bento #27: the first one after 2 years!

in case some of you have not caught on, i just got back from my 3 weeks of home leave. and as usual, i came back with a box full of food and goodies that couldn't be found in the desert. among the items in my luggage, was a bubee insulated container that i bought from a stall in midvalley. it was an afterthought buy, as i was actually helping my colleague to buy one and at the last minute, thought it'll useful for me too.

anyway, yesterday being my first day back to work, i kinda lost my appetite at lunch time when i saw the food in the staff cafeteria. well, who can blame me, after all those yummy food back home?! so i decided to make use of my newly acquired bubee container...

i used the two small containers from this termos set...

preparation:

1. put 3/4 cup of rice to soak overnight

2. wash and chop up some dried mussels, refrigerate 

3. wash some kei-zhi (wolfberries), refrigerate

4. scoop out some pickled szechuan vege into small container, refrigerate

5. scoop out some fermented bean curd into small container, refrigerate

this morning, with only 5 more minutes before the 8am staff bus is scheduled to leave, i drained the rice and put them into the bubee container, threw in the dried mussels and wolfberries, and brought everything to the office.

upon reaching the office, i poured hot water onto the rice in the bubee container and screwed on the lid tightly. and by midday, voila! my porridge is ready!

this was how it looked like when the lid was first opened. i thought i'd put in too little water, not enough for it to become porridge. but upon stirring, i found that the bottom was quite watery after all.

for continuous improvement: 

1. need to use boiling water and not just hot water, as some of the rice were still hard in the middle

2. must remember salt or soy sauce

a simple meal, but yummy all the same! :)

bento #26: the one with the homemade sushi...

last sunday, i woke up craving for sushi... so i decided to cook some, since i still have 2 bags of sushi rice in my kitchen. so here's my sunday dinner (woke up too late to be cooking for lunch lar! :P)...

rice turned out a bit hard... *note to self: to put more water next time.

ta-da! sushi rice laced with some egg furikake and seaweed...

as the minimum quantity of rice my rice cooker can cook is 2 cups of rice, i decided to separate out half for my bento lunch the next day. i used some furikake again in the middle of these rolled up sushi... here, you can see very clearly that the rice is so dry that it's not sticky at all!

my lunch bento of homemade sushi...

read also:

1. bento #18: the one with all the shapes

bento #25: the one with the 8 treasures herbal soup rice...

i made soup yesterday! of course, chi would not consider it as soup, as i made it from those packet sachets and that crazy gal made her soup from scratch!

anyway, so i made a pot of 8 treasures herbal soup yesterday, with only some chicken fillet and salt. (i know, i know, i should use boned meat for boiling soup, but i hate touching raw meat! and fillets are the easiest to manage... :P) but after having 1 big bowl, i still had lots more in the pot... so that gave me an idea for my bento for today: how about cooking rice with that soup? so that's how the name of this post came about... rice cooked from soup!

so that's what i did... boiled down the soup to thicken it a bit more, soaked and chopped up some chinese mushrooms and dried shrimps, dump mushrooms, dried shrimps, washed rice and soup into the rice cooker and set the timer to finish cooking at 7.30am this morning.

voila! today's lunch...

woke up to the pungent smell of herbs... had to open up all the windows and glass doors to let it out! and the taste? really nice! a bit like yam rice, actually... and the chicken bits have a really strong herbal taste to it.

i packed along some garlic peri-peri sauce and my fav pickled szechuan vege, just in case the rice is too bland. no, they're not bland at all, but i still finished up the vege and sauce! :)

read also:
1. bento #23: the one with the pumpkin porridge
2. bento #14: the one with the experimental porridge
3. bento #8: the one with the yellow vege
4. bento #7: express bento
5. bento #6: sushi breakfast and home-cooked lunch

bento neh?

OMG! this is like seriously man's greatest invention since velcro!

usb bento warmer!

no more excuses of not having a microwave at work... and it works for both warm and chilled bento! total coolness, i tell ya! i swear, if i have one of these, i'd bento everyday! :P

bento #24: the one with the tartlets and red bean kuih

was buying dinner at a coffee shop yesterday when i saw this woman selling some kuih (malay, loosely translated as confection or pastries). normally i'm not one who likes kuih, but those that she was selling looked interesting enough for me to take a closer look.

bought a pack of egg tartlets (4 in a pack), a pack of coconut tartlets (also 4), and a pack of red bean kuih (5 in a pack).

so here's my breakfast bento today!

packed 2 bentos, one for the graphics designer under me... am i a good senior or what? ;)

read also:

1) bento #22: the one also with the kao-zhi

2) bento #21: the one with triangles of rice

3) bento #18: the one with all the shapes

4) bento #13: the one with the kao-zhi

bento #23: the one with the pumpkin porridge

have not been preparing any bento for some time now... reason being:

1. don't really like the taste of overnight dish
2. no microwave in the office. so even with insulated food container, i'll be having lukewarm food for lunch at best, and outright cold lunch at worst
3. no proper pantry in the office. so it's really a hassle washing up all the food containers in the (one and only) wash basin in the toilet
4. i'm always rushing to get out of the house in the morning (coz running late for work lar!), so dun really have a lot of time to prepare my bento
5. ok fine! i'm just pure lazy. satisfied?

anyway, last weekend i suddenly had this urge to cook some porridge, so went to the supermarket to look for some ideas as to what can i throw into my porridge.

at first, i was thinking of sliced potatoes, carrots and maybe some crabsticks. then i saw a quarter pumpkin for sale in the fresh produce section and my brain went 'ting!' and i can immediately see my pumpkin porridge in my mind. heck, i can even taste it in my mouth, even though i've not eaten a pumpkin porridge before!

so that's what i cooked for dinner yesterday. i tell you, cooking for one is a real bitch. as i don't really cook that often and i'm not that confident to share my culinary experiments with my housemates yet, i need to use up all the perishable ingredients that i buy. in the end, i had more pumpkin than rice in the pot! which explained why my porridge is such brilliant orange in colour. hehehe...

other than pumpkin, i threw in a lot (again, perishable items!) of oyster mushrooms (not sure it's called, but according to Mona and from my searches in google, this kind looks closest to the ones i used) and some red dates that i found in my larder. would love to throw in some kei-zhi (wolfberries) but found out (too late) that i didn't have any. and the result...

it's quite yummy lar... not sure if it's becoz my pumpkin is organic, but the porridge is not as sweet as i'd expected it to be. while i was shopping for the ingredients, mom called and when she learnt of my plans to cook pumpkin porridge, she said it's so weird but there's no harm trying. but it did not taste weird at all! will definitely try it again, when the cooking bug bite me again the next time!

neeways, as with my previous porridge attempt, i ended up with a big pot again. hmm... i guess i need to improve on my estimation. so that's by bento for today's lunch. incredibly, i was able to wake up early, nuke the leftover porridge, dish out my fav condiments of fermented bean curd and pickled sizhuan vege into my food containers and still reach the office in time for the 1st shift (i'm on 1st shift every monday due to !@^!@&($@&# monday morning meeting)!

read also:
1) bento #18: the one with all the shapes
2) bento #14: the one with the experimental porridge
3) bento #8: the one with the yellow vege

bento #22: the one also with the kao-zhi

got M to help me buy these from pasar malam yesterday... 5 for RM3. so saved 2 for today's breakfast bento.



read also:
1) bento #13: the one with the kao-zhi
2) bento #3: warm-hearted breakfast

bento #21: the one with triangles of rice...

went to midvalley with M yesterday... so bought these onigiri for today's bento. yummers!

read also:
1) bento #18: the one with all the shapes
2) bento #17: discounted sushi again!
3) bento #6: sushi breakfast and home-cooked lunch...
4) bento #5: discounted sushi and nando's leftover
5) bento #1: bento mania!

bento #20: the one shared with best pal

when i came home from practice yesterday, M told me she ta-pao fried rice from ahimsa for today's bento and that 1/2 of it is mine! hehehe... so schweet! so that was how today's bento came about... sponsored by M! yummers!

vegetarian salted fish fried rice...
well, not really vegetarian lar, coz got eggs!

bento #19: the one with the half rice

got home at abt 9pm yesterday. didn't know what to get for dinner, and it was raining. then remembered that M's parents were in town, and she called earlier to tell me that they're going to the vegetarian place. i quickly called her to see if they're still eating, and they were! so i had M ta-pao a vegetarian salted fish fried rice for me...

they were not home when i got home, so i decided to save time by taking my shower first. when i came out from the bathroom, it's already 10pm... and the food portion was so big! i don't want to be eating so much so late! so divided it into half and that's how my bento for today came about lar... :)

bento #18: the one with all the shapes

been dying to try out my onigiri moulds, and also went to buy L size eggs for my egg moulds... but STILL the eggs didn't fill up the moulds! argh!!! anyone know where can i get XL eggs? are eggs in japan really that large?

made an extra set for my intern... 3 pcs of onigiri, 2 pieces of McD chicken nuggets and 1 egg. a bit plain right? had wanted to include some baby carrots, but all my baby carrots had dried up from being in the fridge too long! :P

i think the onigiri turned out really well... so cute!

close-up of the bear-faced egg... this still looked ok, only the ears were a bit flat

but the rabbit really can't do lar. the ears were like chopped off! so ugly!

if you're wondering how come my onigiri looked reddish and
yellowish, here's why. beef and chicken flavoured furikake from isetan!

read also:
of earless bunny and tailless fish
bento #1: bento mania!

bento #17: discounted sushi again!

went to suria with M yesterday, so bought these sushi... they were supposed to be my lunch for today, but had to go out to do something. so had lunch with my boss instead, and the sushi was left for dinner...

california maki from isetan...

then the dear housemate M bought this for me! so this became my tea... yummers!

strawberry tart from sun moulin... *drools*

Read also:

1) bento #6: sushi breakfast & home-cooked lunch...

2) bento #5: discounted sushi & nando's leftover

3) bento #1: bento mania!

bento #16: the one with the vegetarian fried rice

went to a vegetarian outlet in endah parade for dinner with the food-poisoned M yesterday... had herbal noodle soup... yummer! but no, that's not what we had for bento today. instead, we decided to share a pack of yong-chow fried rice for today's bento...

this is my latest purchase... insulated furoshiki... cute huh?

bottom tier: vegetarian fried rice; top tier: rolled-up meatloaf
(with the picks M bought for me from daiso, singapore), crabsticks and
some pickled green chili in soy sauce; small container: sliced yellow kiwi

Read also:
1) bento #13: the one with the kao-zhi
2) bento #6: sushi breakfast and home-cooked lunch
3) bento #5: discounted sushi and nando's leftover
4) bento #3: warm-hearted breakfast
5) bento #2: breakfast & lunch
6) bento #1: bento mania!

brand new bento box gift

of late, housemate P has been quite interested in housemate M and my endless chatters on bento... so last week, in the spirit of good housemate-ship and with hopes of converting yet another bento enthusiast, i went and bought for her these 4 basic bento gears...

a 2-tier bento box in the colour of P's choice, a set of utensils,
a pair of bento box band and 1 sheet of insulated bento furoshiki

so far, it's still sitting in a pile on the dining room table, where i left them after taking this pic... hopefully it'll be put to good use when P comes back from her raya break!

bento #15: the one with last night's dinner

housemates M, P and i called for delivery service yesterday... nando's! and M and i planned on what to order, so that we can save some for today's bento... i think this bento-ing has helped us to actually stop and think and plan our meals.

today's lunch: shredded chicken, sausage & mediterranean rice.
a bit dry, coz the kiam-siap nando's only sent 3 miserable packets
of peri sauce... 1 packet for each set. where got enough???
everyone should get at least 3 packets each! %@#%@&#&$^#*(*&

*strumming fingers, waiting for M's blog to go live...*

Read also:
bento #12: the one with everything squeezed into it
bento #5: discounted sushi and nando's leftover
bento #4: steamboat leftover

bento #14: the one with the experimental porridge

since trying the herbal porridge at a cafe called 'sweet bean', i've been wanting to try cooking my own herbal porridge. but for someone whose idea of "cooking" is basically just pouring hot water into the mee cup, i've no freaking idea what to put into my porridge! so i've been putting off cooking this porridge week after week...

then yesterday, while i was on my way home from my climb at batu caves, i was just thinking of what to do abt dinner when i suddenly had this craving for herbal porridge. for a second, i toyed with the idea of dropping by 'sweet bean' to ta-pao, but remembered that i forgot to bring my wallet. then i thought, "what the heck, why not just go home and cook it urself?!"

on arriving home, i din even think, but was very gung-ho abt it... just dumped in everything i feel would make a herbal porridge taste... erm... herbal porridgy. hehe...

anyway, my guage was slightly off the mark and i ended up with a pot full of herbal porridge! i made housemate P have it for dinner as well, but there were still half a pot left.. just nice for 2 bentos for today --> mine and housemate M's! kekeke...

oh, i used an old food container today... a thermos set i bought few years back from jusco, also during the mega sales. i got the blue set while N got the black set. but forgot how much we bought it for lar... i think i've only used it 2-3 times, mostly to ta-pao nasi lemak from the train station on my way to work last time. the makcik thought it's from Tupperware!

ultimate insulation... keeps home-cooked meals
hotter, fresher, longer until it's time to eat

fits snugly, with a pocket on top of the cover
and another one underneath for utensils and serviettes and such...

it's a 3-piece set...

main container: herbal porridge; 1st side container: pickled 'za-chai' aka 'szechuan chai';
2nd side container, in colourful angel-shapped silicone cups bought from bento party:
2 types of japanese pickles and 'fu-yi' aka fermented bean curd

and here's M's porridge bento... she wanna tumpang her bento photo here (M, next time kenot tumpang ar... go get ur own blog! if not, i'll charge rental! keke...)

'black masculine bento box' bought from mini 100 yen shop at the bento party.
top tier with lid contains the herbal porridge;
bottom tier, in identical square silicone cups (from daiso, singapore) are 'szechuan chai'
and 'chai-xin' aka pickled lettuce, and also some fried eggs at the side.
digression: this set was dubbed 'masculine bento box' by us coz originally,
it was meant for M to pack food for her Mr. DD. it's 'masculine' coz it's black
and not cute or colourful like other bento boxes... but unfortunately it had remained
in her Osram bag from the bento party up until now! hehehe...
so i persuaded her to take it out and use it for the porridge! :P

stargal's chin-chai herbal porridge:
1) rice (of course)
2) crab sticks
3) kei-zhi (wolfberries)
4) red dates
5) a few slices of 'pao sam' (some sort of ginseng-like roots)
6) chinese mushrooms
7) some sort of nut (dunno what it's called) normally used in soup and such

cooking method:
cut up the crab sticks and mushrooms, wash everything and dump everything into the rice cooker. cook with a lot of water.

special note:
need to cook longer, coz the nuts did not cook properly.

*pray the housemates did not get food-poisoning!*

Read also:
bento #11: the one slapped together in 2 minutes
bento #8: the one with the yellow vege
bento #6: sushi breakfast & home-cooked lunch...
bento #4: steamboat leftover

bento #13: the one with the kao-zhi

was too bz to post this yesterday... my breakfast bento ta-pao from pasar malam the night before.



the mini container at the side is my latest purchase from 100 yen shop. comes in 4 identical pieces, perfect for sauces and such!

bento #12: the one with everything squeezed into it

ok, i cheated. remember bento #11? well, i din really finish it... just the bottom tier (jam and butter) for breakfast. then i totally forgot abt it and happily tagged along when the bosses asked me for lunch. when i realized it, i thot, "ok, can still have it for breakfast the next day". but suddenly i found out that my initial plan of just going for a day meeting at the resort was stretched to a 3D2N trip! argh!!! had to do last minute cancellations to all my plans...

anyway, i went home to m'ca after my official business at the resort and got back to KL only yesterday. a quick check in the fridge found my ham & cheese sandwiches still sitting obediently in the bento box. took a sniff at it... hmm... no foul smell yet.

so this morning, went to take another sniff at it and still no foul smell... should i take the risk? ah well, what the heck! so my breakfast this morning was that!

then nearing lunch time, was craving for korean kimbab *slurp!* so ran down for my weekly korean fix... hehehe... i had the kimbab + japchae set. kimbab is just like sushi roll, only thing is that kimbab's ingredients are all marinated, so we can just eat it as it is, without any shoyu (soy sauce). japchae is korean grass noodles, or more commonly known as 'tang-hoon'.

anyway, when my order came, i realized it's a lill too much for one person. i'd be a pig to finish it all at one go! so in the spirit of dieting and portion control, i ate 1/2 of everything (except the kimchi. can't get enough of those!) and had them ta-pao the rest for me... but too bad i did not bring my bento box, so had to come back with a polystyrene food container and a plastic bag (sorry, auntyjo!).

this is how my dinner bento looks like... wish i had brought my bottom tier, so that can separate the kimbab from the japchae, but too bad lor.

bento partAy!!

as mentioned, last saturday was the bento party. dragged mon and san along, even tho' they're not bloggers. hehehe...

well, the 3 of us were late. the registration was to be at 11.45am, but due to some delays - mon came home at 10.45am and ABSOLUTELY HAD to take a shower, and then i need to check my car lubricant oil after being reminded for the umpteenth time by the dad - we got there at 12.00noon. aiya... raining mar! hehe...

anyway, after registration, we were delighted to receive a BIG and BULKY goodie bag each! so happy... we grabbed a seat each and proceeded to rummage thru the goodie bag excitedly, like kids under the christmas tree on christmas morning, until it suddenly dawned on me that yikes! how we'd look in front of all the other participants?! i made a pass to the gals... ok, it went more like: "eh pls lar. dun act so sua-ku ok? behave...", at which all 3 of us quickly stuffed back everything into the bag, settled down demurely (or at least tried to!) at the table and proceeded to check out the rest of the participants.

actually i was quite relieved at the crowd that day... initially, i was worried the gals would blame me for bringing them to an 'aunty meet' and boring the daylights out of them! luckily the list consisted of a mix of gals and young mommies. oh, and 1 or 2 aunties lah! :P

auntyjo of Emily's Busy World! opened the party with an intro on how she started her bento frenzy... then she passed the floor to Pat of Bento Pet for a short presentation on bento and all the works related to bento. after that, each participant did a self-intro. in Pat's pre-party e-mail to us, we were supposed to introduce ourselves and our blogs in not more than 10 words... but on that day, all these were thrown out the window and we just went on and on talking about ourselves! ok, not really... but it was definitely more than 10 words! haha...

short presentation by Pat, with auntyjo looking on...

listening so attentively...

after all the talking, it's food time! but before we can eat, we need to arrange our bento boxes (that came in our goodie bags) with the food for a little competition. what??? cannot eat yet??? gosh, i was so hungry by then that i had a mind of foregoing the whole competition and gobble up my food while standing at the buffet line waiting for the person in front to get going! mon and san, u were THAT person in front of me... now u know how slow u 2 are lar har! choosing and changing ur minds abt the kawaii cupcakes for like 100 times! :P but luckily i remembered our vows to try not be so sampat and sua-ku at this party, so i swallowed down my hunger and went to arrange my bento box.

well, i'd say the bento box arrangement was quite fun lar. esp when u're sitting next to first-time bento-er san and the kelakar mon! i even found san telling a piece of her chicken kara age, which was too big to be stuffed into her box: "it's ok, dun worry har". wakakaka...

when we're done, each of our bento box got a 2 seconds of fame in the limelight... or rather, in the flashlight, on a nice japanese lacquer tray, having its picture taken by Pat's #1. after that, i quickly went back to my seat and what else? makan lar! but mon and san were too excited to eat their bento. they continued taking pictures after getting back to their seats, arranging and rearranging their bento, this angle and that lighting... *sigh... tak kuasa aku! but i still made mon take a pic of my cute cupcake lar... hehe...

mon's bento...

san's bento...

sue's ben... opps! already on the way into the stomach! hehehe...

mon: eh, sue! y u so fast eat already? u don't wanna take photos first meh?
me: mai cha wah (hokkien: dun disturb me)! i'm super hungry u know!

cute cupcakes! courtesy of su yin of The Journal of a Girl who Loves to Cook

after that, we went to attack onsen's private room, which has been converted into a mini 100 yen shop! no kidding! there were a great many bento gears for sale, which we dun normally see in the 100 yen shops. what else? the shopaholic in us went to work lar!

towers upon towers of bento gears!

other than 100 yen, there were other bento accessories available for sale, sourced by Pat. needless to say everyone went away with a headache of how to store their additional bento containers, or maybe for some, how best to explain the absolutely-need-to-buy bento box to the hubby, even tho' there's already one (or a few) exactly the same at home, only in a different colour! :P

contents of the goodie bag...

stuff i bought from the mini 100 yen shop... a round bento box (the traditional bento box shape), bento box strap (comes in 2s), tiny containers for condiments and such (comes in 3s of different colours) and onigiri shaper

more stuff bought, from Pat: onigiri shaper (comes in 2s - why i need so many shapers ar?), silicone cups (so much cuter than the ones i bought from isetan!) and soy sauce bottles (comes in 6s - been searching for this for so long!)

ok, let's have some happy smiley faces to end this long, long post!

san with her first ever bento! good job!

mon seems pretty happy with of her masterpiece too... nice!

and here's me, with my cute cupcake, bento half devoured...

3posen at onsen!

hop on over to bento pet's and auntyjo's for more reports and pics of the bento party, as well as more links to the blogs of the rest of the participants. there's one pic of me introducing myself and one of my bento (my number's 12) somewhere!

bento #11: the one slapped together in 2 minutes

ok, not really 2 minutes, but u know what i mean...

have not been having bread for such a long time, so i thot i'll buy a loaf to make sandwiches... and that's my bento breakfast and lunch for today.

this new bento box is from the goodie bag i got at the bento party last sat. ok, ok, will post abt the bento party soon... promise!

lower tier houses jam and butter sandwiches, upper tier holds ham and cheese sandwiches. all cut into small triangles to trick the mind into believing that i've had LOTS of sandwiches... and also (hopefully) look a little more fancy than plain simple sandwiches!

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in case anyone's wondering, will be out of town for the rest of the week on official duties, and then balik-ing kampung for a weekend of mid-autumn fest celebration with the family.