We're in Australia!!

Just wanted to let you know we made the big journey on Friday and all arrived safely. Our belongings shall follow in another two months. I miss all my bento stuff!!! Here's hoping the ship catches a faster current and arrives sooner.

Hope all of you are well - make wonderful lunches for me as I'm always on the prowl for new ideas.

Xoxo

Lyvvie

Bento for 26.5.09 and 27.05.09

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Green tea soba noodles with Thai 7 spice and soy sauce, three quail's eggs, shrimp, red pepper, carrots and lettuce. Top has a fruit chew bar, cheese and some pretzel sticks.

No leftovers.

Yesterday was slap dash as my Mom was leaving to go back to America and I wanted to get the lunch made and spend time with Mom. It's a simpler affair.



Sometimes it's ok to be a bit boring, it makes the fancier lunches all the more exciting. Ham and cheese sandwich cut into triangles, cheese, granola bar, carrot sticks with cream cheese in the teddy for dipping. Side has a couple of jaffa cake (these are the new strawberry ones and they are pretty awful. Orange is still best.) and some dried pineapple.

She ate the lot, but came home hungry. She'll get more protein from now on.

Bento for 25.05.09

Bacon wrapped quail's eggs, steamed carrots, lettuce, bonito rice with sukiyaki furikaki. Clementine halved, cheese and pretzel sticks. A packet of crisps for recess time.

Cooking With Dog Bento

I've not been doing much of my own bento lately as I'm doing my best to keep food supplies and shopping to a minimum. But I may have to go back to packing lunches as it's expensive to pay for school lunches. £8 per week. Yikes. I'll have to wait and see. Perhaps I'll keep two bento boxes behind when the movers come next week.

Anyways, if you don't already watch CWD, here's her latest bento video! It's rather sweet, but I wonder - is it right to put the pumpkin into cold oil and fry while bringing the oil up to a boil? I would think get the oil to temp first then put the pumpkin in so it's not oil-logged. But that's just me. Enjoy Cooking With Dog.

Bento for 02.04.09

Leftover pan fried pork chop, carrot and red pepper - surely the kid would be sick of this combination all the time but she asks for it! - two rice balls filled with smoked salmon, a few grapes hidden underneath things to give them some lift/support, half a black olive for a nose that she won't eat but looked better than the green grape and a red pepper mouth. Curly lettuce for separations.

Bento for 01.04.09

April Fool Bento has a couple of happy, laughing rice balls filled with Scottish salmon, carrots (two bigger ones with Hello Kitty presses) and red peppers, babybel cheese and some pan fried pork chop. Leafy greens for decoration and separation.

Egg Shaper!

This is the egg shaper that I bought recently from J-list. I've been coveting this thing for ages but couldn't buy it. So I emailed J-list to ask them to carry it and They Did! Aren't they cool?

This comes in a lot of small bits and can be fiddly at first. Especially as I couldn't read the instructions, but there were pictures so I managed to figure it all out eventually.

The first attempt, I made every mistake possible, I think. I over filled the tubes with egg white and I didn't oil the parts. So the first time I tried to pull the shape middles out, they stuck and the tops were still raw egg. Then the only way to fix that was to overcook them. Then I added in the yolks, and as the whites were too full, the yolks were too and made quite a mess everywhere. Also I overcooked them and they turned a yucky green colour.

So the second try - lucky I had enough eggs - I used a non-stick spray in the tubes, and on the shaper inserts. I filled the tubes half-way only with egg white. I boiled them for 10 minutes. then took them out, added the yolks, and put them back in the boiling pan for another seven minutes. When I opened the tops they looked done. I quickly put the whole thing into a cold water pan and left them to sit for twenty minutes.

This time they came out perfect. I do wish the yolks had been a brighter yellow, but I'm not going to complain about it. I also found that adding a bit of salt to both the white and yolk prior to boiling made them taste much better.



I had to rush to make this bento because I over slept this morning. It has a quick poached chicken breast sprinkled with salt and a little bit of garlic, red peppers, carrot sticks and the egg shapes i made last night. Aren't they sweet!? Sassy gets a few grapes and s fruit chew bag for dessert.