One of my favourite little tools I found in Japan was the pocket sandwich maker. I love this thing so very much, so keep an eye out for it in the future! What does it do? Removes the crust AND seals the edges to make this cool little pocket. It is easy, quick and makes filling sandwiches so much easier! For example, in Japan I purchased a Yakisoba pocket sandwich. Yakisoba is soba noodles stir fried. So in Aussie terms you could put spaghetti in this sandwich, and it will hold all the contents and be super delicious!

In Miss A's sandwich I put a little avocado and mayo concoction. Her kindy lunches are refrigerated so be careful with mayo in an uninsulated lunch box.

While I'm still excited with it I thought I'd try something different! Here I out FreeNut butter in the bottom of a silicon cup and put in some celery sticks. This wasn't a bento I had planned on either, completely last minute have-to-make-lunch-in-10-minutes type of lunch. But hey! If you have your fridge and cupboard stocked you can while up this in no time!

Corn thins and babybel cheese, grapes, FreeNut butter and celery, mini wafers (a very special treat!)

As you can see, not the best bento I've made, but it's not rubbish either! This one came home empty! Hitting the right notes lately!

Take care!

x Nya!

 

My daughter requested pancakes for dinner, to which I was willing to comply. I then had a fleeting thought midway making said pancakes, "what if I added carrot and zucchini?" I passed on my thoughts to Miss 4 and she said it was a good idea. So I had to last minute alter the recipe and pray that the vegetables didn't cause the batter to become too runny. Well, the result was amazing!! They were so yummy the kids ate them all up and asked for thirds! Even husband loved them! So I quickly wrote down the recipe to share. Please remember I was going to make normal sweet pancakes, so they do have sugar and a dash of maple syrup (subbed for the vanilla extract that's gone missing). Seeing as I was going to make them sweet, adding the veges made it healthier and OMG so much tastier! I will be doing these again! I have to make another batch though as there is nothing left!

Think of the bento opportunities with these also! A sweet but healthy snack in the lunch box. If you've packed not other sweet things than why feel guilty for the small amount of sugar in the pancakes? It looks like an odd recipe, but try it out! For bento I'd make them piklet sized to fit into the lunchbox. Because of the self raising flour they don't roll at all. If your clever and have some egg frying molds or even pancake molds you can make them in cute shapes!

Ok, so here is the recipe - http://nekomama.com.au/index.php/recipes/bento/52-vegetable-pancakes

Enjoy!!

Today's bento is a bit of an experiment! We aren't allowed nuts or eggs at kindy so I have found a wonderful product from Coles called FreeNut Butter. It's made from sunflower seeds. To me, it looks, tastes and smells the same! But I'm not fussed on peanut butter. I can't remember how much it was but it was about the same price as peanut butter anyway. So to test it out I made a scroll, which is crust less bread flattened with a rolling pin. Added the freenut butter and strawberry jam then rolled it into a scroll. Verdict? Miss A says, Delicious!

What's inside? FreeNut butter and jelly scrolls, pork and tofu meatballs, grapes and strawberries, carrot, cucumber and a babybel cheese.

I have to admit, this one came home almost empty! With just a few extra bits of carrot and cucumber left over. It's a satisfying feeling when they've eaten it all!

Take care!

x Nya!

Ok I know the book is little rabbit foo foo but bunny is so much cuter! I am thoroughly enjoying my new bento tools and OMGoodness the rice ball molds are so much easier than plastic wrap in cookie cutters! Tis had to be one if the quickest thrown together pieces, and the cutest!

 

 

 

Doesn't have to be valentines day to show your love! I love sneaking little love notes or symbols into my hubbies lunchbox. It's fun, and he doesn't mind at all!

 

I have been trying to figure out the exact amount of food to send to kindy. At home she eats all the time, but I think she is so distracted at school that she doesn't eat as much. So today, nothing was left at all! I think I am getting the hang of little Miss's portion size!

An, valentines lunch for the husband. He does adore his lunches, even when they have hearts plastered everywhere. I try most days to send love in his lunch, but tried especially hard this morning to show how much I love him. <3 He really enjoyed his lunch and even sent me a pic of how the lunch had fared in the trip to work.

 This morning I wanted to try and be a bit more typical Aussie with my lunch and use the sandwich. I ask the Missy every morning sandwich or rice, and she chooses rice most mornings. But today, sandwich it was because shes not eating her rice lunches as much as the sandwich ones. She'll eat all her rice but leaves the rest. Which is unusual as she eats it at home! 

So here it is, I can wholeheartedly admit I went a bit overboard. And that the whole thing will be a shambles when she went to school. I have to find a way to 'stick' everything down. Any ideas or suggestions would be appreciated! 

I added her name, as she is learning to write her own name, she even recognized and told me it was her name ^__^

 

 Chicken loaf and cheese sandwich. Devon, tomato, chicken loaf and cheese little girl. Cheese letters. All leftover cut out prices have been added on the left side. Pickles on the bottom. Peas and corn in a cup and a cherry tomato. 

Now, what did I learn about today's Bento. Well, kyaraben takes a lot longer than I planned on. While its hot the cheese doesn't come out of the stencils as easily as they should. I had to punch so much cheese to get those letters to work! Let's hope she eats all her lunch today!

 

 Monday is the only day that we are all out of the house. Mummy and daddy go to work, Missy goes to kindy, and Little Man goes to grandma and grandads house. We need to all be ready and out the door by 8am to get everyone dropped off at the right location. It requires a 6am start, short showers, lots of team work and a night of preparation. But once it is set in motion, we are becoming a well oiled machine! 

First day of kindy, the pressure was on to make an appetizing bento to make her feel special at her new school. I tried to keep it basic, but also fun! I was a complete and utter mess making this bento. Sobbing and tearing up along the way. I was positive to get the tears out of the way so I could be big, brave, mummy on the day. I think I did rather well. I kept it together on the morning! 

 

Well it's been a lovely Christmas period and I've enjoyed my lunch making break, but also very excited to get back into it. I was very fortunate to receive a wonderful box of goodies from my lovely friend in Japan (thank you so much!!!) 

Lunch Box Raid.... I think we have a winner!
After relentless searching I am going to go with the ECO Lunchbox sets! I found a local company in Ormiston that sells them too, so no wasted packaging on my eco friendly lunch boxes!
Why did I choose these ones? The stainless steel, the open-ness of the boxes that allowed me to create bentos that some of the others inhibited. The second set is stackable! And the clips look pretty easy for a toddler. (Plus if i get lazy, or if requested, I can fit a whole sandwich!)

I am still going to go and touchy feel the boxes to make doubly sure it is what I want. The planetbox and Goodbyn were tempting but it is all too seperated! It just would be too difficult to fill some days I think. I am planning on getting both sets, mainly because you need flexibility and options. One lunch box isn't enough, you need a few to play around with. I am a little sad she can't use her cute strawberry bento box, but she'll be old enough to use it soon.

http://ecolunchboxes.com/product_boxoval.html
http://ecolunchboxes.com/product_boxsquare.html

Aren't they cool? Mr N was very unsure about the boxes, mainly because they are 'industrial' looking and are very 'plain and dull'. So I also got to searching and am going to buy some vinyl decals to decorate the lid. Yay! I just won't put the lid in the dishwasher and hand wash the base of the lid.

I'm feeling very pleased with myself. One down, lots to go!

xx Neko Mama

Technically I made this the same day as Strawberries and Jack-O-Lanterns but I thought it deserved it's own post due to how long it took to make!
This was a part of my 3 hour cooking marathon! Oh my it was a challenge, but I think I have found some staples for my johbisai. ^__^
I thought it was very tasty, while hubby thought I may have had too many strong flavours. So while this looks great, I might tone back on all the flavours next time and see how I go.

Todays last minute bento, literally 30 minutes before hubby was meant to leave I decided to make it. Again, the longest part is the rice! I didn't wash or polish though, as that would've taken more time.


(Oh my what a horrible photo!!!! Hubby took it at work...)

This morning I can be honest, I wasn't planning on making the hubby lunch. I was planning on sleeping in instead! But then Mr decided to make me breakfast, poached eggs and bacon to be exact, and then I couldn't help myself. So this was a last minute idea and only took 20 mins. The longest bit was cooking the rice, and I experimented with only cooking 1/2 cup of rice. It turned out really nicely and was very quick. The only downside was about 1/4 of the rice stuck to the bottom. I think cooking a whole cup is the better way to go, but if your short on time the 1/2 cup works fine (well in my $15 rice cooker from BigW!)





So we have top tier of rice (I've been asked to scale back the rice as I've been giving him too much. We'll see if this was enough today). I boiled a whole carrot and zucchini then sliced up and laid on top. I sprinkled a bit of salt on top.
Bottom tier has sliced pork chipolatas/sausages (whatever you'd like to call them) that I gently pan fried with no oil! I covered them with a lid too. I didn't want them to become oily and slimy when he ate them at room temp. The carrot is somewhat of a kinpara but to speed things up I boiled whole before slicing up like 'match sticks'. I didn't have sesame oil so I added some soy sauce and sesame seeds and fried them in with the sausage. I took sausage out then added some honey onto the carrots. So they're somewhat honey soy kinpara carrots.
There are some beans and cherry tomatoes in there for filler.

Overall I think a pretty healthy lunch with lots of colour and proportions. For a last minute thing I'm quite impressed with myself!


Nya! =(^_^)= いってらしゃい！

This was the first Bento video/tutorial that I came across and I was in love with the whole concept ever since. Honestly it's been around 2 years since I started my Bento-ing venture. I had an old blog with the 100 bento challenge and I *think* I made it up to 30 before getting quite ill. So that is a fantastic achievement in my book!
Anyway, back to topic. This is a very simply put full bento prep with ingredients and instruction on how to pack and time. I have not made this exact bento but have taken inspiration and advice from it.

So without further ado, here it is!
Cooking With Dog - Bento