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 !