mixed the top part of the rice with egg furikake so I could get yellow rice quickly and to make contrast with the white rabbit. Otherwise, we can't see the rabbit with white background. I put some strawberries inside the food cup, green bean stir-fry with fried garlic, and steamed prawns with lemon and ginger. I actually wanted to cook sambal prawns but I don't think my little boy can handle the level of the spiciness. Probably next time, I will try to cook mild sambal prawns and let see whether he can finish them or not. We are having rainy day almost everyday now. it will be more intense usually during Dec-Feb. We only have 2 seasons here, so my favorite season is rainy season. Weird? I love rainy season because the weather is not too hot and sleeping at night with the sounds of rain is very soothing. Plus I don't need to turn on the air conditioner all night long until morning :)

Bentolicious #226

2011-11-21T18:05:00.001+07:00

Hi all! It has been awhile since I 'disappeared' from my blog. I couldn't manage to blog with so many things to do lately. But this week, I determine to get back to bento blogging. Probably because the Christmas is coming soon? Christmas spirit? I don't know ... But I missed blogging for sure. One thing that I can share now is that my husband and I finally decided to send our kids to an IB (International Baccalaureate) Program School next year. And the kids will take the test for 4 hours this Thursday. Our hope is to give our kids the best education, hope we don't make a mistake for choosing this school. Big A is slowing down with her school projects these 2 weeks but reviews and exercises for government examination are still going on almost every Monday-Friday at school and at home too. Meanwhile, Little A is focusing on some subjects that I thought that actually he could do better. I was stressed out last month, that was true! Am I pushing myself too hard and worrying too much for my kids? Probably ... but isn't that what all parents do?
Two nice ladies, Dian and Karmenita interviewed me last week for their web soft lunch called Moms Guide Indonesia. We talked about bento and also about their vision for Moms Guide Indonesia. I believe that Moms Guide Indonesia will soon gain a lot of readers. Many moms in Indonesia can get a lot of informations there. Please take a peek and you can read our interview here (the web uses mostly Indonesian language).
And then, some of you probably already knew Sinta from Cooking Gallery. She is one of talented bento makers. If you haven't read her blog then you should check her creative blog because she holds the bento contest to celebrate her 100th bento. I felt honored when she asked me to assist her to be one of the judges for her bento contest. I hope all of you can join the event. You can check the details here.

Bentolicious #225

2011-10-14T12:21:00.004+07:00

I was doing something else this morning after the kids left to school with my hubby and then I saw that it was already 09.30AM and I haven't cook anything for kids' bento. I needed to send their bento at 11AM, so I just had 1,5 hours to prepare everything. I almost sent the bento without making any character in it. But I still had another 15 minutes after my quick cooking, so I boiled an egg (for the eyes part), wrapped a tiny rice balls with nori, add jelly balls for the nose. Food picks were used for the final touch. It was easy to make and even easier to call it alien. We will have mom-daughter and dad-son day out tomorrow ... yeay!! Wish everyone a great weekend ahead! Have fun! Inside the box : rice, carrot tamagoyaki, chayote & edamame stir fry, cherry tomatoes, and chilli prawns.

Bentolicious #224

2011-10-13T12:40:00.001+07:00

It seems that bats are always used in Halloween decoration. As promised, I didn't want to make something that was too scary for kids' bento. I had been thinking to make a bat since last night. So here you are ... a confused, silly looking bat ready for Halloween with its party hat on. I hand cut all the egg sheet parts for the bat. I kept making the same mistake in cutting the wings part, so I had to re-do it 3 times until I got the perfect size and shape for this bat. Today's cooking for bento are all Indonesian foods. As you can see, I put small amount of sambal (chilli paste) in the bento. It wasn't too spicy so I hope Little A can start eating a mild spicy food very soon. I just have a little time for online this week. I will try my best to reply all of your comments and emails as well as checking on everyone's great posts. Inside the box : opor ayam (Javanese braised chicken in coconut milk), cherry tomato slices, sambal (chilli paste), tempeh, and cassava leaves cooked with coconut milk.

Bentolicious #223

2011-10-11T17:59:00.000+07:00

My plan was to dig some bento ideas for the Halloween theme. But I think, the weekend was too relaxing that I got carry away and forgot about the plan. I join the others bento moms and bento makers to put on the Halloween theme for my kids' bento. And I hope you can join the fun too to create your own Halloween bento. Kids haven't said anything about bringing something or to do something for the Halloween with their friends. I hope they don't say that they want to make and decorate cookies again. As much as I want to do it and that lately, I become a bit pessimist. I need to motivate myself and have to keep telling myself that I have time to do something that I love for myself. Some of you probably have similar problems as mine. We just do and do everything around the house and for our family then we forgot to do something for ourselves. Anyway ... I wish all of you have a great week! Stay healthy all! Inside the box : rice, asparagus wrapped in thin slice of beef with teriyaki sauce, tamagoyaki, and vegetable stew (potato, carrot, green bean) with spices and coconut milk.

Bentolicious #222

2011-10-07T12:44:00.001+07:00

Yeay! Friday is here. Hope we can have a good rest on the weekend. Re-charge 'our battery' to get ready for the new week. Today's bento is special because the kids went with me to the supermarket yesterday after school and picked veggies and meat for me to cook for their bento. It was fun! They were happy and asked me if they could do it again next time. I made a kitty, he's playing with the ball of yarn. I tried to make the ball of yarn from cooked somen but it kept falling off. So I gave up and used deco furi to make tiny rice ball. My kids are not salad eaters. They prefer their veggies cooked. You can see that most of their veggies are stir fry so they can eat it in room temperature. I love stir fry because it is quick to prepare for bento. Inside the box : rice, kitty (made from orange egg sheet, nori, somen, jelly ball, deco furi rice), fried chicken middle wings with slices of fresh lemon, stir fry veggies (carrot, baby corn, red & green big chilli), Thai sweet chilli sauce was put in other small container (not shown in the picture).

Bentolicious #221

2011-10-06T12:44:00.000+07:00

Today's bento was inspired by a family photo where my hubby was holding Little A when he was a baby. So I made the big panda as a papa panda and used panda food pick for the baby panda. I had a long talk last night with Big A about how to help friend in a proper way. I found out last night that she was doing a project for her best friend. I was so angry at her because she didn't even finish her own project first. Maybe I was over reacting last night. After I calmed down, before her bedtime, I explained everything why I was so angry. She is always nice to her friends but I don't want because of that then the friends use her for their own benefits especially for homework or school project. Their teacher already stated clearly that school project was individual project. She thought it was fine to help her best friend. I explained to her that she was helping her in a wrong way. After giving her some examples about helping friends in right & wrong ways, she understood. Inside the box : rice, cherry tomato, salted duck egg, fried tofu, fried tempeh, beef & potatp stew, and stir fry water spinach sprinkled with fried garlic.

( Put this bento for What's For Lunch Wednesday on Shannon's blog )

Bentolicious #220

2011-10-04T12:11:00.002+07:00

I made a naughty monkey for today's bento. He is naughty because he throws bananas everywhere. The bananas are from fruits picks set that I bought long long time ago at Daiso. I used them here for another monkey bento that I created before. October is the month of breast cancer awareness and Halloween. I am thinking to make pink ribbon bento next week. And I am starting to dig some ideas for Halloween bento. For sure I don't want to create something scary for my kids' bento. This month will be fun in bento making. I think I will see many pink ribbon bento and Halloween bento floating around blogs. Inside the box : rice, monkey (made from yellow and brown color egg sheet, nori, banana picks, tofu), creamy corn, cherry tomato, stir fry cabbage with chilli & spring onion, and roasted chicken with honey & five spice powder.

Bentolicious #219

2011-10-03T19:21:00.001+07:00

I'm back! I have been in MIA mode for the last 2 weeks from blogging. My kids were sitting in the mid-test 2 weeks ago and went home around 11AM. So I didn't prepare any bento for them. After the mid-test, the school hours is back to normal which means I should be back in bento making. I was busy last week since hubby was doing his Master program again in Singapore and India. So I didn't have much time to check the blogs and twitter. So sorry about no-update from me. During my absence in blogging, I just posted some pictures from my mobile phone to Instagram. If you have an account on Instagram then you can check my pictures. I use the same ID with my twitter's ID : bentolicious.

One of my best friends had lost her husband from heart attack last Thursday morning, which put me in shock because I never heard that her husband had a heart problem before. I knew she was in a big shock too when she called me around 8AM. I couldn't believe it and was blank in few moments until I texted my husband. Thursday until Sunday became a very long day, I tried to give my support to her, being with her almost everyday. I hope God will give her and her kids strength so they can move on.

This week, a lot of routines changes for the kids which effect me too. Big A will have enrichment class at school twice a week and additional lessons at home for National exam twice a week with a tutor. Starting from now on, I will make a post at night after the kids go to sleep. And my bento making hour is changing from early in the morning to after kids go to school. It means I will send the bento 1 hour before lunch time to school from now on. Inside the boxes : rice, squirrel (made from yellow & white egg sheets, nori, jelly ball, food pick, lettuce), stir fry veggies (bean sprouts, carrots, ear wood mushroom, red paprika, spring onion), chicken cooked with dark soy sauce & rice wine, and cherry tomatoes.

Bentolicious #218

2011-09-13T10:57:00.001+07:00

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.

Bentolicious #217

2011-09-12T15:51:00.003+07:00

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!

Tips - Stuffed Bread Character

2011-09-09T13:28:00.003+07:00

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!!

Bentolicious #216

2011-08-26T14:00:00.001+07:00

This morning, I only cooked beef soup and rice for lunch bento. I didn't bother to make any decorations for today's lunch bento, instead I tried to decorate today's quick snack bento for the kids. Two bread balls stuffed with beef floss inside. Decorated it with black beans, nori, and cheese to make this black and white buddies. I put some fruits (strawberries, seedless grapes, oranges) from the fridge inside the box. This was quick to make, I meant like really quick. This afternoon we will be cleaning the whole playroom downstairs. Kids will be helping to clean their library and I will be working to clean the other shelves in the room. During the 1 week holiday next week, my husband and I will give some house chores for kids to do. No bento for next week but see you all soon after the holiday. I might be posting something on My Bloglicious during the holiday since no bento making will be happening next week. See you all after the holiday! Have a wonderful weekend and wish an early Happy Eid for friends who celebrate it :)

Bentolicious #215

2011-08-25T10:51:00.000+07:00

The weather was cooling down a bit yesterday and this morning we have a colder breeze. I hope that this is the sign of the coming rainy season. I love the cold wind breeze from our window. Next week, Moslem friends are going to celebrate the Hari Raya / Idul Fitri. All the schools here will be closed for one week starting next Monday. In fact, some of the government schools have been closed from this Monday. Hubby's office will also be closed for 1 week but we don't have any plan to go anywhere this time for holiday. More likely, hubby will do some works and finishing his homework at home. Kids will have some fun later after finishing some school projects. Big A has been asking to learn how to sew. I think I will give her some basic lesson about that. She is a big girl now. At least she has to know how to sew a button. Yesterday, kids were taking their lunch from school catering so I didn't prepare any bento for them. Today, I made a sleeping pea boy with his polkadot blanket. Inside the box : sauteed thin slices pork & asparagus with teriyaki sauce, mini tamagoyaki, cherry tomatoes, and spicy tuna from last night dinner left over.

Bentolicious #214

2011-08-23T11:01:00.002+07:00

If you are following me on Twitter then you would know that I just bought some new food picks for bento. One of them is a candy set. I tried to use one of the candy picks for today's bento by making this candy bear. I used purple and yellow deco furi, nori, jelly ball, red paprika, and steam rice to make the bear. I didn't have time to take a picture of deco furi this morning but I will take the picture tomorrow and post it along with my new food picks and tomorrow's bento on the blog. Inside the box : stir fried chicken char siu & lap cheong, and stir fried cabbage & carrot with garlic oil. Since the cooking was about stir fry, cooking happened pretty quick this morning. And everything in the box can be eaten in a room temperature which I love most when I prepare bento for the kids. They still can enjoy their bento and no need to reheat because the school doesn't provide a microwave oven to reheat their lunch.

Bentolicious #213

2011-08-22T13:03:00.002+07:00

Weekend passed so fast and here comes Monday again. New week to start and hopefully everything will be going smoothly this week. I wish the same for all of you. A simple and quick bento for Monday which I almost let it plain without any decorations because I didn't have any ideas. Then after I finished cooking, I remembered that I still had some yellow & green deco furi. So I quickly opened the package, mixed it with the rice and made simple lemon & lime boys to decorate kids' bento. The face parts were from nori, red paprika, and jelly ball. Hair was from cabbage. Inside the box : sauteed chicken, red paprika omelet, and jackfruit curry. I put some strawberries in a separate box in the fridge last night that I forgot to take out and put them inside the bento bag. Oh well! Kids can have them later after school :)

Bentolicious #212

2011-08-19T10:57:00.004+07:00

Kids are celebrating Independence Day at school today, so no lesson for today. They will just have fun to join different competitions. I can't wait to hear kids' story about the competitions later on in the car. Two days ago, I was told that the pot luck lunch for each class had been cancelled which means I need to prepare bento for today's lunch because the kids will go home at 2PM. I made a little duck swimming with its red swimming ring just to get cooling down a bit from the hot weather. I used yellow egg sheet to make the little duck, red parts were from red paprika, orange part was from carrot, and the wave was made of thin white egg sheet that I teared it up and made it looks like wave. It didn't look so convincing, the wave part I meant but I was happy with it. Inside the box : SPAM cooked with mushroom and carmelized onions, tamagoyaki, and stir fry green bean with red paprika. Happy Friday everyone! Wish everyone a wonderful weekend ahead :)

Bentolicious #211

2011-08-18T12:37:00.002+07:00

I must be hallucinating this morning. I thought I heard the sound of the rain outside but it actually was nothing coming down from the sky. No rain at all this week, and we are all longing for the rain. Hope the dry season will be over soon. My kids are now bringing a big 1L water bottle to the school to avoid dehydration. Every time I pick them up, I bring extra bottles for them to drink in the car. Some of their classmates have been down with sore throat, cough, and flu. I kept telling the kids to drink a lot of water between the lessons. Kids are allowed to put the bottle on their table, so they can drink anytime they want without asking permission to the teacher. I promised to Little A to make Pokemon bento this week so I made one this morning, a Pokemon's character called Minccino or also known as Chillarmy. I saw it from kids' Pokemon book and looked pretty easy to make. I used rice ball, nori, fish ball, and red paprika to make this character. Inside the box : asam chicken (you can find the recipe here), cherry tomato, cucumber, and stir fry Chinese spinach sprinkled with sesame seeds.

Bentolicious #210

2011-08-16T10:31:00.001+07:00

Tomorrow is a pubic holiday to celebrate Indonesian Independence Day. I made today's bento to match the theme for the Independence Day, a boy with a party hat and the red & white flags which are the colors for Indonesian flag. Inside the box : Indonesian yellow/tamarind rice, stir fry green bean with corn, shredded sunny side up egg, and sweet chili sesame prawns. Usually in our neighborhood, we have some competitions for the kids and also for the adults. I don't know about this year because I have not received any notification regarding the event. Probably because this week is still in the fasting month, anyway ... we are planning to eat out and watch a movie tomorrow. Will be back to make bento again on Thursday. Happy Independence Day!!

Bentolicious #209

2011-08-15T11:32:00.001+07:00

Hope everyone had a good weekend! We had a very relaxing weekend at home. Hubby's dental surgery went well on Friday morning and now is recovering very well. I'm back to 100% me and Big A who had cough on Friday is getting better after taking a lot of rest on the weekend. So everyone seems to be back in a good shape. Monday bento is panda bento. I tried to use nori for the ears and eyes but my nori started to shrink quickly that I had to replace them with brown egg sheet (mixed dark soy sauce with egg). Little A originally asked for Pokemon bento but I told him that he could have it this week but not on Monday. I will need to look at their Pokemon books to find some inspirations for the Pokemon bento. Inside the box : braised five-spice chicken and potato, sauteed tofu and egg, rice. Fruits in separate box (not featured in this picture).

Bentolicious #208

2011-08-11T10:16:00.002+07:00

This week is definitely a tough week for me. I have been feeling unwell from Monday, so I didn't make any bento for the kids. That's why no update for my blog in the past couple of days. They just had lunch from the school catering. I felt better yesterday and tried to sleep earlier because I promised the kids to prepare bento for them. This morning woke up with a sore body (again) and just prepared a simple fried rice bento for them. So many things happened in my life this week. My mom's leg was hurt a lot this week so I asked her to check up at the hospital. She has diabetes and she has got accidents twice that broke her leg before. Now, she needs to go to treatment three times for her bones. Hopefully after the treatments all the pains in her leg will go away soon. Hubby will have dental surgery tomorrow morning for his wisdom tooth removal. He is a bit worry about the surgery so I will accompany him tomorrow. Pray that everything will go smoothly for him. Big A will have a longer school day until 3PM on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. And the new regulation from the school that I just received yesterday required every students to take at least one of the extra-curricular activities provided by the school. Big A decided to go to ballet class on Wednesday and Little A will join the chess club on Friday after school hours.

Bentolicious #207

2011-08-04T10:58:00.006+07:00

I don't need to introduce the character in today's bento. I believe all of you already know it. Yes, it's the Pig King from the Angry Birds game. I'm not much of a game person. I do play this game on my iPad but mostly my kids played it and finished all the levels. My girl specifically said that she didn't want any 'green rice' on her bento. So back to egg sheet to make this character. I used food picks for the crowns. A quick way to finish this character. Inside the box : chili tamagoyaki, rice, five spice pork mini burger, stir fry bok choy & tofu, and longans.

This week is a crazy week. Kids' homework and projects are queuing up to be handed. I actually want the kids especially Little A to do his project on his own. But the project itself sometimes needs supervision by the parents. So I ended up cutting, printing, gluing etc. for Little A to finish his projects. In term of time management, Little A can't do it very well yet. He seems to lost track which homework or projects to be handed first. Lucky I don't have to assist Big A too much now. Otherwise I will faint LOL :D

Bentolicious #206

2011-08-03T10:44:00.004+07:00

Kids had 2 days school break for the first two days of the fasting month. My kids' school didn't have any break for the beginning of the fasting month before. This year is the first time they have it. Before I forgot, to all my Moslem blogger friends / readers, I would like to say Happy Ramadhan! Hope your fasting will go smoothly during this fasting month. May God bless all of you!

Today's bento was actually yesterday's bento for Little A. Big A has a group school project and this time she had to do the project at her friend's house from 9AM-1PM. I made this bento, because Little A came with me to drop Big A and went to grocery shopping. I was a bit worry that he would feel hungry because we had late lunch after picking up Big A. So I tried to put everything in the box some foods that were easy for him to eat in the car. Inside the box : rice wrapped in egg crepes, tiny pork sausages with cucumber, stir fry veggies (carrot, daikon, mushroom). Today, no bento making in my kitchen. I just arranged school catering for the kids as they requested. So will make bento again tomorrow :)

The Winners of the Giveaways

2011-07-31T07:23:00.002+07:00

The following are the 4 winners for the 2nd Blog Anniversary giveaways. E-mail notification will be sent out shortly for the winners. Please reply back with your complete postal address as soon as possible so I can send the gift to your address very soon.

Thanks a lot for all of you who participated in this giveaways!

1st Winner

Pam, US, scrumptiousbento[at]gmail[dot]com

2nd Winner

Nani, Indonesia, novianti_n[at]yahoo[dot]com

3rd Winner
Mary Chey, Malaysia, marychey[at]streamyx[dot]com[dot]my

4th Winner
Susan, Northern Ireland, susan[at]arkonitebento[dot]net

Congrats to all the winners! Hope the bento stuffs can be useful for your bento making :)

Bentolicious #205

2011-07-29T12:56:00.001+07:00

Pekkle is a character from Sanrio. My kids didn't know about this duck maybe because we don't see many of its merchandise sold here. I made it from the egg sheets, food picks, and nori. Today's bento box was too small that after took a picture I had to re-arrange the foods again in a bigger box. I stir fried the veggies (bean sprouts, red paprika, spring onion, onion, carrots) and sauteed tofu egg & prawns. I used 4 mini cups, 2 cups for each food. I just wanted the kids to have some fun in eating their foods. They would be busy digging up the foods from the cups today. In a small box, I cut some blood oranges and oranges for the dessert after lunch. The giveaways will be extended until tonight and I will draw 4 winners then announce it on Saturday, July 30. I'm very happy to see many of you leave your wonderful comments! Really appreciate it and thank you from the bottom of my heart. Reading all of your comments are so rewarding, encouraging me a lot. It's Friday again ... Wish everyone a good weekend! I will be in the queue to get the ticket to watch Harry Potter. Wish me luck :)

Bentolicious #204

2011-07-28T21:12:00.005+07:00

Today's bento featured white dogs inspired by Ocha-Ken. I made an Ocha-Ken before here. I made exactly the same bento in the afternoon plus one snack bento for the interview by one of the local tabloids. They thought I was making bento for business such as kid's party catering and bento class ... hahaha ... I really never thought to turn my bento making into business because this is a pure hobby and I'm quite happy with my bento blogging. No pressure :D Inside the white dog bento box : rice balls, cucumber pickle for food divider, cherry tomato, soy sauce chicken, and stir fry enoki mushroom & yellow paprika. Inside the snack bento box : bread stuffed with chicken floss & sesame seeds (shaped into bear), bread rolls with strawberry and blueberry jams, strawberries, melon, blood orange, and orange.

Bentolicious #203

2011-07-26T17:00:00.005+07:00

I made a quick bento this morning without any characters in it. Only punched some daikon flowers with the cutter and placed them on the top of the rice. Inside the box I put stir fry chayote & corn, cherry tomato, five spice pork that I cooked in my pressure cooker last night, and salted duck egg. I only needed to stir fry the veggies, reheated the five spice pork, and salted duck egg was boiled last night. So it was pretty quick to put everything inside the box this morning. Kids just got back to the school last week and they already had many home works and projects. Couldn't believe it. Big A is more responsible to do her home work & school projects on her own while Little A always needs to be reminded about his home work & school projects every now and then. So I must check his school agenda everyday after school. And I will need to sit down with him to see whether he needs any helps to do his homework or school project.

Bentolicious #202

2011-07-25T11:03:00.004+07:00

Happy Monday all! How was your weekend? I hope everyone had fun and is ready to start the new week. I cooked a lot of Indonesian yellow rice (turmeric rice) last night for the dinner. So this morning, I only needed to reheat everything in this box with the turmeric rice, fried chicken, and Indonesian yellow pickles, except for the cherry tomatoes of course. It saved me a lot of time to prepare this bento with dinner left over. I added a small portion of turmeric rice in a separate small bento box because I know those 2 yellow rice balls won't be enough to fill my kids' tummy. I decorated the rice balls with egg white, nori, and tomato skin so the rice balls look like cats. Chili sauce for the chicken was put separately inside the sauce cup for Big A. While Little A was happy with the tomato sauce only. I'm trying slowly to get Little A to try a mild spicy foods at home. So later, I don't need to cook 2 batches of foods at home - spicy and non-spicy for little A. Big A is already on board for the spicy foods and she loves it so much. As my kids are getting bigger now, I start to think whether the kyaraben bento is still appropriate for them. Or do I need to learn a new style of bento? Still thinking about it.

Bentolicious #201

2011-07-22T17:36:00.001+07:00

Today's snack bento was pretty easy to prepare in the morning. I made a small little green boy from quail egg, kamaboko, and food pick. I dyed the quail egg with food coloring by soaking it in the bowl with water + green food coloring. If you want to get the round shapes of the quail egg, you just need to shape it with your hand while the egg was still warm to a bit hot, right after you peeled the skin. Starting next week, I will be back to make regular lunch bento for the kids as they will go back to the normal school hours until 2PM. Big A will stay longer at school every Tuesday and Thursday until 3PM for the Grade 6 enrichment class to prepare them for the National Exam.

Tomorrow as some of you already know is My Bentolicious' 2nd Blog Anniversary. It just does not feel that I have been blogging for 2 years. Time flies so fast. Still I want to thank you my husband and the kids for being so supportive all this time. All of bento friends that have been very supportive too with all of your lovely comments. Thanks for sharing your bento works so we can get inspired by one another. All the blog readers for dropping by and checking my post. I really appreciate it. After 2 years of bento blogging, I have found so many good friends, met up with some of you already and still hope to meet more friends along the way. I am very grateful to be able to join in this bento world with all of you. My husband has been teasing me from time to time. Because he knows that I am easy to get bored doing something. He bet that I would stop bento blogging after 2 years. Hahaha ... don't worry, I'm not ready to retire yet. Hopefully I can still make bento for the kids and share it with all of you in this blog.

To share the love of bento making with all of you, I put 4 giveaways. All you need to do is just give your comment with your name, country, and e-mail address as the following format example :

{comment} ....................................................................... {comment}

Kitty, Indonesia, kitty [at] yahoo dot com
You can put your comment to enter these giveaways until Thursday, July 28. One person one entry. Then after that I will draw for 4 winners and post it in the blog on July, 29.

Bentolicious #200

2011-07-21T12:52:00.001+07:00

I shaped 2 bears from white bread and stuffed them with chicken floss inside for today's snack bento. The box was just filled with some fruits (strawberry, golden kiwi, orange) that we had to finish today. We are still in dry season ... it's a hot day today. I drove the kids to school this morning and the sun was so bright making the driving uncomfortable. How about you? Are you enjoying the weather wherever you live right now? Little A is a bit fuzzy when it comes to fruit. He will only eat some of his favorite fruits. I'm trying to buy different fruits every 2 or 3 days just to get him to try other fruits too. As my 2nd Blog Anniversary will be on July, 23 and I don't usually blog on Saturday, so tomorrow I will post the giveaways. All you need to do is just put your comment, any comment is fine then I will draw 2 winners for the giveaways. Until then, stay safe and have a great day all!

Bentolicious #199

2011-07-20T18:35:00.009+07:00

I usually posted my bento before picking up the kids from school. But today it was crazy, so many things to do. Today's bento was just as simple as it looked. No cooking required at all this morning. Doughnuts were bought last night and I just put some fruits (strawberry, orange, and longan) in separate box for the kids. My yellow bear was made from left over egg custard filling for my bao. You didn't read wrong. During my bento break, I had taken some baking classes. Learning slowly from knowing nothing about baking and trying to be brave to start baking simple things. Oh well! Bao doesn't require baking only steaming but with still using yeast and other things just like in baking, still I was so nervous. Hopefully later I can bake my own doughnuts. Basically, I just rolled 3 balls from the egg custard filling, ressambled little bear and decorated with white jelly ball & nori. Quick and easy! I will post the custard filling recipe over my other blog My Bloglicious, so you can check it later :)

Bentolicious #198

2011-07-19T12:30:00.001+07:00

We have some left over rice from the dinner last night, so I made quick bacon & egg fried rice for bento. I used my small and medium sizes of heart shapes rice mold to shape the fried rice and put cherry tomato to fill in the gap between the two small heart shaped fried rice. In the other round tier, I just put dragon fruit, kiwi, and mangosteen. After took the picture then I realized that I couldn't put mangosteen in the bento box as they turned brown very quick, so I took it out and replaced it with more dragon fruits and kiwis.

Big A loves to read and her hobby actually brings a good impact to Little A. Now both kids love to read and their book collections in the playing room is growing so fast. I have to re-organize the space soon, so we can put more books into the bookshelf. My husband and I set a new rule that starting this new school year, the kids are not allowed to read story book and comics during the weekdays / school days. They only can read them during the weekend and on holiday. We have the reason for doing that. It is simply because we want them to be discipline and to be more responsible for their studies. By the way, I think some of you can guess the books that I put on the background of this photo. Those are Diary of a Wimpy Kid. The story is quite funny. I didn't read the book but we have the DVDs. We watched it for movie night on last Saturday night and had a good laugh. Of course, after watching the movie we told the kids what was good and what was bad, the things they could follow and should not. As parents, I believe that we are responsible to teach and guide our kids about that.

Bentolicious #197

2011-07-18T12:31:00.001+07:00

Hello everyone!! Kids are officially back to school today. Big A is in Grade 6 and Little A is in Grade 3 now. This year will be a tough year for Big A as she will have 2 final exams, one from the school and one from the government. It is a regulation here that students from Grade 6 (Primary), Grade 9 (Secondary) and Grade 12 (Tertiary) will have 2 final exams. I'm glad that finally I can get back to bento making after a long break from blogging. This week I will just make snack bento or smaller portion bento for the kids because this week will be an orientation week where all the students will be dismissed before lunch time. So it's good for me for warming up, catching up with other bento makers, stretching up my 'lazy nerves' after on hiatus for more than 1 month. I hope I don't forget about how to make bento for my kids LOL ... *silly me*

Inside the box for today's bento, I only put sandwich with ham & cheese and Indonesian traditional cake made from cassava covered with coconut. Decorated with yellow egg sheet and nori with the Anpanman & Friends food picks. This bento didn't take a long time to prepare. Didn't require any cooking in the morning, so pretty quick to prepare. Egg sheet was very easy to cut. First I cut it as same as the size of the sandwich and then started to trim and make a school bus shapes with my X-Acto knife. The wheels were cut with the round cutter. And upsss ... my kids asked why there was no bus driver (???)

On Hiatus

2011-05-19T12:28:00.021+07:00

Hi everyone!

I know that I am just back for bento making but life here is so busy lately. I am thinking to take a bento break in June when my kids are on 3 weeks school break after the final exam. But lately I have been busy with so many things outside the blogging, it burns me out. So I decide that I will be on hiatus from now until July when the kids are back to school again. I will definitely be back ... promise!!

Even better, stay tune in July because I will celebrate the 2nd Blog Anniversary. You can check some cool giveaways later. Until then, thank you for all my bento friends and readers for your kind and sweet comments that always encourage me (^.^)

Bentolicious #196

2011-05-16T11:39:00.081+07:00

Happy Monday! Glad to be back in bento making again. I had a trip to London 2 weeks ago with hubby. My kids couldn't join us this time because they weren't in school holiday. And with the final exam is coming near, they have many reviews at school. My parents stayed at our home to babysit the kids. That was our first time to leave the kids more than 2 days. And this was our first long trip after we had kids. Felt a kind of 'honeymoon" trip for us :) Also, I met Mils from notabrownbag on my last night in London. She and her hubby were so kind to meet me, and we had Thai dinner together. She was totally cool! Glad to meet a bento friend face to face. Kids were on 3 days school break again last week because the Grade 6 students had their final exam from the Government. So I didn't have much bento making ongoing. Then blogger was down last Friday, so I didn't have a chance to post Friday's bento. But some of you might seen the rubber duckies bento already from my twitter and flickr. And today's bento is shown below. The 'confused tiger' was made from egg sheet, cheese, and nori. I should have put more details from nori but didn't do that because I didn't have much time this morning. Inside the box : boiled egg with yellow spices, stir fry bok choy, and fried middle wings. Hope everyone have a great day! And happy bento-ing :)

Bentolicious #195

2011-04-27T11:59:00.004+07:00

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!

Bentolicious #194

2011-04-26T12:19:00.002+07:00

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.

Bentolicious #193

2011-04-25T12:04:00.000+07:00

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.

Bentolicious #192

2011-04-11T11:15:00.002+07:00

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.

Bentolicious #191

2011-04-07T10:04:00.001+07:00

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.

Bentolicious #190

2011-04-05T10:49:00.002+07:00

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.

Bentolicious #189

2011-04-04T12:28:00.002+07:00

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!!

Bentolicious #188

2011-03-30T10:22:00.002+07:00

I saw a picture of this silly sheep when I browsed some animal pictures on the internet for Little A's homework last night. So I cut out the silly sheep from the egg sheets and put it on the top of steamed rice. I was looking for my butterfly puncher and cutter to make a butterfly on the silly sheep's nose then remembered that I have the butterfly pick. I quickly use that. I need to re-arrange all the food picks in my boxes this afternoon. I don't know how many sets that I have collected so far. I am not obsessed to collect them but when I find a new cute set, normally I can't resist to buy it. My bento shopping isn't so crazy as before, believe me. I try to cut down the budget for bento shopping this year. I only buy something that I will use and I need for my bento making. Inside the other round box : spam meat with egg, fish cake tofu, cherry tomatoes, and stir fried Chinese cabbage with carrots.

Bentolicious #187

2011-03-29T09:54:00.002+07:00

Today's bento is as requested by my kids. They love to watch Pokemon movie at home. And they have been talking about the new Pokemon character in the movie. So this morning, I got up early and made this new Pokemon character called Snivy (Japanese : Tsutarja). Kids can remember each Pokemon character's name, what they will evolve to, what type it is, and so on. I mean there are hundreds of the character in Pokemon. How come they know each one of them? Anyway, I think my boy will be pretty happy with the today's bento. He asked me so many times to make Pokemon bento for him. Inside the blue round box : strawberries, kumquats, sauteed chicken with yellow paprika, and water spinach & soy bean paste stir fry. The water spinach was too dark green, so I cut out little butterfly to make a contrast. Today's food picks that I used were from a dearest bento friend, Megan. Thanks a lot Megan to send it all the way for me! She sent them to me last year and I kept it for so long in the box that I almost forgot to use it. Glad to use it to add bright yellow color in the box.

Bentolicious #186

2011-03-27T08:42:00.000+07:00

Friday is here! It means the weekend is coming and I couldn't wait. I felt so bored this week and hubby is still glued to his tons of job. When you do the same routines everyday for so many years, I think it is normal that you feel bored. Not complaining for the routines that I have to do for my family or being selfish about it, but I really need a break and I think I deserve that. Today's bento was a quick one again. It was easy to prepare and I hope those 2 little pandas didn't melt before the lunch time. I made it from cheese and nori, put them on the top of the rice balls. I put some middle wings fried chicken, sweetened red cherry, kani & edamame salad (dressing in the separate container, not pictured), carrot flowers, and 'egg noodle'. Psstt .... That egg noddle was actually omelet that I sliced thinly so looked like a noodle. Enjoy your day and wish everyone a great weekend ahead!

Bentolicious #185

2011-03-23T16:14:00.001+07:00

My twin bento is actually an identical bento for the kids. So they always get exactly a same bento. Of course I don't always buy the same bento boxes for them but I have some bento boxes, same size and shape, only different in color. As you can see from the picture, my girl took the pink 2-tiers box and the boy took the yellow one. I love to use same bento boxes for them because it saved me a lot of time to put everything inside. Basically just copy and 'paste' from one to the other box :) Big A seems ok this morning, still have a little cough but I think she can do her swimming test very well. I made these simple rabbits with rabbit head shaped cutter and clover cutter. As clover means lucky leaf, so these rabbits are lucky rabbits. I hope they bring luck to Big A. I ran out fish ball and kamaboko, so I used hard boiled egg to make the rabbit. Just punched the cutter on the hard boiled egg and for the clover just soaked them in water with green food coloring. Linked this bento to What's For Lunch Wednesday.

I bought Hippomum's new bento book. I love this book! You can check on her blog chaRa-beN workout and the book can be ordered online from the book store here. Her bento book contains 141 pages written in Chinese which give me so much benefit because I can read it. A lot of tips and step-by-step pictures, so don't worry if you can't read Chinese. The pictures are pretty clear to tell you how to make the kyaraben bento. She is one of the creative & talented bento moms and she is very neat for every details in her bento making. Some recipes are available too at the back.

Bentolicious #184

2011-03-22T16:24:00.002+07:00

I made a speedy bento for the kids. I was not feeling very inspired to do any egg sheet cutting or to make any cute characters today. So I just did a simple and quick one. It took me less than 10 minutes to put everything inside the box, made this bento looked so effortless. I put two kumquats, baby corn & baby carrot stir fry, kani roll from dinner leftover and baby tomato roses. Sprinkled furikake on the top of the rice and used duck food picks to decorate. Big A got a flu and started to cough lightly since yesterday. She will have the swimming test tomorrow and unfortunately we can't ask permission for her to skip the test. Everyone has to do it on the same day. I am just worried that she will come home tomorrow with fever or worst flu and cough. Pray and hope that she will be alright after the test.

Please support Bento4Japan via eBay auctions.

Many items have been added to the list.

Bentolicious #183

2011-03-21T11:01:00.002+07:00

Welcome to Monday again! Hope all of you had a great weekend and everyone can have a great start for this week. Kids' school hours are now back to normal until 2PM after the mid-test last week. Bento is back to normal lunch size. I made a puppy from rice and decorated it with nori, jelly ball, and inari skin. Inside the box : steamed rice, bean sprouts & spring onion stir fry, cherry tomatoes, fish & cucumbers in yellow spices, and carrots. I hope the fish will not be too spicy, I used sweet chili so kids can still eat it. My girl has no problem with spicy foods now, but my boy is still adjusting from the mild level. Soon, I can put more spicy foods in their bento.

The Bento4Japan auctions on eBay are still going on.

Please support and check it out if you have time.

Bentolicious #182

2011-03-18T09:53:00.003+07:00

Today is the last day of the mid-test for the kids. Although next week they will still have their swimming and PE field test, that will not make me worry because I know they can do well. I made a snack bento for the kids today. They only have 15 minutes break between 2 subject tests. I didn't need a lot of time to prepare this snack bento for them. I explained to them that those little angels with little onigiri are the symbols that I made for all of the bento friends around the world who have helped and joined forces to raise funds for Japan.

For all of you who doesn't know about Bento4Japan, please visit Bento4Japan HQ.

Find out more on how can you help and take part.

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Bentolicious #181

2011-03-16T10:24:00.002+07:00

Today's small pack bento was made to give supports for the people in Japan. Pray for them to be strong to face what happened in there, never give up hope. Although the tsunami has stopped but the impact of the tsunami will take quite some times for the people and the government to rebuild and restore their homes and the city. I saw from the news last night that earthquakes were still happening in some areas and the nuclear crisis just made so many people worried about it. Some bento friends are trying to raise funds for Japan in so many ways. What I can think is a quick money donation sent to IFRC (International Federation of Red Cross). Or you can follow me to make your money donation via PayPal where you can choose from 8 non-profit organizations to put your money donation. PayPal is very secure site and the process is very quick and easy. You can donate starting from USD 5 and choose the non-profit organization that you like from the drop down box at the bottom of the page. And you can get your donation receipt right away on the last step. For Indonesian readers, if you are not familiar with PayPal but still want to make donation, please contact me via twitter or leave a comment with your e-mail address so I can contact you. Then I will explain it to you and guide you step-by-step if needed. I urge all of you who read my post, please support Japan and make your money donation now. As this will be a great help for people there. I remembered what happened in Aceh tsunami on 2004 where many foreign countries including Japan gave so many supports. This time is our turn to give back and helping out.

You can also check what other bento friends are doing to raise funds for Japan and participate :

Bento4Japan - eBay Auction - here

Bento4Japan - Donation - here & here

Bentolicious #180

2011-03-14T14:55:00.001+07:00

Entering a new week and my weekend passed so quickly, I didn't feel that I just had a weekend this week *sigh*. My husband and I arrived in Jakarta from Singapore on Saturday noon and had a traffic jam on the way home for couple of hours - it took us longer from the airport to our house than from Singapore to Jakarta LOL. It just tired us. Miss the kids and finally got home around 2.30PM, saw their happy faces were priceless. Hubby's medical check up result was all good but he got an infection for his sinus that has to be treated for 2 weeks. His sinus has been gone bad lately and went to many doctors in Jakarta but with no good results. That was why we decided to check with the doctor in Singapore. Pray for him so the medicines will work well on him and his sinus can be treated well too.

I met two wonderful persons, Tona and her cute son, Kimi on Saturday. Tona is one of the bento moms from Singapore. You can see her blog here. We went out for lunch, had a chit chat, and did a little bit of shopping on the way back to the hotel I stayed. I had a great time with her and Kimi. Thanks a lot Tona for everything! I hope we can meet again next time. Although I couldn't get much online when I was Singapore but eventually I manage to get online from the hotel's wi-fi and was shocked to see the tweets about Japan's earthquake and tsunami on Saturday. I was waiting for my hubby from the hospital at the hotel room and my heart sunk to see the pictures from CNN news about the earthquake and tsunami. Thanks God that all friends that I know were ok and safe. This is a traumatic experience for the people living there. I know this experience has been exhausting both mentally and physically to my friends. My thoughts and prayers are with them. Thanks to Makiko Itoh, the writer of The Just Bento Cookbook and the owner of Just Bento and Just Hungry blogs. She has been worked very hard to tweet and keep updating about the latest situation in Japan. You can follow her on her twitter @makiwi. And if you would like to make some donations, please check on her post here.

This week my kids will sit on the mid-test. As usual, they will be dismissed from the school earlier and have lunch at home. So this week, I will just prepare small portion bento or snack bento for them. I made onigiri bread stuffed with pork floss for them and put some fruits inside the box.

Bentolicious #179

2011-03-09T10:39:00.003+07:00

My boy said to me last night to make a special bento because he would miss us when we were away in Singapore tomorrow and Friday. I said how about airplane but he said no. So I made mom and dad characters with a big heart for today's bento. Hope he can feel our love through this bento. I also made his favorite steamed meat balls from ground turkey, diced carrot and glass noodle. Added stir-fried chayote & edamame, omelet with red paprika, and cherry tomatoes. I know that cherry tomato isn't his favorite but I'm still trying to put that for his bento. Stubborn mom LOL :D I hope I can manage to get online from Singapore to see all of your beautiful bento. But as for me, this bento is the last one for this week. Sorry for being so unproductive this week. Happy bentoing everyone!

Bentolicious #178

2011-03-08T11:42:00.001+07:00

Hope all of you had a great time over the weekend!

My kids didn't make it to the final spelling bee contest on Saturday. Little A was taking it easy but Big A was disappointed. So after the contest we went out to have lunch, bought some books at the Kinokuniya book store, and watched a movie. Big A seemed happy and forgot her disappointment. I got the newest Akinoichigo's bento book (8th) that I ordered 2 weeks ago. I'm her fans and have been learning so much about charaben bento from her bento books. Her newest book is very inspiring as always, a lot of fresh ideas inside. You can see her other bento books that I posted here and here.

I made 2 green girls. Shaped the onigiri by hand and used green deco furi for the green part of the onigiri. Also stuffed some char siu inside the onigiri. Inside the other box : hard boiled egg, stir-fried lap cheong with celery, stir -ried veggies (carrots & cauliflower). Yesterday, I did 3 simple bento photo shoots including step-by-step for Sekar magazine. It was a great experience! And I wanna thank TUM and Sekar Magazine for the opportunity. This week, I will just prepare bento for today and tomorrow. I will be in Singapore from Thursday until Saturday. My parents will stay at my house and look after the kids.

Bentolicious #177

2011-03-03T10:24:00.001+07:00

2 more days for the kids to practice at school and at home before their spelling bee contest on Saturday. We have been doing so much practice at home in the afternoon. Anything can happened on Saturday but I really hope the kids will do their best. I made a 'spelling' bee for their bento. The bee looks a bit dizzy, maybe it suffers from too much spelling practice LOL :D Instead of 1 hour lunch time. The kids will only have 30 minutes lunch time today because the English teacher will have some tests for them to prepare for the contest. Hope they can finish their lunch quick. Kids were asking for fried rice bento but hey ... Mommy didn't have that 'blank' day anymore this morning, so fried rice bento will be served next time. Inside the boxes : steamed rice, stir fry Chinese spinach and corns, fried egg, pan fried chicken with oyster sauce, mun tofu, and cherry tomatoes.

Bentolicious #176

2011-03-02T18:37:00.002+07:00

I really went blank today. Woke up this morning, went to the kitchen 'blank' ... Opened the fridge 'blank' ... Took bento boxes in the cabinet 'blank' ... What was wrong with me? I really wanted to 'boo', to surprise myself so I could get rid of this 'blank' thing in my head LOL :D Finally, I managed to cook a quick chicken fried rice. This is my first time to make Hinamatsuri (Girls' Day in Japan on March,3) bento. I made some colored egg sheets and used various small cutters to cut out the characters. Put them on the top of the fried rice. Added some prawn crackers on the top side of the box. After took the picture, I realized that those crackers will get soggy if I put them in the same box with the fried rice. Then I moved the crackers to a small airtight container. This way the kids can still enjoy their crispy crackers at their lunch time :)

Bentolicious #175

2011-03-01T12:34:00.002+07:00

Didn't have any mood to prepare bento from yesterday but finally managed to make it this morning. I think I got way too tired over the weekend which made my week started so slow and uninspiring. Hope tonight I can pull myself together again and find some ideas to make bento for this week. I did a simple and quick cooking for today's bento. Inside the box : yellow bird on the top of the rice, cucumber flowers, sauteed chicken minced meat with tofu & potato, stir fry chayote, half hard boiled egg, and strawberries. Salt and pepper were put inside the small yellow food cup.

I baked some buttermilk cookies on Sunday night to join the fun with other tweeps this month for #twitterfoodparty #twittercookieparty ... You can join this event too. #twitterfoodparty is held every month (on every last Monday) with a different theme.

Bentolicious #174

2011-02-23T10:24:00.002+07:00

Many cooking competition shows are showing on the cable TV right now. Me and the kids love to watch cooking shows lately. And the kids' favorite cooking show is Junior Master Chef. I can say that the show is quite inspiring for the young kids and even for me. To see how they are so motivated to cook and to present it very well to the judges. At such young age, they can do all those amazing food styling. I'm not sure that I can cook and present the foods so nice like they do. So today's bento I made Junior Chef bento for the kids. I used various cutters to make the junior chef. Inside the other box : corn fritters, sauteed Chinese okra, cherry tomatoes, boiled egg, and tiny pork sausages. Tomato sauce was put in the different container (not in the picture).

Bentolicious #173

2011-02-21T11:23:00.002+07:00

I didn't plan to make any kyaraben bento for this morning. So I just did a simple and quick bento. I made this after dropping the kids to the school and sent the bento one hour before the lunch time started. I got my new food picks from J-Mama online store last week. I love her online store with a lot of cute stuffs that I can use for my bento making. I bought from her online store several time and the service never lets me down so far. If you are in South East Asia and looking for a cheaper shipping fee to your country, J-Mama is the best choice. The rabbit food picks are so cute that I decided to put it on the top of the rice for quick fixed bento. Inside the boxes : 2 big hand molded onigiri, tamagoyaki, sauteed chicken & mushroom, cherry tomatoes, and stir fry cabbage & carrot.

Bentolicious #172

2011-02-18T10:19:00.000+07:00

Yellow bug for today's bento because this morning started with a cloudy day again and we miss Mr. Sun somehow. The weather like this it just made us wanted to tuck under our blanket and have a few more hours of sleep. We will probably do that tomorrow since the weekend is coming (yeay!). We still have a lot of rain pouring over this week and probably next week too. So the temperature has been nice, not too hot and too stuffy. No special plan for our weekend but we will enjoy it and I wish for all of you too ... Have a great weekend with friends and family!

Bentolicious #171

2011-02-16T11:43:00.000+07:00

Yesterday was a public holiday here, so no bento was made. I cooked a big pot of Indonesian chicken curry this morning. And packed the curry for today's bento, added some bok choy & egg tofu stir fry along with the steamed rice. I put the little monkey on the top of the rice and banana picks all around. It looks like the little monkey is juggling the bananas :)

Both kids were chosen from school to participate in a spelling bee competition for international curriculum school on March, 5. So they are starting to practice at home. And their English teacher gives them a special training as their preparation. My girl didn't make it to the Top 3 last year. This year she seems to be more motivated. For Andrew, this will be his first time to join. He is usually very shy in front of public, so we keep encouraging him to be brave and to try. We also keep telling them that it doesn't matter whether they win or loose, the imporant is that they should try do their best for this competition. But we also want them to learn about always giving their best, not only for this competition, but for everything their do in life.

Bentolicious #170

2011-02-14T10:50:00.001+07:00

Happy Valentine's Day all!

I packed this bento as the last Valentine theme bento. I made the little birds flying around. Only used small cutters to make this bento and pretty quick to prepare. Inside the box :rice, strawberries, tamagoyaki, garlic prawn & carrot-cucumber salad (sauce on separated box).

Project cookies pops has been failed. It was my idea to make that for kids' classmates but then my kids said it was too big to decorate. And they wanted to make heart shaped cookies instead. So we started baking the cookies on Saturday and kids decorated the cookies on Sunday. I took some of kids' pictures in the kitchen with my mobile phone before they 'banned' me from the kitchen. Funny though because my kitchen was separated with the big glass door so I could still see what they were doing with the cookies LOL :D I posted the pictures on my twitter (you can follow me here). They had a lot of fun decorating the cookies for 3 hours. They decorated 150 cookies by themselves. So each of them brought 75 cookies to share with their classmates, teachers, and they said they wanted to give it to security and cleaning service staffs too at the school. Each one of the cookies had a different design on the top with the icings that I made. Didn't know how they could do that, they just kept floating the cookies with the icings. They had a lot of fun and I was happy to see their exciting face holding a box full of their homemade cookies. We always teach the kids to share and to care. This is just a simple thing that they successfully did. I'm very proud of them.

Bentolicious #169

2011-02-11T12:38:00.000+07:00

How fast the time is...today is already Friday again. Wish everyone a great weekend ahead! Today I just made a simple snack bento for the kids. Kids will have lunch from school catering today. Mainly used cutters to decorate this bento. Inside the box : egg fried rice, oranges, cucumber, lap cheong Chinese sausage), asparagus, and strawberries. I should put more efforts to decorate the face details but I wasn't really inspired today, so I just used puncher for the details with nori. I separated the egg yolk and the egg white to make the white and yellow egg sheets. I cut it with X-Acto knife and made it in 3 layers this time. Love my tiny heart cutter but actually I made some cut by hand at the top of the heart so you can see the heart shape clearly. Oh well, maybe this bento will be the last Valentine's theme bento if I can't manage to make one more on Monday. Tuesday will be a public holiday here, so I'm planning to have dinner out with the kids on Monday night because hubby will be on the company trip from tonight until Tuesday night.

Bentolicious #168

2011-02-10T10:52:00.001+07:00

Cupid is something that we often see around Valentine. A lot of stores, Valentine's cards, flyer, etc. are picturing Cupid. So I tried to make Cupid for today's bento as he is one of the popular icon for Valentine. I used heart food picks for the arrows and glad to have those wing picks for easy use to create this Cupid. And I have to mention that I forgot to create the bow for the Cupid. In the other box : beef onion meat balls, green beans and carrots stir fry, and sweet orange slices.

Yesterday, the area around my house had a black out for 8 hours since the morning. It put me in no mood to prepare bento, so I went to a baking supplies shop instead. I just received the new Wilton's Pops book and wanna try baking some cookies pops this Friday and decorate it on the weekend. Hope everything is ready by Sunday night so the kids can take them to school and share it with their classmates. Wish me luck! That's the plan, don't know whether I just give up half way before even the baking starts LOL :D

Bentolicious #167

2011-02-08T11:40:00.001+07:00

Little purple bear with the pink heart was made for today's bento. I used deco furikake or rice seasoning mix for my green, purple, and pink rice. I wanted to make the bear and everything with colored egg sheet but then I changed my mind this morning. I bought the green pack from Daiso and pink pack from iSetan supermarket from my last trip to Singapore. I took the deco furikake pack picture, so you can see the packaging. It is a great use to make bento. Inside the other box : chicken wings cooked with Chinese cooking wine and ginger, stir fry bok choy, mini oranges, and strawberries.

This morning is a bit quite at home. Kids are in the school and hubby in the office, so practically home alone. Got some old cooking magazines, browsed through it and found some interesting recipes that I could try this week. Put post it to bookmark it. I am actually thinking to type all the interesting recipes from the magazines, so I can store it digitally and easier to find next time I need it. Or perhaps scan them is a lot easier to do.

Bentolicious #166

2011-02-07T11:25:00.000+07:00

Happy Monday all!!

I'm back to my regular bento making now after all the busy family business finished. My sister and her family flew back to Melbourne last night. So my routines around the house are pretty much back to normal. Chinese New Year was celebrated simple with the whole family. Had a great time with all the family members.

One more week to Valentine's Day. And I'm thinking to make some of Valentine's theme for this week bento. Although we don't celebrate it big here but Valentine is still something that people love to celebrate. Our family doesn't really celebrate it in a big way either. My kids has been asking me from last week to bake some cookies or cake that they can bring to school and share with their classmates. Let's see what can I bake this weekend for them. Today's love bug was made from rice (body and head), red cabbage (wings), facial details (nori and fish cake), heart food pick (antenna). And added star fruits, strawberry, Chinese spinach, fried fish cake, and five-spice pork in the other box.

Bentolicious #165

2011-01-31T21:05:00.000+07:00

Today's bento was inspired by Chinese paper cutting and the pattern was copied from one of the Chinese paper cut for year of the Rabbit. Instead of red paper, I used red egg sheet and my X-acto knife to cut the pattern. I couldn't use the same spot as usual to take the picture and this picture was taken in the kitchen, and it came out a little bit dark and I lost the details on the rabbit's body *sigh*. Inside the box : tiny oranges, char siu pork, and stir fry veggies (green beans, yellow beans, carrots).

Today, I feel a lot of better from my cough. Try to eat healthy, drink a lot of water and still avoid to use antibiotic to recover. I'm glad that the kids are healthy, hope they will not catch the same bugs as me. The weather has been crazy from the weekend, like one hour was so hot and the next our was rainy ... it changed every hour. This year, I won't host the Chinese New Year celebration at my house. We haven't decided yet where will be the place to celebrate with the whole family. I think will be either at my parents' house or in a restaurant. I baked some pineapple tarts with my mom and my sister last week, and the tarts were almost gone even before the celebration started :) Hope everyone has a great week ahead!

Tips - Chocolate Painting

2011-01-28T19:00:00.004+07:00

Finally, I took the pictures of my chocolate painting to share it with everyone. I am back in Jakarta from Semarang with a bad cough. Felt better 2 days ago and then am downed again. Yesterday was the worst, couldn't stop coughing since morning and had trouble to sleep. My sister and her family are staying in my parents' house until Sunday. I hope I can catch up some rest and sleep during this weekend. I got the idea to do chocolate painting from Wilton YearBook. In the book they use icing sugar to paint, I chose chocolate for painting. I'm not a pro on this. You can see that my outlines still 'struggle' there :) Hope the following pictorial can satisfy some of you that have been emailing me asking about how I do chocolate painting.

(1) Print out the picture on tracing paper, parchment paper, or wax paper.

(2) Cut the chocolate with one hand grasped the handle of the knife and the other hand placed midpoint on the back of the knife (push the knife down). Gradually move the knife across the block of chocolate.

(3) Prepare all the colored chocolates that you want to use.

(4) Melt the chocolates one color at a time with double boiler, microwave, chocolate melting pot or other melting method that you are comfortable with.

(5) For outline, you can use Wilton's round tip number 1 with disposable decorating bag.

(6) Prepare the print out picture. Turn the picture for painting (picture 8).

(7) Make the outline first. Remember not to use the hot melted chocolate right away for the outline because we want the outline stand still instead of going everywhere. Test it on other paper first, if too runny wait for few minutes until the chocolate cooled down a little bit. Leave it to cool down and harden for few minutes before we start fill-in.

(8) For the other chocolate colors to fill in, no need to use Wilton's tip. Just cut away a little bit on the edge of the disposable decorating bag. Don't cut too much, better to make a small cut first and if the chocolate is hard to come out then you can cut more later.

(9) Paint each part with the different colors. Remember to melt the chocolate one at the time because chocolate is easy to get harden. Tooth pick can be used to push the chocolate to the edge (picture 12). To avoid bubble in the chocolate, tap the table few times in between fill in process.

(10) When all parts are already filled with chocolates, cool it down. You don't need to put it on the fridge to cool it down. Just put it on the table at the room temperature for few minutes. Don't worry too much if the chocolate looks wavy or wrinkled, as long as you fill in everything.

(11) Last step, cover the painting with the white chocolate as shown in the picture 16. Let it cool for few minutes. Don't use overheated chocolate if you don't want your work ruined.

(12) Carefully separate the paper from the chocolate. Don't hold the chocolate too long with your hand as it will melt quickly. Move it to a plate, wrap the plate with cling wrap. It won't melt in room temperature.

Bentolicious #164

2011-01-17T11:35:00.002+07:00

Happy Monday! I'm still making a Chinese New Year theme for bento. I chose to make a girl with lantern. Lantern is one of the decorations that we often see in houses and shopping centers during the Chinese New Year. So I think this bento is appropriate for welcoming Chinese New Year. Today's bento was pretty simple. I only put sauteed minced pork with potato and scrambled egg on the top of the rice. Added some steamed kabocha slices at the top.

My sister and her family will arrive in Jakarta this afternoon. We are excited to meet them all. Kids have been excited to meet their first cousins. And I can imagine the whole house will be so noisy later.

Tips - Fun Tamagoyaki

2011-01-14T18:24:00.006+07:00

It has been so long since my last post for Tips section. And since so many bento friends have been asking me on how I made my tamagoyaki, I decided to take some step-by-step pictures on how I did it. Hope this pictorial can help, although my way is not a perfect one but I have a lot of fun make it this way. Usually I follow Maki's recipe from Just Hungry to make my basic tamagoyaki but you can improvise with different ingredients later.

You don't need to do this if you just wanna make a regular tamagoyaki. I separated the egg yolk and the egg white because I want to show you how to make 2 tones tamagoyaki.

After you put all the ingredients inside the bowl then beat the mixture until even. You don't need to beat the egg white. And if you get a lot of bubbles in your egg mixture like mine, no worries ... as long as you use low heat then tamagoyaki will turn out fine.

If you don't have tamagoyaki pan then you can use your non-stick pan. I use small spatula/turner to roll the egg later, but you can also use chopsticks if you feel comfortable with it.

Brush the pan with a little bit of cooking oil before using it and in-between each layer making.

If we use high heat then the tamagoyaki will burn or you will get a very dry tamagoyaki. So keep in mind, low heat is a must. If you are an expert then you can use medium heat.

You can start pouring some egg mixture into the pan after you heat up the pan. Don't pour too much because it will be hard to roll later.

When you see the top layer like wavy water then you can start roll the egg to the opposite site as shown at the picture below. Don't wait until it is too dry because the first layer is very crucial so you can have a nice and neat center.

Push the egg gently to the first place and start pouring the egg white mixture. Make sure that the egg white mixture is glue well with the egg yolk mixture.

As you can see on the Step 3, I've got 3 bowls which are 2 bowls for egg yolk mixture and 1 bowl of egg white mixture. And if you see the first picture on the top, the center of tamagoyaki is darker than the outside. We have 2 types of chicken egg here. One is called broiler chicken egg and the other is called organic chicken egg. The organic chicken egg is smaller and has a white shell with a dark yellow/orange egg yolk.

Bentolicious #163

2011-01-13T18:29:00.002+07:00

The rabbit theme is still hoping around this blog. I made two rabbits popped up from the pea pods log. The rabbits were made of hand molded rice balls, dry yellow somen, nori, jelly balls, and white part of crab stick. Flowers were made of carrot and red part of crab stick. Filled the box with steam rice, strawberries, slice of lemon with chicken karaage, and veggie dumpling. I hope my kids won't ask me to buy rabbit as their pet after this. So far, none of their pets has lasted for more than 3 months. From fish (died), turtles (runaway), hamsters (get bored and gave them to a friend) ... So I don't think if we get any new pet will last long either. They asked me before for a puppy but I never said yes, so they get tired of asking. Perhaps later if they are bigger and are committed to take care the pet then I will say yes.

Bentolicious #162

2011-01-11T18:20:00.001+07:00

Chinese New Year will be celebrated on the 3rd of February, 2011. This year will be the year of Rabbit on the Chinese calender. Sooner or later, I should start to make rabbit theme and Chinese New Year bento, so I made this yellow ears rabbit for today's bento. The white rabbit was made of steamed rice molded with hand, decorated with egg, crab stick, nori, and jelly ball. As usual when I molded the rice by hand, I used cling wrap to shape the rice and to get the smooth surface of the rice balls. I needed a contrast for the white rabbit, so I put the fried egg rice on the bottom for the background. Inside the other box : tamagoyaki, sauteed bean sprouts, oven shoyu chicken, mini oranges, and sweetened cherry.

If you notice, I use a lot of the 2-tiers round bento box. It is my favorite. I feel pretty convenience to use it to pack my kids' bento. When I just started my bento making, I bought many bento boxes without considering the size of the box. I was too busy to choose based on the cute picture on the box over the right size box for my kids. Now, I choose carefully. I don't want to buy bento box that is too large or too deep. Too large and too deep, not only it is too much for my kids' lunch portion, but also it is hard to arrange the foods and it looks ugly to photograph LOL :D

Bentolicious #161

2011-01-10T20:31:00.000+07:00

Happy New Year to everyone!!

Kids are back to the school today after a long school break. And I'm back too ... for bento making and blogging. After my long bento break, I need to push myself and get rid all these lazy holiday bugs to make bento again this morning. I made 2 green boys from rice balls, decorated with nori, crab stick and cucumber for the ears. I also put fried prawn ball, Chinese cabbage & yellow paprika stir fry, and mini sausages inside the bento box. The portion was definitely too little for the kids this time. When I picked them up at school, my boy said he was still hungry so they had double portions for the afternoon snack.

If you ask me whether I have made a special plan for my 2011 bento then the answer will be NO. I'm still enjoying my bento making and don't want to make it too pressure for myself. So I'll let it flow day by day and keep sharing it in this blog. My agenda is full for this month with some activities that I decided to join up, my little brother's upcoming wedding in Semarang (1 hour domestic flight from Jakarta), and next week my sister and her family are coming to Jakarta. They will stay in our house for 3 weeks. With the twins, I think I will be quite busy around the house and as their private driver LOL :D So forgive me, if this January will still lack of bento post. I have made some arrangements for school catering this month. So my bento making for January will be on and off. Anyway, it's glad to be back again for bento. I missed a lot of bento posts from all of bento friends, so have to catch up after this post. Wish everyone a great week and happy bento-ing!

Bentolicious #160

2010-12-16T16:25:00.003+07:00

This is my last Christmas theme bento and the last one for this year. I made a simple fried rice bento covered with omelet, decorated with egg sheets to form our family. From here, although it's a bit early, we want to wish you a joyous Christmas! Our family has been so blessed through out this year, in bad times or good times ... God is always watching over family. I'm personally want to thank you all for your supports via comments, emails, tweets all this time. I really appreciate the friendship through this blog with all of you, I really do.

Tomorrow, kids will have their school Christmas celebration and it will be a final day of school for this semester. They will have school break until 9 January, 2011. So the second semester will start again on 10 January, 2011 where I will begin my bento making again. So now, it's time to enjoy the holiday. We will depart from Jakarta this Sunday to our holiday destination, Maldives. And later we will stop by in Singapore to celebrate Christmas there. And back to Jakarta again to celebrate the New Year with our families and friends.

So, until next year ...

Hope all of you enjoy and have fun holiday with your family and friends!

Chocolate Painting - Hello Kitty & The Christmas Wreath

2010-12-14T09:37:00.002+07:00

Today is the last day of the exams. Phew! I feel relieved ... But this semester is rather different. Usually the kids will receive their report card on the last day of the school before the break. But this semester, they will have it after the school break.

Last night I made chocolate painting. I used the Hello Kitty and the Christmas wreath picture that I found on the internet. This is my first time to do it. It took me 4 hours for the whole process from chopping the chocolate, melting the chocolate, paint the picture on the parchment paper and let it dry cold in the fridge for 1 minute. I only got 8 pieces, and I broke 1. I still need a lot of practice but it's fun to do. I want to take the pictures on how I did that but it was so hard to do the painting and have to take the picture by myself, so I just gave up. Probably next time. Kids love it especially the green chocolate is mint flavor.

This time I didn't took a picture with the foods inside the snack box. But the foods that I prepared for the snack bento was pretty much the same : heart shapes sandwiches with Hello Kitty chocolate painting on the top, mini roll cake - strawberry & pandan flavors, sweetened cherries, mini strawberries, and mini tangerines.

Bentolicious #159

2010-12-13T16:30:00.002+07:00

I couldn't get online much last week. So sorry for the lack of posts. This week will be the last week of Christmas theme bento before the school holiday begins. My brother in-law's wedding was held on last Saturday. Everything went very well although it was raining in the morning during the Holy Matrimony at the church. Kids didn't attend the Holy Matrimony because Andrew got sore throat and a bit feverish, so they just attended the dinner party in the afternoon.

For Monday's bento, I chose to make Mr. Snowman from bread as this will be a snack bento during the exam day. I stuffed pandan kaya jam inside the bread and added strawberries, tangerines, and bananas. The fruits were pretty tiny this time so fit perfectly in the small snack bento box. Mr. Snowman were decorated with fish sausage wrapped with egg sheet (hat), red egg sheet (scarf), colored egg sheets (buttons, hat), carrot (nose), nori (face details), and jelly balls (hat details).

We will have a hot Christmas at our holiday trip destination. So instead of snowman, I think my kids will build a sandman LOL :D Me and my husband made a check list for our holiday trip. Travel with the kids has to be prepared for any kind of situations. We are all looking forward for the holiday soon :)

Bentolicious #158

2010-12-06T15:30:00.001+07:00

My kids are starting their final exams today. And because tomorrow is a public holiday, they will finish the exam next week. 2 more subjects have been added to the final test. Usually they only have 9 subjects tested, now it becomes 11 subjects. The school will dismiss earlier during the final exam week at 12PM so I didn't prepare lunch bento for the kids only snack bento. They can eat it during the break between the tests. I put sandwich filled with chicken floss and butter inside, fruits, mixed nuts, and decorated with an angel on the top of the sandwich. Angel is coming with the gift for well behave kids!

We celebrated hubby's birthday yesterday. We had a delicious lunch at the Rustique Grill & Wine restaurant after Sunday Service. Kids woke up early to surprise their Daddy with the birthday cards and presents, hugs and kisses. We had a great time together. So, how was your weekend? Hope all of you had a good time too.

Bentolicious #157

2010-12-03T10:54:00.000+07:00

Friday is here again! I'm planning to take the kids to the cinema to watch The Chronicles of Narnia - The Voyage of the Dawn Treader this afternoon. Audrey got the Narnia book collection and Andrew loves Aslan. So I'm sure they will enjoy the movie so much. The movie comes in 3D format, so it will be more fun and exciting to watch. I found a birthday gift for hubby already, so this afternoon before watching the movie the kids will have a chance to find theirs too.

I made Santa's reindeer for Audrey's bento this morning. And my boy mentioned yesterday that he wanted to bring bento again next semester. I think he heard my conversation with my girl every time in the car when I picked them at school. I always check my girl whether she finishes the bento or not ... and she would told me about her bento, her friends, her teachers in the classroom. I can say that become our little sweet conversation along the way. The boy got jealous? A little bit maybe or he got bored with the school catering already :) Either way, next semester I will have to prepare double bento again for the kids.

Inside the box : rice, pork yakiniku, tamagoyaki, carrots, and Chinese spinach.

Wish everyone a great weekend ahead!

Bentolicious #156

2010-12-01T14:55:00.000+07:00

December is here ... yeay!! How fast is that? So many things in my to-do-list yet so little time to accomplish *sigh*. Soon we will have Christmas and enter a new year. It might sound so rushing but I can tell days in December flown away pretty quick. Hubby's birthday is coming in another 4 days and I'm still blank, don't know what to prepare for his birthday gift. Kids have been asking when I will take them to buy hubby's birthday gift. They want to choose by themselves, each one of us will have different birthday gifts for hubby. Kids usually will pick up something 'amazing' that we as an adult will never think about it. I used my various small cutters to make boy and girl with their Christmas outfits. As usual, using cutters save me a lot of time.

Inside the yellow box : strawberries, braised peanuts, stir fried Chinese okra, crab meats in tomato garlic sauce, and spam wrapped in egg.

Doraemon Pancakes

2010-11-30T12:43:00.001+07:00

No Christmas theme bento for today. But I posted the pancake instead. I made the pancakes for the kids this morning using my other cute pancake pan, Doraemon. Yes, you read it right! I just couldn't resist to buy these cute pancake pan when I had a trip to Taiwan. I posted Donald Duck pancakes before here. Last week when I went to a baking supplies shop, I bought strawberry paste and pandan paste that is commonly used for baking cookies, cake or bread. So I thought it will be cool to make 2 colors Doraemon pancakes this morning. The paste didn't just bring out the color but also the strawberry and pandan tastes too. This is perfect for Christmas breakfast with 2 tones colors, more festive feel I think.

I used Pillsbury pancake ready mix and pancake syrup. Is easy to make and quick too.

All you need are :

> 1 cup Pillsburry pancake ready mix

> 170-180ml water

> 1/4 tsp (1.25cc) pandan paste / strawberry paste

Mixed all the above ingredients in the bowl until even and no lumps.

Bentolicious #155

2010-11-29T12:09:00.002+07:00

I have been MIA from online and blogging a couple of days ago. Audrey was sick too on Friday, followed by me on Friday afternoon. But I'm glad that we had 2 days on the weekend to rest and to recover. Today we are back to normal again, ready to do our routines and activities. I continue to do my 2nd Christmas theme bento this morning. I made a boy with deer antler Christmas hat and red scarf. Deer antler Christmas hat were made from colored egg sheet and the red scarf were made from crab stick (only the red part). Inside the other box : steamed pork prawn balls and stir fried veggies with garlic (baby corns, broccoli, and carrots).

Kids will start their final test for first semester next Monday so reviewing the lessons will start this week at the school and at home too. Audrey got the exemption to do writing task for her PE test. She is starting to research and collect some information as her PE teacher asked her to do. I wish everyone has a great start for this week and stay healthy!

Bentolicious #154

2010-11-24T18:40:00.000+07:00

My first Christmas theme bento begins with the Santa Claus laundry. He is getting ready for Christmas and so are we. Couldn't get so much light this morning, so the picture is a bit dark. Andrew was sick from yesterday so he is staying at home. He woke up at the same time with me this morning. Later he just went back and forth between the living room and the kitchen to do the 'quality control' for this bento LOL :D He kept saying easy to me and he wanted to help to make this bento. I gave him one egg to brake in a small bowl and he literally broke it and spilled half in the small bowl and the other half on the kitchen table. This morning my level of patient was very high, so I just tidied up for him. After that what he did was supervising me when I cut the egg sheet free hand with my X-Acto knife. Oh boy! He was the boss this morning in the kitchen.

Inside the other box : braised chicken & potatoes, stir fried baby bok choy & fish cake, and small mandarin orange.

Linked this bento to What's For Lunch every Wednesday.
Please link your bento too and share it with everyone :)

Bentolicious #153

2010-11-22T13:30:00.001+07:00

Have you watched Harry Potter 7 Part 1 - The Deathly Hallows? We watched the movie on Friday afternoon. The theater was full but hubby was so smart to buy the tickets for us ahead. Audrey was enjoying the movie while Andrew was bored after half it. My kids never watched the Harry Potter moview (1-6) at the cinema before. So it was always only me and my husband. But I have the Harry Potter DVDs collection at home and my kids were having Harry Potter movie marathon (1-3) on Saturday. Inspired by the movie, I browsed the internet and found the cute Harry Potter cartoon here. I used egg sheet to re-create the character although I couldn't create as details as the original cartoon because of the time limitation. But I think I'm happy with it.

I hope everyone had a great time on the weekend. I have one good news to share. One of my bento pictures has been featured on newsletter from SCA Hygiene Malaysia Sdn Bhd (picture shown below). The company asked me whether they could use one of my bento pictures for their company newsletter and I didn't have any objection on that. In fact, I love they asked for the permission first which showed their appreciation for my bento pictures. Thanks to Jasmine and Sherin to send me a complimentary gift. I was surprised to receive that on last Friday. Now thinking about Christmas, thinking about when I should start making Christmas theme bento. Maybe I will start tomorrow, school break is coming soon. So I will try to find some ideas for that tonight.

Bentolicious #152

2010-11-18T12:23:00.002+07:00

I didn't make any bento yesterday because it was a public holiday here. Yesterday, I went to a Korean supermarket near our house and bought a pack of Korean mixed grains rice to make today's bento. We love Korean foods. We have this Korean restaurant called Hanwoori, very close to our house (only 5 minutes drive) owned by a Korean family. The couple is very friendly to the kids. The wife always comes to our table and chats with the kids. Andrew's favorite is Soluntang and Audrey loves Bokkeumbap and Jap Chae. She even loves the Kimchi Jigae now. As this is the first time to introduce Kongbap (mixed grains rice) to my girl, I made 2 heart shapes onigiri. The Kongbap contains 14 kinds of nutrition for a healthy diet. At least that's what I read from the package. And the package contains barley, rice, brown rice, black rice, sorghum, buckwheat, mung bean, and millet. The mixed grains rice tastes very good, a bit sweet with a rich texture in it.

I added 2 characters boy and girl with the hands positioned like make a heart shapes. If you love to watch K-Drama then you will know that they usually do this and say 'saranghae' - is Korean to say I Love You. Inside the other box : heart shapes tamagoyaki, cherry tomato, stir fried carrot & cabbage with onion, and ebi katsu with shiso leaves.

Bentolicious #151

2010-11-16T11:12:00.001+07:00

Good News! Yesterday we went to the doctor and have x-ray on Audrey's broken hand. And she is now free from her sling, back to normal. Doctor said she needed to be careful for the next 6 months until everything has recovered perfectly. Her left broken hand looks a look smaller than the right hand. She will have to exercise with the squeezed ball to strengthen the muscles. Meanwhile, we have made a letter to the PE teacher and the school principle to give her exemption for not taking PE classes for the next 6 months.

I layered the pink egg sheet on the top of the rice and decorated with a cow character made from 3 colors egg sheet. I found a new way to make pink color egg sheet with pink dragon fruit extract juice. I just need one drop to mixed it with the egg white to get that light pink color. And if you can see, the pink egg sheet got the white pattern on it. That was because I didn't whisk and strain my egg white. Inside the other box : stir fry green bean with onion and red paprika, prawns with salted duck egg, chuka wakame, and cherry tomatoes.

Bentolicious #150

2010-11-15T12:42:00.002+07:00

Did you all have a good weekend? I hope so. Mine was just great with my family. Wish everyone has a good start for this week. I will be very busy with 2 big weddings coming up, hubby's birthday, my girl's birthday, kids' 1st semester exam, Christmas, holiday, and some others things on my list ... phew!! So today's bento was a quick and simple bento, it only contained fried rice and fruits. I used my Kokeshi Bento Box (Ichiro & Hanako) from Bento&co. The round box is pretty small so I put fried rice in 2-tiers Hanako box, and put the fruits, tomato ketchup in 2-tiers Ichiro box. I love to prepare fried rice with different ingredients. This time I put a finely chopped carrots, baby bok choy, Chinese chives, onion, red paprika, egg, and lap cheong (Chinese sausage). I ate one small bowl this morning for my breakfast, couldn't resist the temptation really. Added a little cuteness, a girl from the quail egg sunny side up, decorated with nori and tomato skin. Tada! No need a long time to prepare it this morning.

Bentolicious #149

2010-11-11T11:02:00.002+07:00

If yesterday's bento was in-between mouse and rabbit. I make sure without doubt that today's bento is really a rabbit. I made Ms. Bunny from Walt Disney's animated film Bambi. Inside the box : rice, red paprika omelet, stir fry Chinese cabbage, cherry tomatoes, lemon, flower shapes fish sausages, and chicken karaage.

Last night, me and my husband did some works for our Christmas holiday. Finally we booked our airplane tickets and accommodation online. Everything is set, now hope nothing changed from what we've already planned. Destination? I will tell everyone's later. I only can say, the place is very good for hibernate, relax, enjoy the view and no snow. I will share some pictures from our holiday via twitter if I can get the wi-fi connection hehehe ... :D

Bentolicious #148

2010-11-10T09:47:00.003+07:00

I couldn't get online much since the weekend. I had fun over the weekend with the dinner gathering on Saturday's night and a baking class on Sunday. We hosted the dinner at home, it was fun but made me feel so tired. I felt like my energy worn out that night. Baking class was a lot of fun from 10AM until 3PM. We baked a lot of cookies in the class. Hope the fear of baking will slowly disappear. We went to the immigration office on Monday to renew our passports so my kids were absent from the school. We couldn't make it if we had to wait until the kids went home from the school. The kids were happy because they felt like having 1 extra day for the weekend. Yesterday was uninspired and unmotivated day to do bento, so I blamed on the lazy bug LOL :D Back to bento business today, I made a simple mouse on the top of the egg fried rice. I used hard boiled egg and dry egg somen to decorate the mouse. This one was quick and simple to do. But somehow, I felt my mouse looks like rabbit or a rabbit that looks like a mouse. Oh well ... let your imagination guides you, what do you see? Mouse or rabbit?

Inside the other box : shoyu chicken, flower shapes carrot, cherry tomato, edamame, broccoli & cheese and baby corns.

Bentolicious #147

2010-11-05T22:19:00.000+07:00

Happy Friday! Another quick and flying week ... I'm surely very tired this week. We just 'passed out' last night, both me and my husband. I thought we woke up by alarm bell at 5AM and slept again until Audrey knocked on our bed room door, entered and then said 'Mom, it's already 6.20AM' ... wuahhh I jumped out of the bed, took shower and prepared breakfast for the kids. Bento was way too late to be prepared because the kids had to leave at 7AM from home. But after the crazy morning, I still managed to make bento for Audrey. My husband dropped the kids to school before went to the office. I made this bento with no one at home and it was more fun and relax. I will go to drop this bento to the school before lunch time at 12PM. And will wait at the Starbucks near kids' school until 2PM to pick them up.

The owl was made with colored egg sheet (again) and as you can see, I used a lot of small cutters to make some details for the owl. The tree was made of celery. Inside the other box : sauteed Chinese spinach & corns, cherry tomato, prawns in tomato & garlic sauce, edamame, and fried fish cake. All of the foods in this box are Audrey's favorite. I didn't make any bento for her yesterday so she just had lunch from school catering with Andrew, who still 'refuses' to bring bento to school :p Some friends from my Junior High will have dinner at our house on Saturday and guess what ... I will be going to a baking class on Sunday. I will start from the simplest class first - 'making cookies'. Wish me luck, hope I can overcome my fear to bake LOL :D Wish you all a great weekend!!

Bentolicious #146

2010-11-03T16:52:00.002+07:00

If you remember my post on Bentolicious #141 then you will remember that I mentioned before about The AppStore Bento Challenge at Mils' Blog - Not A Brown Bag. So I chose 'Cut the Rope' game from AppStore that my kids and I love to play on my iPad. Andrew is very good with this game. He always taught me on how to win this game whenever I failed to cut the rope and couldn't deliver the candy to the green little monster called Om Nom. This game is very popular in AppStore. It sold out 1 million copies in ten days.
I used colored egg sheet to create 1st Part - Cardboard Box - Level 1 (as shown below from the screen shoot) . Inside the other box : fried chicken, macaroni risoles, carrot & daikon salad, (mayonnaise in separate container not shown) and cherry tomato.

I linked this bento to What's For Lunch every Wednesday at Shannon's Blog. Please link yours too so you can have fun sharing your bento and see others too.

Bentolicious #145

2010-11-02T12:00:00.009+07:00

I wrapped two rice balls with yellow egg sheet to make two boys in cat suit. For decorating the face part, I used jelly ball, nori, dry somen, egg sheet, and carrot. Some strawberries were put to fill in the empty space on the top of the box. Inside the other box : stir fried veggies (green beans, red paprika, corns), sauteed tofu & potato with sweet soy sauce, cherry tomato, and chicken teriyaki.

I feel pretty exhausted from yesterday. Lack of sleep just made me like veggie. Hope my kids will have extra energy because they will start their extra math lesson this afternoon at 4PM. They will have it twice a week on Tuesday and Thursday for one hour. Usually we arrive at home from school around 3, so the kids will still have 1 hour to have snack and a quick rest before they go to the extra math lesson. The place is pretty near our house, only less than 10 minutes. So hope the kids will enjoy it today!

Bentolicious #144

2010-10-30T18:46:00.000+07:00

The last Halloween theme bento was made today. This snack bento wasn't prepared for school because today is Saturday. So everything inside this snack bento was from this morning breakfast. Sandwich, Indonesian traditional cakes called 'centik manis', and a few slices of orange. I decorated the sandwich with devilish girl on the top. I hope everyone who celebrate this event will have a lot of fun with their kids, families, and friends. I have been enjoying making the Halloween theme bento and saw other bento friends did. Till next year then for more.

As we don't celebrate this event, so this weekend is just like another weekend. No trick or treat, no costume party, etc. but we will still enjoy our wonderful weekend together as a family. I have been busy this morning to do gowns fitting for my brother in law's wedding on December, 2010 and my little brother's wedding on January, 2011. We have been planning for Christmas holiday too. But until today, we have no luck with the plane ticket to the destination that we want to go. We don't know yet whether we will stay in Jakarta or we will be lucky enough to go somewhere else. Wish everyone a fun weekend!

Bentolicious #143

2010-10-28T17:39:00.003+07:00

Kids' Halloween costume party idea is for today's bento. I made 1 vampire boy, 1 frankenstein boy, and 1 devilish girl. One more Halloween theme bento to go for tomorrow which I don't have any idea yet what to make for the last one. Next month my kids will start an extra math lesson (twice a week) called Sakamoto method. Basically they will be given some worksheets to do with story, then they will have to solve the problem. I love this method and I think both kids will get benefits from the extra math lesson especially Audrey who will sit in the national examination next year. School here are much more competitive now and every subject is getting harder every year. Andrew loves to do math worksheets so this will be fun for him as well. For me, I will have to do more jobs on driving and waiting hehehe ... :D Inside the box : rice, sauteed small scallops with lemon grass & ginger sauce, quail eggs, steamed broccoli, and cat shapes carrots.

Due to the earthquake & tsunami in Mentawai and volcano eruption in Merapi, The Urban Mama (TUM) is arranging the donation that will distribute later to the victims in both areas. If you want to make a donation, please read more here.

Bentolicious #142

2010-10-27T11:21:00.002+07:00

Made the Witch sillhoutte for today's bento. I found the picture from the internet. I copied and pasted it to a trace paper, put the trace paper on the top of the egg sheet and then cut it. This was pretty quick to do. Inside the box :rice, chicken karaage, braised five spice egg, and stir fried veggies (baby corn, carrot, green bean).

Indonesia is mourning for the earthquake with tsunami in Mentawai, Sumatera and for the volcano eruption in Merapi, Yogyakarta. There are many victims in those disasters. Hope and pray for them, hope God will give they strengths for this hard time and for them not to lose their hope. Jakarta itself had some flooding in some places in the past couple of days because of the extreme raining season. It has caused hour and hour of traffic jam. One of Jakarta's biggest problems that is never resolved yet after so many years. One only can hope that the condition is better soon. So sad all of these bad things happened in Indonesia. Although we can't avoid natural disasters but at least I think Government should have better plan to minimize the losses.

Added this bento to "What's For Lunch" every Wednesday. Add yours too!

Bentolicious #141

2010-10-26T12:31:00.000+07:00

Continuing on the Halloween theme bento. I chose to make a black cat for today's bento. I was supposed to make a spider web from nori but my migraine hit me again this morning. So I just gave up with the nori spider web cutting and just put a picture of spider web instead. I didn't get online yesterday, so I will have to catch up with everyone's blog post and tweets. I brought Audrey to the hospital yesterday afternoon and met her doctor. We saw the X-Ray and the broken bones has joined up. Thanks God! The cast has been opened too yesterday. Now, she only wears a thin hand band for another 3 weeks. Hope the bones will heal up and join up perfectly!

Inside the box : rice, pan fried fish, stir fried snow peas & sweet pepper, half of cherry tomato, and tamagoyaki. The brown color tamagoyaki was made by adding dark soy sauce and salt and mixed together with egg.

Bento friends, please join the fun in bento making for :

(1) The AppStore Bento Challenge at Mils' Blog - Not A Brown Bag

(2) October B.O.M.B at Debra's Blog - Hapa Bento