Kung Fu Panda Bento Recipe Featured inSing

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Last week we have the Angry Birds Bento Recipe(read more HERE) to join in the fever of the Angry Birds Mobil Game. Today we have another bento recipe to catch up with "PO" from Kung Fu Panda which is my 2nd featured bento post over at inSing.com. Same as the preview article, this recipe also provide readers with step-by-step photo illustrations on making the cute Panda Onigiri, Mini Panda(using quail eggs) as well as how to assemble the food in the bento box.

If you are keen to do a Panda Bento for your friends or kids during this June School Holiday, you can take a look at this featured recipe and starts making your very own bento with the guide of details step-by-step photos.

For more details please refer to the article at inSing.com HERE.

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i Love Mama Healthy Meal i Love Mama Bento

Photo Credit:- iWeekly (I周刊)

Finally after a few weeks of preparations (like designing and preparing of bentos for approval, practicing, lasing and etc) we managed to complete our two i-Love Mama Healthy Meal recruitment roadshows; 1st (Tampines Giant) and 2nd (Sheng Siong Supermarket) that were hosted by Mediacorp artiste Pornsak and Y.E.S 93.3FM deejay Siau Jia Hui!

Although in between there were some hard times dealing with the coordination and etc but eventually we were all thankful that everything went on smooth and we did have fun to be in part of their i-Love Mama Healthy Meal recruitment roadshows. More photos of the roadshows could be found at our Facebook Page HERE.

Introducing the ingredients used and concept of the Bento before the demonstration starts.

Shiting (Lobsterpaint.com) and I busying at the i-Love Mama Healthy Meal bento demo roadshow.

Samples of the i-Love Mama Bento made during the i-Love Mama Healthy Meal roadshow demo @ Sheng Siong Supermarket (88 Tanglin Halt Rd).

i-LOVE MAMA BENTO
(i-Love Mama Healthy Meal)

This i-Love Mama Bento design is request by organizer as they hope I would be able to include the Mama Lemon Lion Mascot as a character in the bento meal. Although at first I was quite hesitate to try out because I am not very confident to do character bento and also I am afraid that it might not resemble their Lion Mascot.

In order to make it look as close as possible to resemble the Lion Mascot, I decided to use mashed pumpkin to colour the rice for the face and hand, then use broccoli to assemble its hair.  And also to make the facial express more 3-D like, I used black beans for the eyes and mouth. Guess overall I still could be able to score a PASS for this right :)

(Serve: 1  | Preparation: 15 minutes | Cooking: 10 minutes)

Ingredients:
150g Broccoli, trim and cut into small florets
2 - 3 Fresh Shittake Mushrooms, sliced
1 Cup of Cooked Rice
100g Of Pumpkin Cubes
70g of Salmon Fillet
3 Goyza / Wanton
Some Cherry Tomato
1 Slice of Sandwich Cheese
3 Black Beans / Blueberry
Nori (seaweed) Sheet
Some Seaweed Flakes / Bonito Flakes
Some Fresh Lettuce, optional

Tools Needed:
Bento Box
Side Dishes Food Casing
Heat Resistant Cling Wrap
Alphabet and Heart-shape Food Cutters
Food Tweezer
Small Scissor
Bento Food Pick (optional)

To Assemble the Lion Character:-

1. Remove the outer skin of the pumpkin and cut it into small cubes. Either steamed or microwave it till soft then using a fork to mash until it resemble paste like texture. Set aside

2. Spoon about 5 Tablespoons of cooked rice in a bowl, slowly mix in the mashed pumpkin until you achieve your desire colour.

3 Place 2 - 2.5 tablespoons of pumpkin rice on a piece of heat resistant cling wrap. Using hand, shape it tight into oval / round shape to form the lion head. Set Side.

4. Next using the same method as step 3, make 2 small oblong shapes using 1/2 tablespoon of pumpkin rice to make the arm of the lion. Set aside.

5. Arrange the cooked mushrooms (stir-fry the shittake mushroom with broccoli) at the top corner of the box before placing the broccoli around it (refer to the photo above) to make the outline of the lion head with the round/oval pumpkin rice in the middle.

6. Next place arrange the gyoza or wanton below the lion head to resemble the clothes. Place a few cherry tomato beside the goyza to secure the placement.

7. Shaped the two small oblong pumpkin rice ball to from the arm and place it below the head area. (refer to the photo above) Plus two tiny small rice balls for the ears above.

8. Using the black beans to form the eyes and mouth of the lion. Cut thin strips from the nori (seaweed) sheet to form the whiskers.

9. Arrange cooked salmon into the box and start adding in the "i-Love Mama" wordings using Alphabet, Heart-shape and drinking straw to cutout the shapes from sandwich cheese and punkin (heart shaped).

10. Above shows the close up look of the completed i-Love Mama Bento.

To prepare the Baked Salmon:-

1. Marinate the salmon fillet with 2 tablespoons of freshly squeeze orange juice and rind of 1 orange together with some cooking wine and dash of pepper for 5 minutes.

2. Arrange some fresh corn kernels (optional) at the base of the baking dish, top with marinated salmon and some orange rinds.

3. Baked in preheated 180°C (degree Celsius) oven for about 10 minutes or till cooked through. Sprinkler some seaweed or bonito flakes on top and assemble into the bento box.

Lastly calling all mothers/grandmothers out there if you love to cook for your kids/grandchildren. Do consider to take part on this fun and family bonding i-Love Mama Healthy Bento contest which would be held on 11th May 2013.

To Participate:-

Email: mpbcontest@mediacorp.com.sg
Subject header: i-Love Mama Healthy Meal

Terms And Conditions:
~ Send in your healthy, tasty and attractive meal recipe (in Chinese or English), with a detailed ingredients list and step-by-step cooking instructions.
~ Share in less than 100 words the nutritional value and design concept behind the dish prepared for your child.
~ Attach a photo of yourself with your child, and your dish, along with your full particulars (name, age, NRIC and contact nos.)

*Open to grandmothers/mothers with child aged 12 years and below.

Closing date: 02 May 2013

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Photo Friday Our Bento Dinner

Making Bento is one of our weekly or at least twice a month mother and kid bonding activities whereby my boy and I will agreed on a theme to work together to assemble his bento.  Up till date I have featured about 30 quick and easy kids bento in Cuisine Paradise and here I would like to share with you two sets of our Bento Dinner which we have made recently.

A bowl of simple steamed rice topped with some Winnie the Pooh shaped roasted pumpkin adds some extra flavour to the plain rice.

A little bit of here and there make up a nicely presented kids portion of our dinner. Instead of piling all the side dishes on the plate itself, I have divided them into small portion using colourful container to make the food look more appetising.

Here is another simple Bento Dinner which consists of Chicken Nuggets and Popcorn Chickens plus Hard-boiled Egg and some fish floss and baked whitebait on steamed rice. Till then have a great weekend everyone! Cheers!

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Bento Happy 47th Birthday Singapore

Today is eve of Singapore National Day where most of the local schools are having short sessions in the morning for Pre-National Day celebration. And because of this special day, I have prepared this easy and yet meaningful snack box for my boy to bring to school. 

This unique lunchbox is one of the items from my recent Zespri® Introductory Bag for the Zespri®  14-Day Daily Scoop Amazing Challenge event. And for a bento accessories collector like me, this is definitely a "gem" to add into my collections whereby I can prepare yummy snack plus safe keep the kiwifruit.

NATIONAL DAY BENTO

As you can see the size of this unique lunchbox is about the size of our normal sandwich bread and you can also make use of it to put mini packet of juice, cookies and etc as sides. Mostly important thing is, there is a special compartment for storing kiwifruit which is a plus point that I love. In this way I can keep the fruit as whole without cutting to retain its freshness,  at the same time kiwifruit also helps to add extra Vitamin C to my kids daily diet.

(Serves: 1        | Preparation: 10 minutes    | Cooking: 3 minutes)

Ingredients:
2 Slices Sandwich Bread
1 Slice Picnic Ham
1 Slice of Sandwich Cheese
1 Zesperi® Gold/Green Kiwifruit
1 Mini Packet of Juice or Milo
Some Cheese Cubes
Some Cookies or Seedless Grapes

Method:-

1. Either blanched the picnic ham in boiling water or lightly pan-fry it for 20 seconds on each side, remove and set aside.

2. Using a 8cm pie cutter or mug, cut out round shaped from the bread slices. Repeat the same steps for the cooked ham and with a knife cut it into halve length wise.

3. Next with the round and star shape food cutters (read more on cutters HERE), cut out the crescent and five stars that represent our Singapore National Flag and use a tweezer to assemble them on the ham shown above.

4. When done, sandwich the remaining the ham and cheese(trim a bit) with the cutout bread. Top with the decorated Singapore National Flag Ham and place it in the prepared lunchbox.

5. To complete the bento box, add in some sides such as mini packet of juice or milo, cookies, cheese cubes or etc.

6. Lastly remember to put in either Zesperi® Gold/Green Kiwifruit in the special compartment allocated for it.

If you still remember, last year I also made a "National Day Bento" using Chicken Rice, Putu Mayam, Ondeh Ondeh and etc to represent the multi-races in Singapore. But this round indeed I made something more simple which I believed you can also pack something similar for your kids snack box.

One of our breakfast with Zespri® Gold Kiwifruit shared via my Instagram

Since now is the peak season of kiwifruits, you can be assured that both Zespri® Gold and Green do taste sweet when they are ripe. So remember to include this wonder Zespri® Kiwifruits which has 5 times the nutritious of apples in your family daily diet too!

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Lunchbox Easter Chicky Bento

Happy Easter Sunday! I hope you would like this Easter Bento post that I have prepared you. Since our family would be attending Sunday church service plus a house warming event, I wont have enough time to prepare something special for my boy on Easter, therefore I decided to make this Easter Chicky Bento for him yesterday.

For this bento I have used 3 cleaned empty egg shells to act as food containers instead of the usual bento paper/silicon case. And with these shells, I have created some Easter theme such as "3D Pumpkin Rice Chick", "Hard-boiled Egg Chick" and "Artificial Egg".

CHICKY EASTER BENTO

And other than those "cheeky" which are the highlight of this bento, I also add in some of my boys favourite side-dishes such as Nuggets, Pumpkin Sliced and Cherry Tomato to complete the meal. Although my boy loves everything on this bento but his favourite choice is that "3D Pumpkin Rice Chick" which he finds it too cute to be eaten. What about you? Which do you prefer?

(Serves: 1 | Preparation: 10 minutes | Cooking: 15 minutes)

Ingredients:
60g Cooked Pumpkin, mashed
4 Tablespoons Cooked Rice
1 Hard-boiled Egg, shelled
2 Chicken Nuggets
2 Cherry Tomato
6 Pieces of 1" Wide Pumpkin
1 Slice Sandwich Cheese
1 Slice Smoked Sandwich Cheese(orange colour)
Some Easter Chocolate Candy
3 Clean Egg Shells
Some Decoration Food Picks, optional
Assorted Food Cutters(shown above), optional

Method:-

1. Collect 3 empty egg shells which has being thoroughly clean with salt water, rinse and air dry. (you can prepare the egg shells a day before)

2. Deep-fried or oven baked nuggets and pumpkin slices till cooked. Set aside.

3. To make the cheesy tomato, first cut both slices of cheese into half, stack up each colour alternately on top of each other. Use a flower/round shape food cutter stamped out the design on the prepared cheese. (you would need 2 of it)

4. Cut the 2 cherry tomato into halve each, place one slice of the stamped cheese in the middle and secured the tomato with your desire food pick. (refer to the photo shown below)

5. Arrange the 3 egg shells, nuggets, pumpkin and cherry tomato in the lunchbox before making the 3 "chicks".

6. To make the mashed pumpkin, cut some pumpkin cubes into a microwave safe bowl, cook it over high heat for about 1 - 1.5 minutes or till soften. Mashed it with a folk and set aside.

7. To prepare the "hard-boiled egg chick", use a sharp knife, start cutting "V" shape patterns continuously around 1/4 or middle of the egg white. When done, slowly twist the top portion of the egg white apart from the bottom revealing the yolk. (refer to the photo above) Set aside.

8. For the "artificial egg", stuffed it full with about 1.5 - 2 Tablespoons of cooked rice till the rim. Use a small round food cutter, stamped out round shape from a piece of the fried pumpkin and insert it the middle of the stuffed rice to resemble egg yolk.

9. Lastly for the "3D pumpkin rice chick", mix the remaining cooked rice with the prepared mashed pumpkin till well mixed.

10. Stuff almost 3/4 of the egg shell with the pumpkin rice mixture, and shaped the remaining pumpkin rice using clear-wrap or wet hand to form a oval shape rice ball. Place the shaped rice into the stuffed egg shell and set aside. (refer to the pumpkin rice chick shown below)

11. For the final touch-up, use craft puncher and nori sheet(seaweed sheet)  to punch out the facial feature of the chick. Assemble the tiny nori features using a tweezer and add it the heart shaped food pick on the prepared "chicks". You can cut out small triangle shapes from the pumpkin to act as the beak of the chick.

12. Since this is for Easter, I have also added in some Easter Chocolates to fill up the spaces in between as bonus treat.

Have a blessed Easter Sunday everyone!!!!!

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Quick Easter Bunny Bento

With Easter Sunday coming up this weekend, I prepared a quick Easter Pizza Bento for my boy as his breakfast.  Actually there are nothing complicated about this bento, what I did was transformed the pizza toast which I had made previously into something Easter themed with Bunny and Easter Egg.

After which just use your imagination to decorate the bunny as well as the oval shape so that it would resemble Easter egg design.

QUICK EASTER BUNNY BENTO

(Serves: 1  | Preparation: 10 minutes )

Ingredients:
2 Pieces of Wholemeal Bread
1 Slice of Picnic Ham
1 Slice of Sandwich Cheese
1 Cherry Tomato, halved
Some Tomato Base Pasta Sauce
Some Mozzarella Grated
Garnish with dried parsley and grated Parmesan cheese
Easter Theme Cutters

Method:-
1. Using a Bunny and Oval shaped food cutter, cutout the shapes from the wholemeal bread. Set aside.

2. Lightly toast the bread for about 1 - 2 minutes in a toaster oven till slightly crisp.

3. Spread a layer of tomato sauce on the toasted bread, top it with some Mozzarella cheese.

4. Decorate it with ham, sandwich cheese and tomato then bake it for another 30 seconds or more to melt the cheese

5. When done, serve pizza with some fresh fruits and milk (or juice).

OTHER EASTER RELATED RECIPES

Easter Chicky Bento with "3D Pumpkin Rice Chick" plus side-dishes such as Nuggets, Pumpkin Sliced and Cherry Tomato sandwich with cheese to complete the meal.

Easter Cupcakes baked using empty egg shells which had being dyed with food colourings.

Chocolate Hot Cross Bun, a prefect treat for coming Easter.

Nested Easter featured volcano like toasted loaf which consists runny soft-boiled egg, extra bits of fried bacon that served together with a bed of shredded cucumber and mixed dried fruits.

Lastly for this coming long weekend, I would like to wish everyone a Happy Easter Holiday.

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