Lunch Bento #8 and #9

My bento - sandwiches, carrots and corn (at the bottom of carrots) served with Thousand Island dressing

Same as my bento except with an additional cupcake.. (Btw, the corns and dressing are missing coz I placed it in last min)

I woke up at 5.55am this morning to assemble these bentos. One for me using the new container that I had bought at Daiso (Puchong) on their first day of opening and of course another bento for my dearie Hubby..

My bento consists of sandwiches, carrots, corns with Thousand Island Dressing

Hubby's - same as mine with an extra cupcake

*I wonder whether I can have that *semangat* to do that every day* (keep wondering....)

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Egg and Ham Sandwich

Egg and ham sandwich with chips..

An easy recipe to try for dinner tonight as we wanted to have something light for dinner tonight. I'll be thinking of adding some pepper and slightly more curry powder to enhance the taste for this recipe. But overall, it's a delicious recipe. Definately worth a try and it'll be good for picnics or any outdoor outings.

Ingredients

4 eggs, hard boiled
1/2 tablespoon butter
1 pinch curry powder (I'll put extra curry powder in my next try)
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
6 slices bread

2 slices of ham

Methods

1. Mash boiled eggs with a fork.
2. Put butter in bowl and add eggs.
3. Add curry powder and then mayonnaise a little at a time to get the right texture (which is creamy). Be careful not to make them dry.
4. Cut crusts of bread.
5. Place 1 medium sized slice of ham on two of the pieces of bread.
6. Spread egg mixture on top of them.
7. Top with other slices and cut into the shaped u desired (triangle/rectangle).
8. Served with some potato chips.
   

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Lunch Bento #7

Simple bento preparation for a lazy me...

A very simple lunch bento for Hubby today as all the food are prepared the night before. So all I need to do it's just take out the food (meehoon) from the fridge and heat it up in the microwave. That simple! It really suits the timing that I have for this morning as I need to be out from the house before 7am to avoid the jam heading to my office..

The bento consists of fried meehoon and dried prawn and cucumber salad as appetizer.

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Dried Prawn & Cucumber Salad

Good as appetizer

This recipe taste just like papaya pickles or in Malay called Jeruk Betik. Instead of using papaya, this recipe uses cucumber as the main ingredient.. The slices of cucumber were very crunchy and the sweetness plus the sourness is just as what I wanted. A good choice of appetizer to appetites our taste buds.

Ingredients

1 cucumber

3 tbsp dried prawns, cleaned and stir-fried til fragrant

1 red chilli, shredded

Seasoning

2 tbsp white rice vinegar (I used sushi vinegar)

3 tbsp sugar

Methods

1. Use peeler and peel cucumber into very thin slices.
2. Put all ingredients and seasoning into a mixing bowl and mix well. Wrap with plastic wrapper.
3. Chill in the fridge for 1 hour. Serve as cold appetizer.

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Fried Meehoon

Today was a busy day for me and Hubby. We went shopping for some stuff that I had aimed to have since last year. Yipee!! :) So for our dinner tonight, we are having something simple - Fried Meehoon. Eventhough it a simple dish, it took me quite long time from the stage of preparation, cooking and cleaning.

Ingredients

400g meehoon, soaked and drained
150g bean sprouts
1 carrot, shredded
2 onion, shredded
100g dried prawn
150g chicken fillet, sliced
1 pc fish cake, sliced
2 tbsp chopped garlic
2 eggs, lightly beaten
2 fresh red chilies, shredded
cooking oil

Seasoning

1 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tsp sesame oil
1/4 tsp dark soya sauce
6 tbsp light soya sauce
1 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp salt
200ml water

Methods

1. Heat up oil, pour the lightly beaten egg into the wok and stir-fry until crispy, remove and set aside. Sliced the eggs.
2. Heat up oil. Saute the chopped garlic and dried prawns until fragrant.
3. Add in shredded onion, sliced fish cake and chicken fillet and stir-fry until meat is cooked.
4. Mix meehoon and stir well. Add seasoning and stir well.
5. Add shredded carrot and bean sprouts.
6. Stir-fry until meehoon is cooked and add in fried crispy egg. Stir well.
7. Garnished with red chilli.

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Magnolia Vanilla Cupcakes with Chocolate Ganache Frosting

I had decided to try another vanilla cupcake recipe that I have found on the internet from Recipezaar tonight since Hubby will be going for his badminton session with his friends, which means I am home alone tonite. Yeah! I can turn the whole house up side down since he will only be back late at night... *Just kidding*. I found that I like this recipe better as compare to the one I had tried before. For the topping, I am using the chocolate ganache recipe but I had whipped the chocolate ganache to become fluffy and turn it into frosting. The chocolatey flavour is just so marvelous. Yummy! I cant resist but to taste some of it while decorating the cuppies. The recipe for the chocolate ganache can be found here. So guys, happy experimenting with the recipe while I enjoy my cuppies now.. *Munch munch*.....

Hmm, I ought to improve in decorating skills..

Sprinkled with 'hundreds and thousands', silver balls and flower decor..

Can I take a bite now?

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Lunch Bento # 6 (Flower Bento)

Flower shaped onigiri..

I used the leftover of the cabbage rolls and roasted potatoes that we took for yesterday dinner for Hubby's bento today. His lunch or rather breakfast today consist of cabbage rolls, herb roasted potatoes, sweet corns, baby carrots and onion ring. The onigiri were shaped using a mould I bought from Daiso last few weeks, and sprinkled some Furikare on top and Nori and sweet corns as decoration. So does the onigiri looks like a flower now??

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Cabbage Rolls

There are a half cabbage left after making the coleslaw last week. Therefore, I decided to use up the remaining cabbage to try a new recipe- cabbage rolls. From the pictures below, they do look like 'sui kow' or dumplings. The rolls made of cabbage do give some extra sweetness taste to the fillings since cabbage is sweet after cooked.

Cabbage rolls or dumpling? Hehe.. Of course its cabbage rolls..

More cabbage rolls...

Ingredients

240g minced pork

1/2 cabbage

1 medium size carrots, diced

5 chinese mushroom, soaked and diced

1/2 cup chicken stock

Seasoning

3/4 tsp salt

3/4 tsp sugar

1 egg white

pepper to taste

Methods

1. Rinse cabbage, trim the stem and blanch until tender.
2. Mix mince pork with vegetables, seasoning and mix well to make the filling.
3. Fill each cabbage leaf with enough filling, and roll up.
4. Pour chicken stock over rolls and steam for 15 minutes or till the pork is cooked.

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Herb Roasted Potatoes

This a an easy yet splendid roasted potatoes recipe that is great as a side dish or even as a snacks. It is so simple - a dish made of herbs and olive oil and get it roasted in the oven. The end result - finger licking good potatoes...

Ingredients

3 large potatoes, cubed
1/8 cup olive oil

3 tsp Italian Seasoning

(consists of Oregano, Basil, Red Pepper, Marjoram, Thyme, Rosemary, Sage and Parsley)

1/2 tsp salt

Methods

1. Preheat oven to 245 degrees Celcius.
2. In a large bowl, combine oil, Italian seasoning and salt. Stir in potatoes until evenly coated. Place potatoes in a single layer on a roasting pan or baking sheet.
3. Roast for 20 to 30 minutes in the preheated oven, turning occasionally to brown on all sides.

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Lunch Bento #5

Overall look...

Top layer..

Bottom layer

For lunch today, Hubby will be having

Top layer - teriyaki glazed prawn balls and tau fu pok skewers, bacon and asparagus rolls

Bottom layer - coleslaw, kiwi fruits, cherry tomatoes and star/flower shaped carrots...

Bon Appetit!!

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Coleslaw

Tangy coleslaw..

KFC has always been my fave restaurant since I was small. Since I had leftover of cabbage bought last few days for my curry dish, I decided to give a try to this recipe that caught my attention - KFC Coleslaw. This recipe is another keeper! I had followed the recipes with some changes (I left the lemon juice out, use rice vinegar instead of white vinegar and use substitute for buttermilk) but it came out perfectly good. It really tasted like KFC Coleslaw. The following are the substitute of buttermilk recipe.

Ingredients
Milk (just under one cup)
1 tbsp white vinegar or lemon juice

Methods

1. Place a Tablespoon of white vinegar or lemon juice in a liquid measuring cup.
2. Add enough milk to bring the liquid up to the one-cup line.
3. Let stand for five minute.

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Bacon and Asparagus Rolls

Rolls.. Good as a filler for bento..

More rolls...

This will be a very good finger food especially for making bento. It's simple and super easy to prepare. We can use other types of vege as well to make this rolls according to your own preferences e.g long beans, bamboo shoots and etc..

Ingredients

Asparagus (cut into the length u desired)

Streaky bacon

Teriyaki sauce:

1/2 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup *mirin (sweet rice wine) (soy sauce : mirin = 1:1)
2 tbsp sugar

Methods

1. For teriyaki sauce: Combine all ingredients in a saucepan. Stir the mixture well. Put it on medium heat and bring to a boil. Turn down the heat to low and simmer for a couple minutes. Stop the heat and cool the mixture. Store the sauce in a clean bottle in the fridge.
2. For the rolls: Cut and trim the asparagus stalks till desired length.
3. Bring water to boil in a saucepan. Add in asparagus and simmer around 5 minutes or till cooked. Drain and set aside.
4. Rolled streaky bacon around few stalks of asparagus (3-4 stalks). Put the rolls tightly next to each other in a small bowl (to help prevent them from unrolling).
5. Place 1 tbsp of teriyaki sauce on each rolls.
6. Heat up a little oil in a non-stick frying pan and fry the bacon and asparagus rolls on both sides until the bacon is cooked and lightly browned.
   Glaze the rolls with the extra sauce in the bowl as you are frying them.

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Lunch Bento #4 (Benny aka the Bear Bento)

Can you see the similarities?

'Headshot' of Benny

Benny lying on the bed of rice and blossom shaped nori cuts

The other animals accompanying Benny...

Overall look..

Almost everything in this Bento has been prepared much earlier. The main actor for Hubby's Kyaraben for lunch today will be the 'bear bear' character on my mobile phone pouch. I was very tempted to create this cute lil' bear for my second Kyaraben. The bear was like looking at me asking me to bring him into 'life' ('Bring me to live plz.... for weeks..') or shall I say my own 'itchifying' hand was tempted to create him. Whatever the reason is, there he is now, lying on a bed of rice in the lunch Bento today. I even named him, 'Benny aka the bento bear'... Hubby's bento today consist of

Top layer - fish and vege curry

Bottom layer - cherry tomatoes, corns, crabstick, rice and of course 'Benny' with cute nori cuts.

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Fish and Vegetable Curry

Love the curry gravy, best served with hot fluffy rice..

There's has been a packet of fish curry paste that has been lying in my cabinet for sometime now. So it's time to actually use up the paste before the packet expired and went to the rubbish bin. (Note to myself: Must use up the cooking ingredient that been bought as soon as possible to avoid wastage) I like using these type of cooking paste coz it certainly make a cooking novice like me a much easier life and the results - mouth watering curry. The fish cut was bought from Jusco, which is a much better place to get fresh meat and seafood.

Ingredients

450g fish (I used Tenggiri cut)

brinjal

cabbage

tau fu pok

vegetables (any types u prefer)

salt to taste

1 packet of fish curry paste

Methods

1. Empty the packet of fish curry paste into the wok. Bring to boil for 1-2 minutes.
2. Add fish, stir and bring to boil.
3. Add 300ml water, vegetables such as brinjal, cabbage and etc and stir.
4. Cook till the fish and vegetables tender and serve.

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Lunch Bento #3

Pasta bento with other goodies

The goodies..

See the cute hard boiled egg?

Strawberries and brownies..

The pasta and the sauce.. Placed separately so that it wouldn't be soggy..

Since we had leftover pasta from last night dinner, I decided to used up the remaining for Hubby's bento today. His bento today consist of

creamy sauce beef and mushroom fettucine

brownies

carrots

strawberries

star shaped hard boiled eggs

bunny shaped cheese

I realised that by preparing bento for Hubby, I can actually used up the leftover that we had for our dinner. So no more stuffing ourselves up during dinner time in order to finish up all the food.. Yippee!!

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Traditional Creamy Sauce Beef and Mushroom Fettucine

Close up look..

Fettucine, my fave pasta!

Pasta for dinner tonite. I had bought the creamy sauce from Leggo's last few weeks. Since we are bored of eating out for dinner, so I decided to prepare this simple yet yummy dish. I decided to add minced beef (since Hubby's love beef) and of course mushroom to this pasta. Half an hour preparation and Voila, we got our dinner ready. I aim to cut down the frequency for us eating out. Keep fingers crossed that my this year resolution comes true.. Hehe..

Ingredients

Minced beef

Sliced mushroom

Fettucine

Garlic (sliced)

Onion (sliced)

Cream sauce

Salt

Italian seasoning (for garnishing)

Parmesan cheese (for garnishing)

Methods

1. Fill a large pot with water and add a teaspoon or two of salt.
2. Bring to boil and add fettucine. When fettucine is cooked al dente, remove and set aside on plate.
3. Add oil to saucepan and fry the onion and garlic till fragrant.
4. Add in beef and mushroom and stir fry. Add in salt to taste.
5. Once the beef and mushroom are almost cooked, add in the cream sauce. Stir to combine.
6. Serve the hot sauce over fettucine. Garnish with Italian seasoning and Parmesan cheese.

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Lunch Bento #2 (Boy and Girl Bento)

Boy and girl shaped sushi rice

Aren't they cute... :)

There's even small container and dripper for sauce too...

The girl..

And of coz the boy..

I decided to create cartoon characters (Kyaraben) for Hubby's lunch bento today. Kyaraben is short for character bento, which are lunchboxes (bento) that depict the face or image of a cartoon character or superhero using various ingredients. I had prepared all the ingredients the night before thus making the preparation in the morning much more easier. I had used sushi rice for this bento and moulded it into a boy and girl character. It's pretty to fun to assemble this bento. Besides rice, I had stir-fried broccoli and carrots (sliced, and cut into flower shapes) as the source of fibres and pan-fried the ginger marinated fish fillets. Since I had some leftovers of chuka idako and japanese cucumber in my fridge, it was placed into the lunch box as well to create more varities in Hubby's lunch. So, assembled everything together, we have a boy and girl surrounded with a garden of vegetables.. :)

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Chocolatey Cocoa Brownies

The batter - it tastes good even before baking..

Brownies in the making

Can we cut it now..?

Brownies.. A slice for me?

Heavenly chocolate flavour.. Yumm..

Today is a day to remember in our house.. It's the official ribbon cutting ceremony for my oven which has been placed at our kitchen untouched since the day we moved in last year.. Well, like the saying 'It's better late than never'. Haha.. I decided to give a try on the brownie recipes I found in Lily's blog. This recipes definately a keeper as she had mentioned in her blog. The brownies are moist and as i named it SO CHOCOLATEY! Thumbs up for the richness of the chocolate flavour in it and of course the texture as well, SO MOIST! I shall say it's a heavenly pleasure for chocolate lovers.. Do give this recipe a try when you have time...

Ingredients

Soft butter, for greasing the pan

Flour, for dusting the buttered pan

4 large eggs

1 cup sugar, sifted

1 cup brown sugar, sifted

8 ounces melted butter

1 1/4 cups cocoa, sifted

2 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup flour, sifted

1/3 tsp salt

Methods

1. Preheat the oven to 150 degree Celcius.
2. Butter and flour an 8-inch round pan.
3. Beat the eggs at medium speed until fluffy and light yellow.
4. Add both sugars. Add remaining ingredients, and mix to combine.
5. Pour the batter into a greased and floured 8-inch square pan and bake for 45 minutes.
6. Check the doneness of the brownies with a cake tester. The cake tester should come out clean once it's done.
7. When it's done, remove to a rack to cool.
8. Cut it when it is completely cool.
   

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Jalan-jalan Cari Makan - Melaka

This pics are funny...

Me with the flowers at Stadhuys

The 3 guys...

Satay celup!! My FAVE!! Can't find it anywhere but in Melaka only..

One of the must have in Melaka - Cendol..

Chicken rice balls..

We had decided to venture into a 'Jalan-jalan Cari Makan' one day trip to Melaka for this long weekend with two of our friends. We started the journey around 9am from our place and MELAKA here we come to eat, walk and not to mention playing a part to contribute to the jam in the town. We had stop half way in Seremban to had our breakfast and Hubby's bro and sis-in law and course their two lovely daughters had join us for our breakfast. After some chit-chatting and makan-ing session, we continued our journey. The jam was quite bad in the town area, I suppose all folks took the opportunity to visit the historical city during this short holiday break. Our first destination - Jonker Street. Every little spot in Jonker Street were pack with people. Some of the stuffs we had there were - of coz their famous cendol, chicken rice ball, asam laksa, curry laksa and in this trip we bought ourselves 'Lou Poh Biscuits' aka Wife Biscuits. After Jonker Street, we went to the famous red building in town (Stadhuys) and A Famosa aka Porta de Santiago for some photo taking session. You guys definately can't believe it that for this trip, I had some time to drop by to my favourite shop - Daiso to grab some new bento stuffs in their store as well. The guys are amazed of that ability of mine. :P I guess I am really a born shopaholic, can shop and shop where ever I go.. Hehe.. And of coz how can we leave Melaka before savouring their must have - SATAY CELUP (my fave).. Yum yum.. I am hoping we can have this kinda trip once in a while to satisfy my taste buds..

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