Oscar from Sesame Street?

On way home from school yesterday ...

Me : Do you like the monster in your lunch today?

Son KW : I like his green hair. The green hair reminded me of Oscar. You know, the one from Sesame Street. Maybe you can use broccoli for Oscar tomorrow?

Since I was almost "brain-dead" after having baked two Japanese Cheesecake that afternoon, I decided to take his suggestion - using broccoli and turning it into Oscar from Sesame Street. All I needed to do was to prepare the eyes, brows and mouth, right? Simple. Or so I thought ....

I didn't have time to cover the rice ball with smaller florets of broccoli. Even if I did cover the rice ball with broccoli, the boys would end up having too much vegetables, and the box would be fairly empty, since most of the vegetables were "stuck" onto the rice ball. Moreover, the eyes and brows couldn't quite stick to the broccoli. I ended up using some grains of cooked rice to "glue" them to the broccoli. Sigh!

How about the one above? Does it look more Oscar? In my attempt to stick the brows to the broccoli, using grains of cooked rice, I accidentally broke his brows! Sorry, Oscar =p

Lunch for hubby dear .... Panfried fresh Shitake Mushrooms with minced garlic and oyster sauce, prawns cooked in salted water, and panfried chicken in black bean sauce. All the best for your presentation today, and hope that your guests enjoy the cheesecakes and cookies!

There's a Monster in the Garden!

I woke up this morning with blurry eyes. I knew it was going to be a hectic morning. Hubby dear had to leave the house very early. I had to pack his breakfast and lunch, and was left with less than 40 minutes to cook and pack the kids' lunch. Getting the kids to have their breakfast and get ready for school fell into the 40-minute time frame as well.

Hence I settled for a no-cook lunch. Ham flower with a broccoli stuffed in the centre, Japanese fishcake bunny, and Japanese fishcake flowers. A strawberry that look like a flower, with a bee food pick attached to one of the strawberry slices. And lots of broccoli florets.

How do you like the monster's green hair?

Instead of a fierce looking monster, we get a friendly monster with green hair! Two bone food picks were inserted into the floret of broccoli so that the "wig" would not fall off the monster's head =p

The thought of having to bake another two Japanese Cheesecakes this morning was enough to make my hands shake. With blurry eyes and shaky hands, it was with no doubts that the photographs of the boys' lunch turned out ..... BLUR. This was the only one that was focused. Oh well, I guess I need my beauty sleep =)

3-Eye Alien from Toy Story

Meet the 3-Eye Alien from Toy Story! I'm in love these little green fellows. They are not the star in the show, but they are adorable.

To make the alien :

Blanch broccoli. Drain well.

Cut into very small pieces using a pair of scissors.

You can do this while the chicken pieces are being fried and the baby corn are being baked in the oven. Make good use of time.

There will be some chunky pieces of stems.

Remove them from the bowl, and use them as the ears of the alien.

Season with a little salt if you like a little flavor in your vegetables.

Add the rice in the bowl of broccoli and mix well.

Scoop rice (with broccoli) onto a piece of plastic wrap.

Shape the rice into a ball using the plastic wrap.

Remove wrap and put the rice ball into a cupcake liner.

Insert a jewel food pick on the top of the head.

Using a piping tip, cut 3 cheese circles, using the round base of the tip.

Using a punch of a pair of scissors, cut three nori circles.

Put the cheese and nori circles together and you get your three eyes!

Do I have too much time in hand?

Am I too free? No, I'm not.

It's a matter of choice. I choose to let my boys bring lunch to school, and I am thankful that I have this opportunity. Home lunch is definitely healthier than school lunch. And since I am already cooking and packing lunch, why not spend a little more time to "dress up" their lunch? So far, it had been great fun for me, and the boys had been enjoying the different bentos each day.

Hopefully, when they grow up and look back, they remember these bentos, and say "Oh, it was great fun to have them for lunch!". And that childhood to them is having the luxury of time to do what they like ... drawing, reading and outdoor activities. I definitely do not want them to look back and remember their childhood as having spending all their time on loads of school work! I choose to be a stay-home mom so that I can enjoy the boys' company, and for them to enjoy mine =)

Attack of the Goombas

If you are a fan of Mario, you will surely be familiar with these mushroom looking brown fellows. They are foes of Mario and Luigi, and are known as Goombas. They are weak, and easily defeated by a single stomp.

Using the recipe for Hanbagu, I shaped the ground meat into a mushroom head using a piece of plastic wrap, before putting it into the frying pan. Watch the heat as you fry, as you don't want to end up with a blackened face Goomba!

The eyes and teeth were cut from a slice of cheese. The mouth and eye brows were cut from a piece of nori. I seasoned the rice with a little low-sodium soy sauce, and shaped it into the body and feet of the Goomba. Fill the space with florets of broccoli, and you are ready to go! Oh yes, add a couple of choco-mushrooms, and you are in Mushroom Kingdom!

I did a third Goomba for hubby dear, after sending the kids off to school. Instead of broccoli, he had green peas fried with shallots and seasoned with a little vegetarian oyster sauce. And a little container of ketchup to go with the hanbagu nuggets.

Let's hope the big and little men enjoyed their lunch as much as I had fun preparing them!

Mario!

I choose to do a Mario-themed Bento Week for the boys, so how can I not include Mario in the bento? So, here comes the hero .... MARIO!

Mario's cap was cut out from the red part of crabmeat. I like his moustache, but I think I did a terrible job with his eyes. It was challenging to cut out the big ovals from fishcake. I should have just stick to using cheese, as it stick better on nori. And those eyeballs ... oh, too big! I'm just hoping that the eyes will still be intact, and on the face, when the boys open their lunchbox later. Fingers crossed.

Mario was placed on top of some rice fried with egg. Fried rice was initially not on my plan. The initial plan was to have rice cooked in the morning, using the delay function on the rice cooker. And oven-baked char siew chicken thigh fillet, so that while the chicken baked in the oven, I could use all the time I have to put together Mario. However, I was in such a daze last night, I pressed the "Cook" function on the rice cooker without keying in the delay time. So at 9pm last night, I had a big pot of cooked rice, sigh! Frying the rice took up some time this morning, leaving me with little time for cutting out Mario. Mario was not as neat as I wanted him to be.

So what do I do with the white part of the crabmeat, after removing the red section for Mario's cap? Hubby dear wanted to bring lunch to school today, so I cut up the crabmeat and use them for fried rice! I only had two chicken fillets baked, and that was not enough for hubby dear, after packing some into the boys' lunchboxes. So I decided to cook some prawns for hubby dear. I love these prawns! They are sweet, fresh, and best of all, fast and easy to cook! All I need to do is to bring a pot of salted water to boil, put the frozen prawns in and they are done in 5 minutes or less. Remove the cooked prawns and put them into a bowl of icy cold water, to stop the cooking process. You don't want to end up with soft, mushy prawns.

And as I was packing hubby dear's lunch, he asked "Where is my Luigi?". Ok, he meant it as a joke. But who doesn't love the Mario Bros?

Bullet Bill Orb and The Piranha Flower

If you love Super Mario Bros, you will be familiar with the bullet and the piranha flower. But do you know their names? Well, I don't, until this week.

After I had decided that I would have a Mario-themed Bento Week for the boys, I searched the internet for images relating to Mario Bros. I was surprised to find that the above bullet is called Bullet Bill Orb. When I told Darling son KW that I would be making "the bullet" for his lunch, and he surprised me with his knowledge on Mario ... "Oh, that's Bullet Bill", he said.

In addition to Bullet Bill, he requested for the piranha flower. There are many flowers in Mario .. the Fire Flower, the Ice Flower, and the Piranha Flower. And the piranha flower in Mario is known as Pluck, the Piranha Flower.

As usual, I told my boy that I would have to think about what food to use, and how to go about presenting the Piranha Flower. He again surprised me with "Maybe you can use the strawberry, cut it up, and put cheese on it. Maybe the broccoli can be arranged to look like a pipe.".

And so, I took up his suggestion and came up with the piranha flower!

The boy had the structure, and I put in the details =)

• Wash and pat dry the strawberry.
• Cut the top into a "V".
• From top down, slice the strawberry into three pieces.
• Place the strawberry onto a food cup.

• Using a small knife or a toothpick, cut out 2 sets of "teeth".
• Place the "teeth" on the second and last slice of strawberry.
• Cut the "mouth" and place it on the top most slice of strawberry.

Simple, isn't it? Forget about the spots on the flower. I just couldn't get the cheese circles to stick onto the body of the strawberry. I left out the stem and leaves of the piranha flower too, so just to simplify things.

In the bento, we have rice wrapped in nori, presented as Bullet Bill, blanched broccoli florets, oven-baked shaoxing chicken thigh fillet, and a strawberry, presented as Pluck, the Piranha Flower.

Who will we see tomorrow?

Meet Blooper!

Meet Blooper, from Super Mario Bros!

He's that annoying squid-like fellow with many tentacles, blocking the way as Mario tries to swim through water to find the exit. My heart misses a beat, each time I meet him in the game.

Darling son KW was very happy with his Mario Ghost yesterday.

After school, he asked me what he would be having for lunch the next day.

"More Mario?", he asked.

And amazingly, my little boy YW finished everything in his lunchbox yesterday! Can I conclude that they are still super fans of Mario?

In the bento, we have strawberries, blanched broccoli, chicken karaage and rice shaped to look like Blooper. Thank you Kaerenmama, for sharing how to shape the rice to look like Blooper! I don't understand Japanese, but the photo-instructions are clear and easy to follow.

I use Japanese fish cake to cut out tentacles of Blooper.

Can you see them sticking out from the cupcake liner?

I use a lighter colored cheese for the eyes, as I find it easier to cut small circles, using a straw, from cheese than from fish cake. But the white part of the eyes does look like they are cut from fish cake, right?

Grab that star! Transform and fight Blooper!

Looks like it's going to be a Mario-themed Bento week =)