Pasta and Mummy sandwich

I attended Nutrition Australia Women's Program‏ yesterday. It's a 4 week government funded program to teach women about nutrition, healthy eating, tips in food budgeting, and eventually money saving.
Even though it was just my first week, it inspires me already. It is so important to keep a lot of variety in our meal, especially vegetables, legumes, and fruits. We cooked Mediterranean Chicken and Vegetable Couscous dish and surprisingly there are 12 ingredients in there (couscous, chicken, carrot, tomato, sultanas, dried apricot, spring onion, chickpeas, parsley, with garlic, olive oil and lemon for dressing), and it tastes so GOOD!

So, after getting home, I checked my pantry and fridge, and decided to make similar kind of food using pasta. There are pasta, prawn, chicken, carrot, peas, corn, sultanas, avocado, parsley, spring onion, olive oil, garlic, lemon and I was quite happy on how it turns out. And the best thing is that my kids love it too :)

I saved some leftover for his bento next day.

For my eldest son, I prepared :
1. Pasta with chicken, prawn, and vegetable
2. Hard boiled egg
3. "Shell" shaped jelly
4. Lettuce
5. Grapes and rockmelon cuts

And my little one prefers food that is easy to grab by his little fingers. So I prepared :
1. Mummy sandwich (ham & cheese sandwich with sultanas)
2. Haw flakes (Chinese sweet)
3. "Heart"shaped jelly
4. Grapes
5. Lettuce

Temaki Sushi

Basically, temaki sushi is an easier way to make sushi at home.It is made of a rolled cone of seaweed, wrapped around rice and fillings. Here is the link of Nami's Just One Cookbook on how to make it. She's one of my favourite food blogger and you will definitely know why, after visiting her well presented blog.

Here are details of bento lunch box that I made for my eldest son :

In the square box, I prepared :
1. Temaki sushi (with carrot, cucumber, and crab stick filling)
2. Stir fried baby corn with mushroom
3. Chicken karaage
4. Tamagoyaki (egg-rolls)
5. Lettuce and broccoli

In the round box, I prepared rockmelon cuts for his recess

That's all his favorite meal, he said he can't wait till lunch time :)

The Witch and Her Pink Cat

Here are the details to make the witch :
* For the hat : cheese, carrot, and nori
* For the head : hard boiled egg and nori
* For the body : onigiri (white steamed rice) with furikake inside, nori, and cheese

For the filling :
* "tulip" Sausages and for the broom, I put Angel hair pasta into the sausage.
* Crab meatball with cat foodpick
* Broccoli and lettuce

Skull Sandwich

Today's theme is Skull sandwich. It's a strawberry sandwich that I cut into skull shaped. I used straw to form the eyes and put black sesame seed in the middle, and nori for the nose.

Details as below :

For my little one, I prepared :

1. Skull sandwich

2. Car shaped milk jelly

3. Nectarine

4. Carrot sticks with nori, and lettuce

5. Banana yogurt

For my eldest son, I prepared :
1. Skull sandwich
2. "Eye balls" crab meatballs with cheese and nori
3. Two halves of hard boiled egg
4. "Shell" shaped milk jelly
5. Broccoli and lettuce

Harry Potter

Recently I visited Shirley's Little Miss Onigiri - a bento blog from Singapore and was mesmerized with her creations. She made a very cute Harry Potter bento and I would love to borrow that idea. I just hope I do her some justice :)

Details as below :
1. Harry Potter onigiri (white steamed rice, nori, crab stick, and black sesame seed)
2. Corn on the cob with nori for his body
3. Plastic food pick with sausage and angel hair pasta for his magic broom
4. Sausage and crab meatballs
5. Carrot, lettuce, and brocooli
6. Rice cracker

Three Eyed Monsters

Three eyed monsters are made of ham & cheese sandwich. The eyes are made of nori and white part of crab stick. The mouth and nose are made of nori. And the tongue is made of red part of crab stick.

Details as below :

For my kindy son, I prepared :
1. Three eyed monster sandwich
2. Corn on the cob
3. Fish shaped milk jelly
4. Kiwi fruit
5. Lettuce

For my year 2 son, I prepared :
1. Three eyed monster sandwich
2. Two halves of boiled egg sprinkled with black sesame seed
3. Corn on the cob
4. "Transportation" shaped milk jelly
5. Rice cracker
6. Lettuce

Swimming Lesson

My year 2 son is having in-term swimming lesson school program for 2 weeks. This bento is to celebrate the event, and I'm so happy that he enjoys his swimming lesson.

This box contains :
1. Strawberry sandwich with swimming symbol that made of nori
2. Broccoli with cheese and purple radish
3. "Fish" sausages
4. "A winking boy" hard boiled egg

Similar tools I used for this post :

Jack O' Lantern Bento

These little lotus paste buns are so cute and gave me an idea to create Jack O' Lantern out of them. Details as below :

For my eldest son, I prepared :
1. Jack O'lantern lotus paste buns decorated with nori
2. "Ghost" hard boiled egg
3. Corn on the cob
4. "Eyeballs" (crab meatballs, cheese, and nori)
5. Purple radish, broccoli, and lettuce

For my youngest son, I prepared :
1. Jack O'lantern lotus paste buns decorated with nori
2. Corn on the cob
3. "Draculla mouth with fang" (apple and almond sliced)
4. Kiwi fruit
5. "Eyeballs" (crab meatballs, cheese, and nori)
6. Lettuce

Too scary for Octopus

Do you notice how the octopus's lip is trembling and he looks so scared ? It's so funny :) the corrugated scissor works well for this effect!

Details as below :

For my little one, I prepared :
1. Ham & cheese sandwich (white sandwich, ham and cheese, nori, and carrot)
2. "Eyeballs" (crab meatball, cheese, and nori)
3. Corn on the cob
4. "Jack O' Lantern" (mandarin and nori)
5. "Terrified octopus" & sausage (sausage, cheese, black sesame seed, and nori)
6. Broccoli and lettuce

For my eldest one, I prepared :
1. Ham & cheese croissant (with nori that I cut into bat shape)
2. corn on the cob
3. "Scary skull" (hard boiled egg and nori)
4. "Terrified octopus" (sausage, cheese, black sesame seed, and nori)
5. Broccoli and lettuce

Mummies Return

I can't believe how fast time flies...it's already October, halloween theme, here we come :)

These mummy hotdogs are pretty easy to make. Just cut the supermarket bought puff pastry (I use Pampas brand) into strips, roll around sausage and bake at 180C oven for about 20 minutes. And then put black sesame seeds for the eyes.

For my eldest one, I prepared :
1. Mummy hotdog
2. Scary skull (hard boiled egg, nori, and black sesame seed)
3. Bacon and cheese scroll
4. Ham & cheese rolls
5. Broccoli
6. Apple for recess

For my little one, I prepared :
1. Mummy hotdog
2. Scary finger (puff pastry, nori, and red apple skin)
3. "Eye balls" (carrot, cheese, and nori)
4. Scary skull (hard boiled egg, nori, and black sesame seed)
5. Apple "checker"
6. Strawberry yogurt