I made this bento about a month ago, but just edited the picture yesterday along with many other pictures of food I made. I might make something like this for Jojo’s 3rd birthday party, is very easy to make and more importantly is no nori needed.
Another reason I made this one is also because I never made a ’sweet type’ bento, to think of it most people also only make a regular ’savory type’ bento even when we use bread (with ham and sausages). From the result I can feel that this ’sweet type’ bento is having less calories than the usual bento but I think it’s still okay for kids having this kind of bento for once a while.
I used white bread for the base and wheat bread for the ‘birthday cake’, they have different colors but didn’t show much on the picture. I used icing sugar for the decoration, strawberry jam for the red line, and cheddar cheese on the bottom part of the ‘cake’. As for the ‘candles’ I broke a pocky into several pieces and use red icing sugar for the ‘fire’.
For the rest of the filling, fruits (strawberries, red and white grapes), chocolate candies, cheddar cheese cut into cube and wrapped with plastic paper, and cookies with additional melted chocolate for the writing.
So I had 2 days to prepare all the 60 bento boxes to be delivered on Monday at 10 am. The hardest part of all of course was making all those Naruto faces. But the other stuff if put together like putting lettuce, rice, all vegetables and chicken on the box, they takes lots of time too.
From the initial sample my friend wanted me to change cherry tomato with sausages and those chicken karaage with chicken katsu, which meant more works to be done since I had to cut all the sausages and cook them while with cherry tomato only need to be washed and put straight into the box. The same with chicken katsu, they need more time to prepare compared to karaage. But since I had three good assistants it’s not a big problem since they could do all those thing.
Continue reading Naruto bento, part 2
Wow, I can’t believe it’s more than 2 months ago since my last post. It’s not that I didn’t make any bento or cook something during my hiatus, in fact I have almost 100 pictures of food to post, but never found a good time to write them down. Now I’ve prepared some time to post again and hopefully I can do it regularly like last year.
The naruto bento below was made for my friend’s son 9th birthday party. I only had 6 days notice and the initial order was for 30 bento boxes. I didn’t take the order right away since I was not sure I can pull it off. Later that day I made up my mind and since I’ve made 30 bento boxes for my son 2nd birthday (but in 2 separate days) and now my cooking skill and kitchen coordination is way better than last year I’m quite sure that I can finish 30 in one day. Then after agreeing the task, I asked my friend’s son which character he likes most and the answer was Naruto and Avatar. I searched both pictures and decided that I will make Naruto, I will make the Avatar (the Last Airbender) another time.
Continue reading Naruto bento, part 1
In the next two days we learn how to cook red meat, which is great since I really love red meat especially when it’s grilled. So for today we learnt how to cook roasted sirloin fillet served with pureed (mashed) potatoes. The recipe is good and quite easy to prepare, so I will share it in this post.
I’ve made some modification with the recipe at home. The juice (sauce) recipe is the basic recipe, we can add mushroom or black pepper to make it into mushroom sauce or black pepper sauce.
Continue reading Roasted sirloin fillet with pureed potatoes
It’s been almost a month since my last bento. Tonight is Christmas’s eve and I want to celebrate it in a nice bento way. I made a simple snowman theme with some usual bento fillings.
The snowman was made with three onigiri. As for the facial details, I used shiitake mushroom and a heart foodpick for the hat; nori cut with hole puncher for the eyes and the buttons; black sesame seeds for the smiling mouth, a maize ear (corn) for the nose, and crab stick skin for the scarf.
As for the bento fillings, I made chicken karaage, ham and lettuce roll, and put a cherry tomato, cauliflower chunks (I didn’t use the usual broccoli chunks since I wanted more white like snowy Christmas day for the bento), and a half mandarin orange.
The other ornaments I made were a Christmas tree shape cucumber made with vegetable cutter and a pair of snowflake cheese. I cut those snowflake with the art knife, took a while to made them but I’m quite proud of the result.
So I think this is the last bento I made for 2009. I will post some more post from my cooking class before the end of the year. Merry Christmas to everyone and happy holiday, God bless us all ^_^
In Jojo’s school there is a weekly event that on each Friday one children must bring some snacks to share with the other students. And this week is Jojo’s turn which meant that I must prepare something on Thursday night. Usually the other parents just buy foods from supermarket for their child to share but I and my wife agree that we will prepare a special homemade food for our son to bring.
I saw this broken glass pudding while I was surfing for recipes a couple of weeks ago and I really loved it so I proposed making this kind of pudding to my wife and she’s agree, as long as I’m the one who make it. No problem for me.
The original recipe was using jell-o with various kinds of colors but my wife doesn’t like jell-o because (and I agree) she thinks that thing has too much artificial flavors and coloring. The other reason I don’t use it because those stuff are imported so the price is too pricey for just a pudding.
Continue reading Retro style pudding
Today’s lesson at the cooking school was a continuation from our last class. After watching cooking demo from the chef, we had our puff pastry ready to bake. We rolled the pastry dough with rolling pin until it became very thin and broad. We knew that our pastry won’t expand perfectly but still we wanted to know the result.
While we wait our pastry in the oven, we prepared the poach egg along with the albuferra sauce. There are several method to make poached egg (I googled while I’m writing this post) but I think the way we taught by our chef is one of the simplest. We only need to boil water in a sauce pan, add 2 tbs of vinegar and break the egg near the water edge and like magic, the egg white automatically swirl and approaching the egg yolk. We just wait around 3-5 minutes depending on how hard we want our egg, and then we need to soak the poached egg into water with some salt on it to remove the vinegar flavor. It’s done.
Continue reading Puff pastry with leek and poached egg with albuferra sauce
After finished the class I had this urge to make something at home and I decided to make an apple pie using the dough recipe I’ve got today. I’ve baked apple pie several times but it’s been one year since I made the last one. I remember that we have lots of trouble this past year finding a good housemaid that can help me as cook assistant. And after changing 3 housemaids we found a good one now, she’s a good cook and quite reliable as a kitchen assistant.
So at home I only prepare all the ingredients and measure them right and let our housemaid to finish the dough and prepare the apple sauce. But I still have to roll the dough and put it on tray and check the oven myself. We only have a simple portable oven at our home, so if we want to use it then we have to heat the oven on top of the gas stove. We can’t possibly know the oven temperature, the only way to know is using our feeling and checking the oven often until our food is well baked.
Continue reading Homemade apple pie
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