What to do with leftover Bento food cut outs?

"What do you do with the leftovers from the bento meals after you have packed your kids those bento box food?" Jacss asked me.







I always have loads of leftover cut outs carrots, cut out bread, cut out ham from packing the bento meals.

I told Jacss I scooped them all into a ramekin bowl, beat up and egg, pour over it and bake it. Jacss asked me to blog about it so that she has an idea.

So here it is.



Scred up all the leftover cut out bread, cheese and vegetables.



Pour some milk in a jug and crack an egg into it. Be minded not to add too much milk cos you don't want a soggy bread pudding. Just a little below the top will do.



Pour over the leftovers and leave for about 15 minutes for the bread to soak it up. I normally just chuck it into the oven right away, though.



Bake for about 25 minutes or so. And you have your bread pudding.

Squeeze it to fit into a bento box



Add some vegetables and you have your own bento meal set for the day.



Hope that helps those who have lots of leftovers like we do.

Calcium again !

I am still continuing with my quest for calclum rich food.

My 2 1/2 year old is still not drinking formula. While other Malaysian kids go to kindergarten with a tummy full of probably 6 to 8 oz of formula milk, mine goes to school with an empty tummy. Purely because she wouldn't eat anything within the hour when she woke up in the morning, and because she has objected to formula milk since she stopped taking in breast milk. Hence the daily bento boxes for her snacks in school. check out my other blogs for posts on toddlers bento.

She was a breastfed baby and when my milk production index has gone down, she has not had her daily intake of calcium.

I do all I can to sneak calcium rich food into her diet. Refer to my posts below on recipes on calcium rich food.

Anyhow, just the other day, I was shopping with a girlfriend. As usual, I peered into those teeny weeny label indexing the food content, looking for anything above 0 to 5 % DV. My girlfriend had asked, what is it about the %DV?

I figured if she doesn't know, a lot of others out there may not know either.

So here I am listing down the yardstick for gauging the calcium content.

Percentage for DV

The percentage (%) DV for calcium on those labels stuck to the back of the food package, indexing the mineral content, is based on the adult daily requirements of 1000mg a day.

Take a pack of milk, for eg. If a pack of milk says it is 30% DV for calcium, you are looking at 300mg of calcium.

A toddler's calcium need is 500mg per day, so that is about 60% of a toddler's calcium needs for the day.

You need to know what is your kid's calcium need.

Kids who are 4 to 8 years old need abou 800mg per day. So Kimberly, being 7 1/2 year old, would need more calcium than Ashley, who is 2 1/2 year old.

A teenager would need about 1300mg a day. So that pack of milk that you are looking at would only b about 20% to 25%of a teen's calcium requirement.

Because Ashley doesn't take milk, I add a lot of cheese to their pizza and pasta sauce, and I sneaked in milk into their milo, poached fish in milk, and do a lot of milk based sauce for their food.

Scroll down the posts for more ideas.

I hope this will help other moms whose kids are not taking formula like mine. I know how stressful and worrisome it is when your infant rejects the bottle or any form of milk.

Have a great weekend, all !

Sambal, oh, sambal !!!

one of life's greatest pleasure is simple food.

This is one of my alltime favourite accompaniment to food !! Sambal cooked with onion.



A simple homecook dish, really. All you had to do is fry lots of sliced onions till fragrant, set it aside. Then fry blended or pounded raw chili till the colour turned just right, dark red, not chili red, then add the fried onions in. Stir to blend then add about 4 tablespoon (or to taste) of sugar to it.

I am happy having this with just one boiled egg for lunch. That is, if I were single. That wont do now, cos our meals now has to please the kids and the guy who bring home the bacon. ha ha.

But isnt life great for the simplicity of it sometimes?

Ashley's Bento

I put this up at my regular blog, Allthingspurple, but thought i should be putting this post at my food blog instead, so I am adding this post here as well.

My 2 1/2 year old toddler is now attending kindergarten, so that i could afford some time to clear up my work at the office. Besides getting her to adjust to a new environment, my other concern is that she doesnt go to school with a full tummy.

She is not a formula baby, being breastfed till now. And with my MPI going down, i had needed to make sure she had something to eat before I send her over. Which is not always the case.

She turned up her nose at the fried rice and fried noodles the school offers, cos she like her rice plain and her veges seperated.

So, inspired by Montessorimum's bento, I started packing food for AShley as well.

My first clumsy attempt after a rusty 4 years of not packing lunchbox for Kimberly. But it will have to do from my then scanty refrigerator.




It's weiners, cut up. And a moulded boiled egg. The little pink apple tube contained soy sauce.

Not exactly a bento, which should consist of 3 part carbo, 2 part vege and one part protein. So i added a stick of grapes on the side, but didnt have time to snap a pic cos Ashley had wandered off to the front without supervision.


I found this Bento container which i used to pack lunch for Kimberly a few years back when she was attending kindergarten. I have forgotten how pretty it is.



But i think i need to get a bigger one for times when i wanted to put more food.

On Thursday, she had pancakes for school, with slices of apple and fried nuggets on the side. That's because we had pancakes for Wednesday's tea time and it is convenient to pack for the next day's bento.

It's pancakes cooked in a moulded pancake pan.



I forgot to take pic of that day's bento. So will post this pic instead.



Kimberly had it with maple syrup while Ashley had it with jam.



This is Ashley's Friday's bento. Its rice moulded in a teddy bear plastic mould, with weiners and grapes again.



Same food. So boring...sigh.. cos I haven't replenish my fridge yet. Been meaning to get some baby carrot, some cherry tomatoes, ham slices and stuff.

This is today's bento.



It's origini that i made over the weekend. I froze a batch of it. With the advise from Natesgirl, I learn that I could freeze them in batches and that I could steam it up mighty quick in the microwave. Never knew that one could steam rice other than in the wok or the steamer. hee hee..

I took one out and cut it up so that Ashley could pick it up with her fingers. She doesnt fancy it wrapped in seaweed or omelette.


I skewers some apple cubes in the lower container and added some soy braised chicken in the upper container together with the rice, on the side. At first i attempted to skewer them as well, but they broke up cos I cut up the chicken pieces too small. so in the end, i gave up and put them in a side dish instead.


I packed this in a new container I got from the 100yen shop at SS2 when we went to SS2's pasar malam yesterday.



I got the container for only RM4.90. Such a good deal, yea?

Its been sometime since i have been into bento, and that was a long time ago (about 5years ago?) and nowadays i see some really cool tools and bento kits on the net. I am going to get myself some new bento tools soon. This bento thing can get addictive. ha ha.

Have a great day today, all !!