Friday, June 29, 2012

Bento boxes: Useful tools


Hello!  I'm back to share some of the bento tools or materials that I find particularly useful.  There are a whole lot of tools out there, however, these are the ones that I have and use (all tools pictured here are from Daiso, except for the sandwich cutter):

- Food picks:
These come in a myriad of colours and patterns, and are great for dressing up food in a hurry.  I usually use them to hold fruit, or sometimes make "mini kebabs" using the longer ones, with fishballs and quails eggs.


- Silicon muffin cups: 
As mentioned previously, these are great to compartmentalize your bento box/plate, and keep food separated.  They come in all sorts of shapes and sizes too!  (Psst... Another option for packing fruits/vegetables would be to use lettuce leaves to form a cup instead.)



- Food cutters: 
Those shown below come in sets and are rather small in size, and are useful for cutting food into little shapes like flowers etc.  



You could also use normal cookie cutters to cut larger pieces of food, eg. bread/omelette, and there are also specialized sandwich cutters that are shaped to cut away the crust of the bread:

Daiso also sells sandwich cutters,
but the animal ones I've been using are by Lunch Punch.

- Rice molds: 
Rice molds come various shapes, and right now I only have the star-shaped version.  Aside from using that mold, I've tried improvising by using other kitchen containers to mold the rice.  For example, a tea cup was used to make the panda's head and belly (less rice for the head = smaller circumference!):


And a small rectangular plastic container was used to make the cow's body:


All in all, these tools are really useful... but do look around your kitchen (or even your fridge) for stuff you could use, and have fun!

8 comments:

  1. Cool stuff. Inspired by you, I've picked up some silicon muffin cups earlier this afternoon. Now to tick the rest off the list!

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  2. These sharings are so precious! :) what about the seaweed bits? How do u cut them?

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  3. What fun!! You make plain rice look so adorable! ... May I ask where you get those cute food picks? I can't wait for Baby J to be of age to make her some bentos too!

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  4. NerdyMum: Coolness! You could also start with just the cups, have fun!

    Beanienus: There are those punches (that look like paper punches) that can cut out tiny eyes and mouths, available at Daiso too. But I don't have any with me, so I've been cutting things out by hand using a kitchen scissors. :p

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  5. Sher: The food picks are all from Daiso. Cheap and good! ;)

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  6. Very hardworking mama! Am sure your kids look forward to see what lovely creations you've prepared for them.

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  7. Susan: Haha, sometimes he does, sometimes he's too busy playing! :p

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  8. Hey Mama J! I'm an editor at BabyCenter. We're the largest parenting website in the world, with 36 million readers. I'm working on a slideshow of beautiful bento boxes, and I'd like to feature a couple of your photos. Could you please email me directly at bduffett@babycenter.com? Thanks! ~Becky

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