Oppss…My last bento was made last year, 2010! Had not started bento-ing ever since I moved in to my new house because I still haven’t got time to re-organise my bento tools in the kitchen properly (I just moved my bento tools to my new house not long ago too >_<).

A Kick Start Bento

So, this is the first bento in year 2011. It was made on the last last Thursday, out of a sudden, from the ingredients I could find in the fridge, to try to kick start my bento making mood It’s an ugly one with dull colours. However, hubby said yummy @_@

Rice are at the bottom. The dishes are: tofu cooked with minced meat and mushrooms, pan fried chicken breast, stir fried mushrooms with salt and pepper, bacon enoki rolls and veggies.

On this special day – valentine’s day, hubby and I had decided to celebrate at home while many would have made their reservations at restaurants days earlier for the celebration. So we bought the ingredients a day earlier and I was in charge for both the preparation and cooking while hubby was at work.

In the afternoon, I started making potato salad, cooking the mushroom soup and marinating a dory fish fillet and a rib eye steak for that special night.

Then, hubby was back home with a flower bouquet and a present! We agreed that we should buy only a present that is for us together on the valentine’s day instead of exchanging presents but we didn’t have time to go shop for one this year, so I told him this year we don’t have to buy any. Hubby, however, had bought one. And guess what, I knew what’s the present even before I opened it!

We were looking for a particular model of sandwich maker in Parkson, Jusco, Harvey Norman and other electrical shops but they’re all out of stock and some even said that model was discontinued. Hubby then called to the Kenwood in Malaysia before the chinese new year to check if they still have any stocks left but the staff said they can only get back to us after chinese new year. Hubby didn’t  give up, he checked and told me that the Courts in Singapore still have some stocks and wanted to bring me to the Courts in Singapore to buy and to visit my parents who are staying there. I rejected because I have just moved into the new house and need more time here to tidy the house and prepare for the chinese new year. So, yesterday afternoon on the valentine’s day itself, hubby texted me saying that Kenwood Malaysia called him to say that the sandwich maker I was looking for was out of stock in the whole Malaysia. I replied him it’s too bad cause I wanted that model of sandwich maker so badly. Then, this thinking came to my mind – maybe he bought that sandwich maker already and would surprised me with it tonight as valentine’s gift so he tried to make a good lie. Later, hubby called and we talked about the sandwich maker. He sounded quite disappointed too that the sandwich maker was sold out and I believed him so I told him about my thought, “You know what, just now I some more thought that maybe you have bought it and wanna surprise me tonight”. He laughed.

When he came home with a hand bouquet and a plastic bag that reads “Courts”, I asked/said immediately, “You bought the sandwich maker? You lied?” He then realised that it was the plastic bag that ‘betrayed’ him. And then we both laughed and I continued to ask when he bought and how Hubby did look sad a bit because he always fail to surprise me. While showing his sad face to me, he said “Yer, how come you so clever one, it’s everytime!” “I should have changed the plastic bag to other paper bag, you are always so clever”, he continued saying that I am clever for many many times. Haha! Thank you so much to his colleague for helping us to buy this Kenwood sandwich maker all the way from Singapore.

Darling, that was considered a little surprise too and I was really happy. But your attempt to give me a big surprise wasn’t quite successful. Haha. Try harder next time. Lol

It’s the time to cook the dinner!

As usual, while I was cooking, hubby would keep snapping lots and lots of photos of me.

I was cooking the dory fish for myself while hubby’s rib eye steak was being baked in the oven.

I was the chef + the waitress. Oh ya, I was in charge of the clean up too O_o

Here’s the simple set up for the celebration

We had not neglected our Gigi, she had an extra meal with us too. Notice Gigi’s meal on the right side of the table?

Our dinner of the night

A closeup of hubby’s rib eye steak

A closeup of Gigi’s ‘supper’ because she usually had her dinner at 5pm

Gigi had a Cesar and some apples. Hey, why isn’t there any closeup of my dory fish? Where is the photo? Unfair!

Besides red wine, hubby made another drink, soda water mixed with Ribena Nice O, thanks I like it very much.

This is a very special gift from a cousin. It’s a floating candle light where you fill water in the holder and the candle actually floats in the water. 派上用场啦！

Love the purple and pink color!

We usually see flower bouquet with one rose, 3 roses, a dozen, 99 roses on such day but he gave two. Why? He said one is too lonely, a dozen or more is too much. So 2 is just nice. Yes, I agree. We don’t need so much flowers. Too much occasions in a year to give flowers or to receive flowers. Lol

A family photo

Gigi enjoying her valentine’s dinner with us

Aww, nice floating candle light

While I was looking at this photo, I realized that something was missing last night. A song – I’ll Make Love To You by Boyz II Men. Part of the lyrics is like this:

Pour the wine, light the fire
Girl, your wish is my command
I submit to your demands
I will do anything, girl, you need only ask

I’ll make love to you like you want me to
And I’ll hold you tight, baby, all through the night
I’ll make love to you when you want me to
And I will not let go til you tell me to

… …
… …

Baby, tonight is your night
And I will do you right
Just make a wish on your night
Anythting that you ask
I will give you the love of your life

… …
… …

Love this song, the music and the lyrics. It’ll be much more romantic if songs like this were played at that time. How could we forgot about that! It’s a song that hubby and I like so much.

A big mouthful

The rib eye steak was cooked to medium, brown on the outside and a little pink inside

While we’re half way eating, Gigi decided to give us a valentine gift too. Here it is…Ohhhhh noooo

It’s time for some desserts. Hehe!

Kenwood multi snacker

A valentine gift for ourselves. Yay, finally got it!

2011 Valentine’s Day Gift

My writing is very bad, I know :p

While hubby was taking his shower, I quickly washed the dishes and then we watched an old love story movie. The story is quite nice. So that’s how we spent our valentine’s day. How’s yours?

What more to say, a breakfast made with my new Kenwood multi snacker for the husband this morning ^_^
He had a sandwich with two slices of smoked ham, cream cheese, and veggies, cold mushroom salad and some fruits.

My big kid

I let him bring one packet of this mini cheese crackers for afternoon tea but he finished it right after his lunch =_=“ What a kid who won’t listen to his mummy :p

Hi, I always mention in a few of my previous posts that there will be no bentos until I’ve moved into my new house but here comes another bento again. It’s because I wanna try out this electric bento box that we just bought.

Before I go further into the electric bento box, let’s see the simple lunch bento I made for my hubby two days ago.

He has mixed rice in the smaller container. It’s topped with some tuna flakes cooked with miso and black sesame seeds and there were three small pieces of smoked duck breasts for him to enjoy too. In another compartment were three chicken nuggets, stir fried kai lan with carrots and mushrooms, steamed corn and flower shaped carrots to decorate. I prepared the bento in the evening and keep in the fridge. Hubby brought to work the next day and all he needed to do was connecting the plug into the power supply socket when he arrived at the factory. He then had his bento heated during lunch time.

This was a bento for myself, same as hubby’s but without smoked duck breasts. It’s quite colourful

Back to the electric bento box. Trio is the brand. It’s a portable electric bento box and I find it quite convenient. I don’t have to always pack with the thermal bento boxes that I have now. One more choice to pack the food in different ways. It’s made with safe and high temperature resistant material and it comes with a tight and anti-leak lid cover.

Why is it called an electric bento box? Because it has a heater concealed at the bottom of the bento box. Your food is being heated when you connect the plug and switch on the power. There’s a power indicator at the front of the bento box and it will light up indicating that the unit is in operation. Before heating, you need to ensure that the ventilation cap at the lid cover is pushed down for the steam to escape during heating. I forgot to take a picture of the ventilation cap at the lid cover.

The capacity of the bento box is 0.6L for the bigger container and 0.45L for the smaller removable container. The smaller container comes with a lid and you can use it to pack dish, soup or fruits. Alternatively, you can choose to pack without using the removable container too. If you use it to pack fruits, remember to take it out from the bento box before you heat the bento as you won’t want to heat your fruits. I use the smaller container to pack rice as hubby likes to eat with chopsticks, so he can take out the smaller container and hold it in his hand when eating with chopsticks.

The power inlet is at the side of the bento box. It has a power inlet cover to prevent water from running in to the power inlet when washed.

Hubby said this electric bento box really worked. It’s useful especially when I pack the bento at night because I don’t have to reheat the bento the next morning before letting hubby to bring to work.

My last post was about growing chilli plants from seeds. So here is a quick update on how are my chilli plants doing. Can see the seedlings already! They grow! ^_^ I will have to repot them soon.

Many many weeks ago, I told my hubby that I want to grow chilli plants from seeds. It’s time to grow them now and by the time we move to the new house, we’ll have chillies to harvest. Will it be that easy? This is the first time I wanna plant something that I can harvest later on. So we went to buy the soil and pot many many weeks ago but didn’t get the planting activity started until last Sunday ^_^

I put these two hats at the dining room and hubby asked what’re they for when he saw them. He then laughed and told me “darling, it’s not hot today!” when he remembered that we’re going to do planting that day. And then we laughed together “But I want to wear it”, I said.

Hubby put a few layers of papers on the floor before he opened those packets of soil so as to not dirtying the floor so much. Gigi participated too, checking all around

My maid found a big centipede at our balcony once and we suspected it came with the soil and grew from there. So, hubby wanted to screen through the soil to check if there’re any centipedes in there before we use it in our new pot.

Doing his job seriously

My job was putting the soil to the pot.

Yay, wore the hat because there was really some sunlight, LOL

A picture of my chilli seeds before I layered some soil on top of them. Will they grow? It’s unlikely that they will because the two requirements, heat and moisture aren’t present these days. It’s been raining and some places even flooded. To date, I don’t see any seedlings yet

I just researched a bit about planting chillies and realised that the seeds need to be germinated first before we plant them in the pot o_O I didn’t know that because I saw my mum just buried some seeds in the soil and then one day, the chilli plant grew. If my chilli plant doesn’t grow, maybe I can try germinating/sprouting them first. I hope that they will grow so that I can re-pot them to white pots in the coming weekends because hubby said white colour pots will look nicer in our new house, hehe.

What else I want to grow? Curry leaves, aloe vera, pandan, and tomatoes are in the list. I think I will want some flowers too