Bento #21

I normally post the morning's bento after my girls leave for school but today is really, really late - 11.20p.m. Sorry to those of you who came by but there was no update earlier.

The left bento contains mini pancakes with strawberry jam sandwiched in between. There is a 'bear' shaped egg and fried spring rolls - this was a request again.

In the right box are sandwiches I prepared last night. I try to 'sneak' in whole meal bread into their bento whenever I can so I made a triple decker with either wholemeal bread on the outside or the slice in between two white slices. For filling, I fried slices of SPAM lightly and laid on buttered bread. Between the next two pieces of bread I added a slice of cheese. So it was "bread - cheese - bread - spam - bread". I wrapped it up in cling wrap and left it in the fridge last night. The kids loved it!

I skewered some edamame beans to fill up the space. Added some 'energy' food - banana dusted with cinnamon sugar!

Bento #20

I prepared the pork for Tonkatsu last night. Tonkatsu is basically a fillet of pork which is tenderized by using a mallet to hammer down.

It is marinated with salt and pepper and coated with flour, egg and bread crumbs, and deep fried. Just like that! This is a popular deep fried (furai category) dish and complimented with a Worcester type sauce.

On the back bento is blanched vegetables and 4 pieces of 'siew mai'.

The one in front contains a bun bought from a nearby deli and tonkatsu. The two sauce containers has tonkatsu sauce and chili sauce for the 'siew mai'.

In another bento, I put some Japanese rice crackers, marshmallows and Panda biscuits for her to snack on. There was also a bottle of frozen orange juice.

Surprise! Eye Candy

One of my friends got back from Japan and brought me these bento accessories. I was elated at the new stash especially the bento straps, it's really difficult to obtain them. See the orange and green silicon cups on the right, these are re-usable and takes the shape of any space left in the bento. It's very pliable. Look at the cute chopsticks and spoons with it's own 'caps'. I love the little Hello Kitty sauce containers. I'm not really a fan of Hello Kitty but it came in handy this morning to contain the sauces for the bento.

I liked the Hello Kitty templates too. Just dust some furikake onto sushi rice and when removed, it leaves the famous kitty's face embossed on your rice! In front on the right corner are sauce bottles to contain soy sauce. The food cups come in various colors, shapes and sizes. There was even a star punch. I was on a 'high' the whole weekend when I received this stash.

My friend met my kids and I at Onsen, the Japanese restaurant which I posted about earlier. They were having a special Merdeka celebration and offered 50% discount of a selected menu. This is what we had:















I forgot to take the pictures of the Salmon dish and the Saba shioyaki that we ordered but all in all for six main courses the bill came up to RM120/=. I thought it was a steal!






[Japanese food]

Bento #19

More proteins this morning. PMR trials lasts' till the end of the week! Daughter #1 is asking for noodles and rice, Daughter #2 insists on proteins. Well sweethearts, mum is only going to pack the same contents into your bento. You'll have to learn to survive for a while.

On the left is more fried chicken and some spring rolls. The filling is made out of left over roast duck, carrots, fishcake, enoki mushrooms and simmered shitake mushrooms from leftover sushi, all tossed together and fried in oyster sauce.

On the right is home made gyoza and two containers of sauce. Chili sauce for the spring rolls and vinegar dip for the gyoza.


[Gyoza]

Bento #18

Daughter #2 is a food connoisseur. She enjoys eating. Her dream is to operate a music school and a cafe side by side. That's a tall order because she wants to both teach music and cook! I just allow her to rattle on as she shares her hopes and aspirations with me. Who knows what is in store for the future?

She's been eying the packet of potato tortilla and couldn't resist asking for a tuna roll for this morning. It's very easy to make, just butter the tortilla and spread cream cheese or just lay two slices of cheddar cheese on the buttered tortilla. Top it with some salad/vegetables (whatever you have in the fridge), carrots, cucumber and tuna. Finish with mayonnaise and tomato sauce. If you want to make it a gourmet roll, just fry and omelet and add on the base. This is an all time favorite with my kids. Even my 8 year old picky eater loves this!

Today's bento, I added some freshly steamed corn mixed with a blob of butter. To fill the gaps, I added some brownies and marshmallows.

[tortilla]

Bento #17

Today, Daughter #1 stay back at school up to 3.00p.m. I need to pack some substantial food for her to last half the day.

Clockwise: In the yellow paper 'Glad' bag is a croissant, in the pink box is rice crispies in two colors. The box in front contains a hard boiled egg and some salad and strawberries. A small tub of Thousand Island and Salad cream and a box of last night's 'claypot chicken rice' and fried chicken.

Today is Daughter #2 second day of PMR trials. I was Isetan, KLCC yesterday and I saw more Daifukumochi and it looked much nicer. I bought another two boxes.

Daughter #2 told me that yesterday's bento was 'very nice' when I went to fetch her from school. "Could I have the chicken again?".

Okay, make my life easy and have repeat orders. Makes me happy too because I don't have to think of another item for the bento.

Sometimes when I'm planning their bento I am at wits end what to prepare for them. I want them to enjoy their bento but I don't want to give them too much processed food. At the same time, I don't want to end up slogging in the morning to get their food ready. I marinate the chicken ahead of time and freeze so that's easy!

This morning Daughter #2 was up before me and already revising her books. When she saw her 'shaped egg' she was trilled! I gave her the bear face one and the simpler one for her elder sister.

Her whole bento is packed with most of her 'happy food' so I hope she doesn't get so stressed up with the exams.
[bento box]

Bento #16

Today, is the first day of PMR trials for Daughter #2. Last night, before she went to bed, she asked me not to pack any carbohydrates for her bento this morning. Carbo make me very tired mum, I'd like protein in my bento if it's okay. Of course it's okay! I would have gone to the ends of the earth to prepare what she requested. That's what we mothers tend to do, go beyond our call of duty for the love of our family.

This morning I decided to prepare some 'happy food' for her. Daughter #2 loves Japanese food, so last night I went to Jusco @ 1U to purchase some stock. I saw some Daifukumochi and immediately bought a pack. Daifukumochi is a type of glutinous rice cake stuffed with 'anko' (sweetened red beans made from azuki beans). I was sure she'd love it and I was right, first thing this morning when she opened the fridge she exclaimed "can I have the mochi, please?". Okay, my 'happy food' set her in the right mood already.

In the left box, more happy food and proteins; marshmallow, fried chicken de-boned, two types of fish balls with wholegrain mustard.











In the right box, blanched baby corn, broccoli and heart shaped carrots. I topped it with mayo and Parmesan cheese. To completely fill the box, a Mandarin orange for desert.

[daifuku]

Bento #15

Yawn! Rise and shine! I was looking forward to packing my kid's bento because I've missed the early morning excitement.

Right box - filled with sushi rice mixed with some kewpie mayonnaise. Topped with (from bottom): crabsticks, simmered mushroom, kyuri, tamagoyaki, blanched carrots and kampyo. This is my own concoction and it's delicious. You can just chop up any of your sushi filling left overs and do the same. I dusted some sakura denbu on top before I closed the box.

Left box - Brownies, blanched sawi vegetables and sliced orange.

[Bento Boxes]

Party, party!

Last night, we had a party for some youths from our church. There were about 40-50 guests.

The youth leaders co-ordinated and managed the party themselves. The food was marinated by their mums and it was a huge success.

Remember the cocktail molds I posted on Aug 19? Some people were asking what they were for. Well, it came in real handy at last night's BBQ! One of the youths asked for a knife to 'score' the sausages, I remembered my molds and took out 3 for them to use. It was a hit with them.

See the top picture, you can see my favorite guys 'clamping' the molds on the sausages. It saved them so much time.




Everyone enjoyed themselves. The lamb was 'out of this world', it was marinated by one of the mums and was among the first to finish.














I made 4 packets of spaghetti and my own concoction of beef bolognaise sauce and that went as soon as the 'makan' started. It was supposed to supplement the BBQ but the youths just 'attacked' and by the time the rest who came later, there was nothing left! Next time I'll bring the spaghetti out last!
I was very busy and just managed to make a platter of mixed vegetables, thousand island and salad cream. That finished too!

My maid leaves tomorrow and there were lots of last minute things to deal with so I could hardly whip up anything. We were eating meats and I had to provide 'real' plates and steak knives. Luckily I pre-washed the service in my dish washer, otherwise ah, die!

Once we went for a BBQ and the host used disposable plastic knives and polystyrene plates. I leave you to imagine how the meal went.

It was a long day of preparation for me and I was grateful to the youths who managed the cooking as well. After all the 'makan' there was a time to get to know each other and then there was dancing. Who said youths can't have good, clean fun? God bless them!

[wiener molds]

Entertaining daughter #3 with Amos?

I bought a box of Japanese playdoh for daughter #3 from Isetan, KLCC. There is only one legible word in English - "Amos".

It comes with 7 tubs of playdoh, a catalogue with pictorial instructions and accessories.

I thought it was very good because it was very simple and all she needed to do was to follow the pictures. They even show you how to mix colors in the pictures.

The best thing about this is that my 8 year old needed no supervision, almost no assistance (very minimal) and no 'entertainment' by mummy. This is the best 'present' I've ever bought for her!! The accessories comprised of magnets, springs, glitter, paper clips etc. When the shape is formed, after several hours it hardens. The dough cannot be plied into another shape once it hardens.

This was money well spent because it gave me enough time (without all the whining) to prepare for the party on Saturday night.

Quick fix - Sushi for dinner

Tonight's dinner was a quick fix because Friday nights we are always in a hurry. We go for activities in Church and always have to rush through dinner.

We had Inari Sushi, Futomaki and Natto loaded maki for dinner. Finished almost all the 6 cups of sushi rice, left a small container only.

I posted the Inari sushi tofu pockets recipe in an earlier post if you want to try it.


Futomaki on the right. Filled with tamagoyaki, kyuri, blanched carrots, simmered shitake mushrooms, simmered kampyo and sakura denbu.


Futomaki on the left loaded with kyuri, tamagoyaki, sakura denbu and a whole box of NATTO!!
I declared at the dinner table that the Natto was excellent and 'first class food', daughter #1 declared back and said that she's doing just fine with her 'second class' futomaki and that daughter #2 and I could go on enjoying our 'first class' food! Hubs added that we were welcome to FINISH the NATTO and not leave any for him and daughter #1. Sigh.... but he was nice enough to take the picture of the Natto maki for me. He even reminded to put the green grass divider. Lol! Looks better than the top two pictures which I took. Real sweetheart!!

[natto]
[inari sushi]

Matcha ice-cream, pizza and daughter #2

Daughter #2 made Matcha ice-cream again. She's really good at this. Saves me a lot of money now coz no need to order it for desert after a Japanese meal. I think Matcha ice-cream in the Japanese restaurants are over priced.

This recipe was given to her by the owner of 'Chikuzen' in Aman Suria which has since closed down. I shall ask her for the recipe and post on my blog soon. Jessica, one of the owners was formerly working with the Tropicana Japanese restaurant since inception and has had over twenty years of experience in the Japanese food business. I heard that she had gone to England to stay with her daughter.

Jessica was very fond of daughter #2 because she had known her since we patronized the Tropicana Japanese restaurant for many years and when she opened her own outlet, we supported her regularly.

Jessica gave daughter #2 the recipe for the Matcha ice-cream and some other tips for her favorite dishes. I used to get a lot of my Japanese supply from her. Sadly, now I have to look for new suppliers.

Daughter #2 had acquired a love for Sashimi since she was ten years old. That time when we try out new Japanese outlets and Daughter #2 orders her Sashimi, for sure the waitress would reiterate that (read in Cantonese: mui mui, hai Sang Yee ah) 'it's RAW FISH" little girl! "Yeah! I know" (read in Cantonese: hai lah, ngo chee ah) would be the answer. We would all quietly laugh and jib her that "it's RAW FISH, little girl".

Well, she's grown into a wonderful young lady of 15 and still loves Sashimi, my partner in crime where Japanese food is concerned. She loves food and is able to cook a fair bit.

I was very busy this afternoon preparing for a party tomorrow. I left a pot of tomato based sauce (for spaghetti or pizza) in the kitchen and when she got back from music class, she made two cheese pizzas. Daughter #3 and I were ravenous when we got back from shopping and helped finish the pizzas. I thought for a first timer, it was pretty good. When she got the pizzas out of the oven, I heard loud 'Ooooo's and Ahhhhh's' because she took the whole grill out from the oven and burnt her fingers. Well, a lesson well learnt. There's no learning without the pain.

Daughter #2 is an accomplished pianist. At fifteen she's doing her Diploma, ABRSM in music performance. At the age of 13, she'd already decided to pursue a career in music. I'm quite happy she's found her niche in music and if music is what she wants, that's fine.

[matcha ice-cream]

O-konomiyaki

Today I was still giggling over the funny Japanese man who was trying to teach the people passing his exhibition booth how to pronounce O-ko-no-mi-ya-ki!

I decided to try out the recipe from the flyer I managed to get my hands on before Lavender dragged me off.

Recipe:
100g flour
1 egg
100ml water
100g Cabbage (cut into fine strips)
Optional: Fillings - Octopus, shrimp, squid, beef or anything you like! After all, Okonomi means "your choice" so just add whatever you like.
Okonomiyaki sauce (Japanese Worchester sauce)
Kewpie Mayonnaise
Katsuobushi

Method:
1. Beat raw egg and mix with water.
2. Stir shredded cabbage and flour in another bowl and add (1) and stir lightly.
3. Heat frying pan until quite hot and oil it. Pour (2)
Fry it till brown and flip to the other side and do the same.
4. Serve on a dish and load with Okonomiyaki sauce and Mayonnaise.
5. Sprinkle with lots of katsuobushi (dried bonito flakes).

My #1 daughter doesn't like the strong flavour of the Okonomiyaki sauce so I diluted it in water with a ratio of 2:1, 2 water to 1 Okonomiyaki sauce. It turned out very well and while eating it for dinner, I taught my daughters to pronounce O-ko-no-mi-ya-ki!!

[Okonomiyaki]

FHM2007 - KLCC - 22-25 Aug

I visited FHM2007 with my friend, Lavender, yesterday. It was huge with over two hundred participating companies. The participants came from all corners of the world, Egypt, Taiwan, Japan, Italy, Germany, Australia, Malaysia and lots and lots of countries.

The Exhibition was the 9th Malaysian International Exhibition of Food, Drinks, Hotel, Restaurant & Food service Equipment, supplies, services and related technology. The exhibition was housed in 5 halls.

There were more than half dozen coffee exhibitors. We sampled the famous illy coffee which was at it's best, then we tried Bon cafe which was pretty good too. Then we had latte, it was really very good - unfortunately we didn't notice the brand, by the time we saw coffex, we were spewing coffee out our ears and noses. We were so caffeine intoxicated that we were feeling queasy because we had too much coffee on an empty stomach.

Initially, we thought that we'd have a quick run through the exhibition and go for lunch, we were shocked at the mass of exhibitors. Every turn was something exciting, every stop was food sampling, every corner was something new to learn. Wow! What a gastronomic journey! We never expected to 'learn' so much about the different types of food, equipment, raw cooking material, cooked foods, etc, etc.

We were very excited over the Japanese cooking demonstration. The Japanese chef demonstrated 'Spider roll". It's maki sushi rolled inside out (like the California roll) filled with fried soft shell crab with it's 'legs' sticking out of both ends of the roll. Usually, Japanese restaurants roll the rice in sesame seeds or Ebiko, but at FHM, they introduced a new product - Konbu sheet. It's thin and fine like the nori but it's nothing like nori. It is pale yellow in color and has pattern akin to tiger stripes. There was plenty to go round for sampling and it was delicious. By the way, just for your information the konbu sheet is nothing like the seaweed that we use for cooking miso soup or stewing.

The chef then made a futomaki and rolled more than half a dozen ingredients in it. That was delicious too. In fact we spent most of our time at the Japanese exhibition area.

We sampled Matcha tea - green tea made from matcha powder which we thought it's consistency was too weak. Then we sampled Sake - Ooooo....it had a fresh fruity flavour, actually it was excellent. Even my friend Lavender who's resided in Japan for many years commented that the sake was excellent.

We went on to sample Maguro which is bluefin tuna (sashimi style). It only took a dip of shoyu
to enhance the fresh and delicious flavour of the Maguro. There were a group of students from Taylors college (T-shirt) who were enjoying the Maguro plate after plate. The Japanese exhibitor just continued to dish them out. They were very hospitable and polite. Lavender and I took their catalogue to place orders because the prices were cheap compared with those sold at the supermarket.

When we reached the end of the Japanese booths, we were offered O-konomiyaki, a type of savoury egg pancake. The Japanese man was mouthing the word O-ko-no-mi-ya-ki and teaching everyone who passed his booth to pronounce the word O-ko-no-mi-ya-ki!! I thought he was very funny and wanted to stay on to observe but Lavender quickly dragged me away.

By the time we finished visiting all the exhibition booths Lavender and I were so, so full that we decided not to go for lunch, which was supposed to be part of the day's agenda.

I realized that I'm not a true blue blogger yet because I didn't bring my camera with me. I could have used my phone but....I didn't want the hassle of my phone lagging because I chose to be trigger happy for the day. Oh well...this is a very wordy blog....what can I say....I've now decided to bring my camera everywhere. I've learnt my lesson, after all, as they say pictures paint a thousand words!

Holiday Breakfast #3

Daughter number 2 came to me last night and sheepishly asked if she could have a repeat of Monday's breakfast - pancakes and gourmet mushroom sausages.
"I love the sausages mum". How could I say no?

Since she loved the sausages, we'll have sausages but only this time it's going to be with waffles!! Hehe!

Basically the platter is the same except that I made waffles and added cinnamon sugar on top of the banana. If you haven't tried cinnamon sugar on top of ripe banana, please try it ASAP! It's the nicest tasting 'gourmet' banana you can get. You can see from the picture, I dusted icing sugar on the waffle.


Look at Daughter number 1 platter. She likes her food plain and simple. No fancy Kiwi fruit or wholegrain mustard or icing sugar. Cinnamon sugar on banana and gourmet mushroom sausage is fine, plain waffle with butter and Maple syrup is the staple.

So fussy and yet so easy to please. No frills and no trills?

[Waffle]