The Lunch Box Chef

Australia's Yahoo!7 has been the homepage to my Yahoo mail lately. I find it 'messy' as it's packed all over with all sorts of information and distractions.

I usually ignore the gossip and news busters on the home page but today, The Lunch Box Chef caught my eye.

"Laurent Vancam has worked in some of the world's finest hotels cooked personally for the likes of Sir Paul McCartney but 10 years ago he turned his back on the stars for a far more important job of all things running a school tuckshop."

Chef Laurent has recommended five simple recipes in the link above.

Here's his website link: www.cheflaurent.com.au. He's got more recipes there and the Youtube clips are easy to follow.

Korean Japchae

Today is a public holiday for FT so both the girls are off. I made Japchae. The recipe was taken from here. It's easy and delicious.

This below is for dinner tonight!



Yummilicious!!

Hahaha!

I visited Emily, I was bored and I impulsively took this test! Hahaha!

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No bento day!

Friday's class ends at 9.30a.m. Shuttling continues to music class, choir practices, music practices and a non-stop preparation for competitions and weekend programs.

I baked 6 of these babies yesterday in between runs.

Bento 257

This morning was easy because #3 took a box of cookies to school and I'm sending her a pizza for lunch afterwards. The two elder girls class begin at 10.00a.m and I had time to go back to sleep and wake up again to pack a bento for #2 and breakfast for #1.

I made a meat loaf last night so it's meat loaf sandwich this morning. The capsicum and onions gave the meat loaf a sweet and flavorful taste. Yum Yum.

There is also a pear and some lady fingers in the bottom box.



Yesterday, mum and I baked orange cookies using a cookie press.

Meat loaf

I was bored last night and tried my hand at making meat loaf. I browsed through several recipe websites and finally figured that I had to improvise on the recipe because I didn't want to shop for the unavailable stuff.

This is a good reference for the cooking method although I didn't follow the ingredients to the tee. As you can see the picture below, the ingredients I used was minimal and available at home.

My recipe:
250 ground beef
250 ground pork
1/2 cup cream
1 tbsp Lea & Perrins
2 tbsp tomato sauce
3 heap tbsp bread crumbs
1 egg
1 tsp chopped garlic
1 tsp Oregano
1 tsp Celery
1 large yellow onion (chopped)
1 red capsicum (chopped)
Salt and pepper to taste.


Method:
Saute the onions and capsicum in some EVOO. Allow to cool. Set aside.
Use hands and mix the meats and the rest of the ingredients together well.
Mix the onion and capsicum mix with the meat mix last.


I didn't have a small loaf tin so I used this round glass container.
I set the oven for 180 C and baked for 1 hour and 15 minutes.
Below was the outcome.



Not only looks nice but tasted absolutely delicious!! First time and a great success too! Love the taste and texture.

Bento 256

#3 has been giving me hard time by refusing to sleep early and thus have a harder time waking up in the morning for school! When I have to struggle with her in the morning then I will also struggle with packing the bentos.

Most mornings I pack three bentos. Two for #3 and one for #2. I also prepare breakfast for #1, so everything has to be complete in half an hour at the max. Then we rush off to school.

This morning was a frenzy because all three kids were running late and I had to choose today to have steam fish and Korean roll-ups!



If you notice, I've changed the bento box because #2 complained that the other one leaks so be ready for more change.

The color is inclined to too much orange today - blame it on poor planning! *sigh*




Mum and I baked Chocolate chip cookies yesterday.

Bento 255

#2 has been talking about adopting a vegetarian diet during the upcoming Lent which begins on 17th February (during the Chinese New Year celebrations). Traditionally, we abstain from meat and maintain a seafood and vegetable diet over the 40 days. One year we tried to be a little more ambitious and thus tried to be completely vegetarian. Hahaha! I think, we didn't even last one week!

This morning's bento is bare of protein. There is spaghetti topped with furikake and some freezer stash of Ratatouille.



The right box has a mixed chopped veggie and a small box of frozen passion fruit pulp as dressing. Trying to keep the salad dressings healthy and thus resorting to fruits now.



Mum and I were busy baking yesterday.

Bento 254

I made some roast chicken sandwich in croissant and salad this morning. The roast chicken was left over from here and was flavored with lemon and Rosemary, I added a dash of mayo.


The left box had a Kiwi, a box of mashed potatoes (from the roast chicken) to which I added a clove of roasted garlic, salt and pepper. Two strawberries for added color.

New 100 Yen Store

I bought this at the new 100 Yen store in Aman Suria. It's been open for about one month already and it's our favorite SNOW ICE store. I love the Mango flavor and lately they've added two new flavors.

This store carries a variety of bento boxes and some bento accessories. It's nothing to cry out loud about but it does carry the standard variety of (US) Japanese Dollar store items.

Sometimes when I pack food for #2, I'm not only constrained by flavors and allergies but also food which has gravy. Sometimes the bento box tilts in her bag and gravy or sauce spills and #2 would get all flurried.

I've been eying on this for a while and finally succumbed to the temptation and necessity.

I have the smaller size ones, which are really small and not quite suitable. These are 30ml and hopefully be more useful.


There are lots of sushi helpers, food cutters, molds and food picks if you are interested.

The address is as follows:
100 Yen
Aman Suria
12A-BG, Jalan PJU 1/43
Aman Suria Damansara
47301 PJ, Selangor.

Note: It's facing the main road from Dataran Prima towards Tropicana/Bandar Utama.
Same row as KAYU.

Bento 253

It's Saturday and #2 has replacement class for a forth coming public holiday. She attended the College orientation night, last night and had fun. The food was another story.

This morning I packed some ladies fingers, fried pork and bankuang (Jicama) and some fried ngar ku (Arrowroot), leek and prawns in the left box.




There was some rice mixed with sesame seeds, topped with furikake and some strawberries. She loved today's bento!

Bento 252

Today, #2 finishes after lunch because there is a meeting for the SASA scholars at HELP. I packed her some Onigiri so it should last her till then.

The rice was cooked this morning and basically mixed with toasted sesame seeds, salt and some furikake. The center was filled with tuna. (I had two for breakfast):)


The left box has a corner silicon cup of toasted almonds tossed in sugar. A mixed salad, in salad cream and some strawberries which I picked up from Tesco yesterday.

Roast Chicken Yum! Yum! on Smilebox

I made this for a potluck last night. Received some raving reviews. Enjoy!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Bento 251

Classes for both the elder girls begin mid morning today. I slept in and had time in my hands to think of making some vegetable rolls. I used the Vietnamese paper rolls to roll julienned kyuri, carrots, courgette and alfalfa sprouts. For the sauce, I simply used some sesame seed dressing.


For Carbohydrates and Protein, there was spaghetti aglio olio topped with last night's left over Roast Chicken. There was some Milanese Pennetone for dessert.

Bento 250

I'm back at planning my bentos so the mornings are organized and quite a breeze. No rush, no stress and best of all no need to wake up 30 minutes earlier!

There is a mixed veggie and tomato salad in one side of the box and a mini Laugen on the other side.


In the top box, there is steamed sole fillet with salt, pepper and ginger strips (removed) and some ham rolls with bread in it's middle.

Easy peasy bento today!