Bento 233

This morning we had canned sardines in tomatoes and bread.


There were grapes and a fresh button mushroom.

Bento 232

I bought a packet of Tortillas last week. This morning, I fried some "Tonkatsu" and sliced them into long pieces, stacked them on top of some rollo rosa salad. There was cheese and mayo to top it off. Rolled up this combi and sliced it into three pieces.


Two pieces of the Tortilla went into the bento box and the third piece was eaten for breakfast.
There were some sliced mangoes in the top box.


Home made pineapple tarts to complete this meal. Yummilicious!!

Bento 231

This was yesterday's bento. An egg sandwich and half a Scone with Lemon curd sandwiched in between.


Some left over fruit salad and a pickle which #2 made - kyuri in a kombu and shoyu mix.


It's all about tarts!
Making no bake cheese tarts and mango cheese cake. Also baked some pineapple tarts. All for tomorrow's BEC gathering.

Post 501 and Bento 230

Wow! This is my 501th post! Feel like I should have done something to commemorate it. Oh well...this is bento number 230. It's got a simmered dish of lotus root, Japanese burdock, carrots, some local noodle konyakku, mushrooms and chicken pieces. The stock is made up of dashi, sugar, sake, mirin and shoyu. It's got a deliciously 'light' flavor to it and the Japanese burdock is just delicious.

This simmered dish is accompanied by a nest of buckwheat soba and some fruits mixed in orange juice. All these I cooked and prepared last night and only had to transfer into the bento box this morning. It took me 15 minutes to complete that, including making the tuna sandwich in the side box.

I got downstairs at 6.30a.m. and left the house at 6.46a.m. so it was very effective for me this morning! *smiles*



I had to get the Japanese burdock at Isetan in KLCC on Saturday. Good thing they also had stock of the "Sakura Denbu" which seem to be out of stock all over PJ!!

Care eating Japanese noodles this way?

This morning before Mass, I met some friends (young adults). One of them was recounting my "sushi" sale last weekend for the fund raiser. He was relating to another friend about how a 'sushi machine' should be invented because he had witnessed #1 and I, "laboriously" rolling sushi from wee morning up to noon time.

Rolling over two hundred packs of sushi for sale over a five hour period and raising a four figure revenue is no easy feat. Nevertheless, I enjoyed myself and had a great time.

Out of curiosity, I Googled for "sushi maker" but more interestingly I found something else!!!

When I read this article about the Ramen Robot I was amazed! It's able to offer "40 million different flavor permutations".

As though that wasn't an exciting read enough, I also read about the noodle water slide which is the cream of the cake for these 'noodle related' inventions!



I've seen the "Bamboo" water slides" in TV but this?? To eat somen this way is akin to eating marshmallows dipped in a chocolate fountain! Wowweeeee!!!!

• Slightly unravel boiled somen, and place them at the top of the rail by the waterwheel
• Try to catch the noodles on their 140cm trip down! Don't worry, if you miss, there's a tray at the bottom to catch them for you

Fund Raiser for a good cause

Over the last weekend, I made Sushi for sale at a fund raiser. I spent a whole week "Shopping". The ingredients had to be purchased at different stores and I had to run around quite a bit before I could get all the necessary ingredients.

In the chaotic hustle and bustle of preparing and cooking the ingredients, I forgot to take lots of pictures. These were the few in between which I took when I 'remembered'!! LOL!!


Kyuri straight from the supermarket.


Kyuri sticks, washed and cut.


45 eggs.


...mixed with this concoction of dashi, salt, sugar, mirin and sake...


...patiently toiling over the hot stove to produce TAMAGOYAKI!!!!



Carrots...


...all cut and blanched in hot water...


Mushrooms slowly simmered in a concoction of water from soaking the dried mushrooms, sugar, salt, mirin, sake and shoyu.


Japanese short grain rice...


All 10 kg cooked and mixed with a concoction of vinegar, salt and sugar.


My sushi stall... where #2 assisted in packing and selling...

...where #1 assisted in rolling the FUTOMAKI for sale.


The basic futomaki roll...


all packed and ready for sale...


The experience? Exhilarating~!!!

Edible football field?

Bon Voyage Ian!

Bento 229

Simple stuff and repeats until I sit down and start planning again!!

Boo hoo hoo!

Did you know?

Bento 228

This morning's bento had to last up to 4.00p.m. #2 stays back for Choir practice because this weekend there is a Charity Choral-thon in Subang Parade in aid of an orphanage.

It's also that time of the year that all schools begin taking class photographs for their annual school magazine. #2 is in the Editorial team under the Graphics section. Nevertheless, all team members has been rostered to co-ordinate the photography sessions for the morning and afternoon classes.

This bento should make her happy!

Left box has raisins and grapes, a silicon cup of hiziki from my freezer stash. The right side box has a mix of salads, alfalfa, cut courgette and tomatoes.


The center box are some wholemeal baguette with some sauerkraut, courgette, roast lemon chicken (from my freezer stash) and some sweet basil topped with a dash of mayo.

Random bentos

Last week was a hectic week of erratic schedules and late nights. We ate out too much! Bentos were quick, easy and nondescript.

I'm not numbering them because most were quick fixes in different forms.


Below: Vegetable in garlic rolls, Tuna mayo sandwiches and home made butter cake.



#3's bento of spaghetti and kewpie mayo, some banana cinnamon and tuna mayo.



Another nondescript bento of leftovers.



Bruschetta and tuna croissant snack with a Vitagen.


Another week and late posts!!!

Mum's Chicken Stew recipe in Smilebox

When I was growing up, my mother used to make this delicious chicken stew which my siblings and I would rave about. We'd always request for it during occasions when mum would most certainly cook it!

The only problem was that the 'Bombay curry powder' concoction was only available at Cold Storage in section 14, the 'old' Jaya Supermarket. This Bombay curry powder was always out of stock and whenever mum saw it on the shelves, she would certainly buy 3 bottles to store.

After many years, we never saw that brand on the shelves anymore. Nevertheless, mum found another similar tasting curry powder and this has been used ever since. Mind you, I don't know why it's called 'curry powder' when it's not spicy at all!! Well the Bombay curry powder wasn't spicy either, just very aromatic and full of flavor.

This is the recipe:

Ingredients:
2 tbsp curry powder (check the brand in the smilebox slide show)
2 tsp salt
1 chicken, cut into 14 pieces (med-large size)
5 medium size red onions
5 small potatoes or 3 large ones, cut into smaller pieces

Method:

1. Marinate cut chicken pieces with curry powder and salt.
2. Keep in refrigerator for about 3 hours or overnight.
3. Deep fry onions and potatoes and put into a deep pot.
4. Fry chicken pieces and add to the deep pot.
5. Fill the deep pot with water to cover chicken.
6. Bring to boil and lower heat to a simmering boil.
7. Simmer for 20 - 30 minutes.
8. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Eat with baguette or spaghetti or even steaming white rice!!!

Enjoy!!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Bento 227

First day of school after a hectic 2 weeks school holiday! Here's another quick fix bento which took less than 10 minutes to put together.

Left box has some chopped up romaine salad, onion alfalfa and cherry tomatoes mixed in a dash of sesame seed dressing.



Right box has three quarters of a rolled ham, salad, mayo and garlic tortilla wrap. The balance quarter went into my stomach for breakfast!!

Making cooking time family time

I was reading some old articles which I linked ages ago and I'd like to share something practical which we, mummies can make good use of.

Read this:

Making Cooking Time Family Time: 10 Tips for Beginners

Personally, I think that the 10 tips are very practical and all of which I've adopted over 20 years of being a mother. I can stand by firmly by those tips and assure you that the results just creep in to surprise you time after time.

My eldest daughter posted this on her blog on

Sunday, June 07, 2009

Because I am cool like that, I think I will put some funky smiley at the beginning of every post, just so I remember how I felt la ok. *shy. Actually, I just found these smiley's and they make me happy, so I wanna post them up. I think I should be studying.

So you see, over the weekend and a little before that, father has been in

mother and baby sis has been in

.

So I was thinking, what should I do for the weekend?


Well, I ended up
(Without the beard la of course. Too manly.)



For breakfast, I decided to make


while Rachel made



We had a good weekend home alone, sleeping in different rooms and waking up and eating well and all sorts lar. Let me explain different rooms, in case you think we share rooms on normal days (no way, can die, pls thank u, cos we're both awful sleepers like that). Instead of sleeping in our own rooms, she slept in the parents' room while I slept in the guest room. Just for fun =_= very lifeless right. *shy. T'was a good weekend.


Oh I love you Rachel, cos you ALWAYS feed me


The End.
(cos I'm lazy to google more pictures) =_=

Photo credits: Google
Smiley credits: Yahoo!


LOVE LOVE YOU ALL!

Original post has been edited slightly.

It's one of those things you read in your kid's blog which overwhelms and gives you a sense of unrivaled happiness!!!

Quick Mac n Cheese

I made a batch of this last week and the entire process took me slightly over half an hour.

Very simple, all you need is:

150 gm macaroni elbows - boil till Al Dente
1 yellow onion - diced
6 button mushrooms from a can - diced
1 can of Campbell's mushroom soup
150 ml milk
100 gm streaky bacon - diced and fried
3 slices of Cheddar cheese

Method:
1. Saute diced onions in some olive oil and then add diced button mushrooms.
2. Pour in Campbell mushroom soup and milk and mix well.
3. Mix in the cooked macaroni elbows and fried bacon.
4. Add 3 slices of cheddar cheese and flavor with salt and pepper.
5. I used foil cups for Bento purposes but it can also be baked in one big casserole.
6. Bake at medium heat for about 10 minutes and eat warm!!

Below: Before going into the oven.

Below: After 10 minutes in the oven!

Below: A closer look!

After it cooled down, I covered each cup with a small piece of foil paper and packed them into the freezer as Bento stash.