Cutsy Little Sandwhich Bentos

Well actually you will have know by now that my kitchen is already reopen with me cooking Wan Ton Mee (all because of Clemens’ Project) and steaming prawns (because of my housemate’s late night catch).

However I have not been making bento and am also lazy to do so since the place I am working now have a large variety of food (really spoilt for choices). But I guess I have not much of a chance to reject (simply because I can’t bear to) the boys when they ask to bring tuna sandwhiches to school since last night.

Clemens & Damir’s Mid Morning Snack Box

Anyway it is relatively easy that you can prepare the feeling the night before.

1. Drain Dry 340g of Chunky Tuna Flakes in water and mix with 1 tablespoon of mayonnaise, 2 chopped Shallots and a dash of black pepper.

2. Butter the bread

3. Spread the tuna mixture

4. Pack then into luchboxes and place a piece of fruit as a bento filler or whatever you like.

*Note: Recipe for tuna given is for 4-5 pax. If you like it spicier, you can also add some chopped chillies into it. It still taste as good. 🙂

P.S: My boys absolutely enjoy them and they are asking if I can make a Easter bento each for their classmate. I am not very sure if I should do it too. Part of me wants to do it yet the other part of me dose not want. Hmmmmm,,,,,,,,, shall see again on Wednesday.

A Sweet Mistake

I got the shocked of my life today when the a deliveryman came into the office with a huge bouquet of flowers for me. I sat there signing the delivery order with an eye up glancing at the man wondering what was the occasion till I saw the card. My Love has sent it to me thinking that it was my lunar birthday but he got the date wrong.

A Very Surprise & Happy Me

Still it made me smile but it was rather funny throughout the day when bosses and colleagues started asking me what is it? Is it anniversary because it can’t be birthday as I had just received flowers for my birthday not too long ago. Though I had to answer quite a few times with a blush on my cheeks, it was still heart warming.

As Tall As My Office Cabinet: 22 Red Roses & 6 Lilies to be Exact

My Dad Helped Me with Arranging Them into the Vase 🙂

And…… the best is My Love actually booked The Lion King Musical for us to watch this coming Sunday and my favourite idol-Jacky Cheung’s 1/2 Century Tour Concert (just for the 2 of us in August).

2 most popular concerts in a year! 🙂 How I love this guy 🙂

P.S: I am so excited about these 2 because the last concert we watched was a few years back- The Phantom of the Opera (Just the 2 of us)

The Sunday Carnival

This is a happy Sunday for the kiddos because they are giving swimming a miss to attend the school’s carnival.

Seriously speaking, I will rather have them attending swimming lessons instead but it was after much of Clemens’ pleading and considering that this is the last year of pre-school for him and the projects that they have done are being displayed at the carnival that I decided to bring them to the carnival instead.

The weather was good and the kids pretty much enjoyed themselves, meeting up with their friends, teachers and playing stall games.

The Japan Earthquake & Tsunami

Clemens’ Blessings to the People of Japan

I love how the teachers made the children understand what Japan has gone through and also created awareness among the the students to empathize.

Damir & Teacher Felicia

Damir’s Process of His Project

Damir’s Clogs

The Bouncy Castle which they Enjoyed

Late Night Prawns At The Last Moment

Last night at 10.30pm, the little housemate of mine went prawning and brought back some prawns. I was initially thinking about what to do with it when she called me, since my family and I had a really full dinner. I thought I should freeze it till I saw how fresh and “jumpy” they are and thought it will be such a waste to freeze them (it is not every time you get live jumpy prawns in the kitchen sink at home). I can nearly taste the sweetness of the prawns in my mouth.

Hence there and then I decided I will cook them off the very last minute with minimal seasonings.

Tip: It is always good to have a good stash of ginger and garlic in the fridge.

Jumpy Prawns V.S Prepare-to-Steam Prawns

1. Wash and dry 10 mediums prawns and lay in a steaming pan.
2. Boil a wok of water to steam the prawns.
3. Chop a good amount of ginger and garlic to sprinkle on the prawns.
4. Season with 1tablespoon of fish sauce, 2 tablespoon of Chinese rice wine and an egg white.
5. Cover the pan of prawns with the garlic, ginger and seasoning. Place it into the wok of boiling water and steam for about 12 to 15 minutes.

After that, garnish with parsley and….

TUCK IN!!!!!!!!

My Kitchen’s Opening Ceremony: All Thanks to Clemens

With My Love returning yesterday, I was totally caught by surprise. No marketing was done, no groceries stored at home. Not even rice. So do you think I will start cooking again since my last bento photo entry?

Definitely not of course! But I guess I didn’t have much of a choice when Clemens came back with a family project from school. They are learning about animals now and are being taught that animals like cow, sheep and pig are our source of food. Hence they had to prepare a dish using either mutton, beef or pork as the main ingredient.

So marketing was done on a rush basis this morning and we thought we will prepare Wan Ton Noodles (Mince pork as the star ingredient) for dinner.

Clemens Basking In His Own Glory

Well of course before we prepare the Wan Ton, we have to prepare the soup base.

1. Blanch 1 chicken breast bone.
2. Wash and rinse 100g ikan bilis (dried anchovies)
3. Boil 1.5L of water and combine the above 2 with a few slices of ginger and bring it to a simmer for about 1 hour.

Now comes our STAR, the Wan Ton (very much like the ravioli but chinese-style)!

1. Prepare 500g Mince Pork

2. Add the seasonings (1.5tbs fish sauce, 1tbs oyster sauce, 1tbs sesame oil, a dash of white pepper)

3. Mix in 5 stalks of chop baby chives

4. Mix in shelled, deveined & chopped prawns (I use about 10pcs medium size grey prawns)

5. Mix well.

6. Cover, refrigerate and let it marinate for at least 30mins.

7. When ready to wrap, take it out, add 1tbs corn flour, 1 egg and mix well. (the flour & egg kind of acts as a conditioner to the meat, making the texture smoother)

8. Dust your holding plates or trays with more corn flour

9. Take a pc of wanton wrapper, place 1/2tsp of meat filling in the middle of the wrapper. Form a triangle by folding the bottom tip to the top tip and pressed and seal the filling in the wrapper.

10. Now that the folding is all done, bring 2 liters water to boil. Add wantons and simmer uncovered, stirring gently, for about 4 to 7 minutes until done. (When dumplings float to the top, that usually means they’re done. )

** Since I am doing it with my boys, I will of course choose the easiest style to wrap the wanton- the “Samosa-Style”. But here is a page that shows 8 different way of folding wantons.

Greens: I use shanghai greens for the vegetables. Cut the stems from the leaves and wash them well. Put the stems into boiling water 1st and cook it for about 2 mins. Then add the leaves in and give it a quick stir. Drain and put aside.

Noodles: Bring water to boil. Add noodles and cook until al dente, about 3 to 5 minutes, depending on the thickness of the noodles.

BBQ Pork: I cheated on this by buying it home from a roast pork store and slice it.

The last step is to of course assemble the soup, noodles, the greens, the wantons, the slices of BBQ pork together and this is what we got:

Looks as good as the store bought ones but a lot much tastier (or at least that is what the family had told us)

P.S: Initially, I was rather pissed off with the school as this was a really rushed project for us. But end of the day, we did enjoy ourselves very much especially my boys. And mind you, we had prepared the food for our entire family of 10 (grandad, grand mum, aunties, uncle and of course the 4 of us) so please feel free to half the ingredients if you do not have that many people. 🙂