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Boost your immune system with this tea: ginger + lemon + honey

Peel and grate the ginger, add hot water, add 1-2 teaspoon honey (or brown sugar), add 1 small slice of lemon (or calamansi). Cheers to your health!

NEW!: Click here for my easy but nutritious "pachamba-chambang luto" anti-covid recipes

Malunggay pancake

NEW!: See here what happens when Two Set Violin reviews my bento creation about them 😍😍:

Thank you Brett and Eddy of TWO SET VIOLIN for your kind reviews. Surely, you are an inspiration to my kids, me and others to strive hard and excel in our respective crafts.

New year's resolution #1: Make charabento! Try these easy, quick and cute bento ideas for your kids this year: 

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For mothers who have picky eaters or just would like to cook something special baon for their kids, let me share this blog to you. This blog contains my experiences as a beginner bento-making mother as well as my sample works. 

I am not a professional cook nor a bento expert. I am just an ordinary mother who desires to make her children happy and healthy. Furthermore this is one of my pathways to healing and recovery after cancer. 

So I pray that you may find inspirations from my experiences and works. I share with your excitement and I encourage you to continue making bento for your kids and family. Good luck!

WHY DO I MAKE BENTO?

"Why do you keep on making bento? It is time-consuming, expensive and demands a lot of work!" "Why make it so complicated? Why spend so much time on food which you will eat only for a few minutes?"  These are the usual comments which I heard when I started to make my first bento. Is it worth it? I say, definitely YES! And here are the reasons:

1. The smiles on my kids' faces every time they open their bento lunches are priceless.

2. My kids are eating healthier food now compared to canned foods, instant noodles and preserved meats (hotdog, tocino, longganisa) which i used to cook before because i used to say "yun lang kasi ang madaling ilutong baon e".

3. My kids get excited over lunch, they wait for their baon with enthusiasm. They say, "It's like opening a new present everyday". They are happy when I cook for them, happier when I prepare bento, sad when I give them fast food. And this makes me happy. This is no joke. One time when I was busy running errands, I brought them Jollibee for lunch. My eldest said with a sad face "Mommy, wala na ba tayong makain?"

4. While recovering from cancer, i find bento-making as my personal anti-stress therapy.

5. This is my outlet to release my creativity and imagination, a passion where I am always excited to experiment and execute endless possibilities.

5 PEOPLES' IMPRESSIONS WHICH I FOUND FALSE ABOUT BENTO: 

1. Bento is expensive. The truth: I can make bento even with pritong itlog and kanin, or adobong kangkong, or ginisang upo which are VERY inexpensive. We are living in the barrio and I can just get the ingredients from my backyard (or ask from my neighbors 😉). Here is one of the first bento lunches I made in 2016:

2. Bento is time consuming. The truth: I can make simple but beautiful and appetizing bento lunches for the same time (sometimes, even shorter time) I spend on cooking "regular" lunches. Tip: start from easy designs until it becomes a habit. Like in your regular cooking, precook or prepare ahead of time or the night before dishes that take longer time to cook. 

3. Bento requires a lot of effort to make. The truth: I just need to know what my children like to eat, what i want them to eat, combine it with a little creativity and imagination, and a little time to "google" for design inspirations. And if your kid ate the bento you prepared with gusto, isn't it worth all the effort?  

4. It's hard to make my children eat vegetables. The truth: If my kids could eat TLC burger meals or chao fan which have vegetables in them, then I can encourage (even cheat) my children to eat my bento. The trick is to cut the veggies into interesting shapes (flowers, stars, letters, etc) or present it in bright color combinations (broccoli and tomatoes, corn and carrots, etc). If the kids did not eat them, just be patient, eventually they will, believe me. As per my experience, my first goal was to make my bento interesting for my kids (Kid:"Hmm, ano kaya to?"), second to make it appetizing (Kid: "Masarap naman pala!") then lastly to make it healthier. At first I still prepared the food they are familiar with, then little by little I incorporated vegetables and fruits. Tip: Just be patient if your kid did not eat the broccoli or carrots in the bento, just continue incorporating them to the food while trying other ways to make them more appealing. You can also "hide" the veggies in the food like meat patty with shredded carrots and celery. 

5. Special (sometimes imported) tools and accessories are needed to make beautiful bento and i do not have them. The truth: I can make simple but beautiful bento by using what I have in my kitchen and by substituting "special and imported" tools by what i can find locally (either local market, my backyard or my kitchen). For example, if I do not have bento divider, i use lettuce, banana leaves, kangkong leaves or pandan. If I do not have colorful picks, I use edible leaves and flowers for decorations and rice toppers like pandan, kalumata or malunggay. The rule of the thumb is learn how to IMPROVISE. Tip: choose leaves which are compatible with food, do not have bitter taste or do not have pungent smell. 

5 IMPORTANT THINGS TO KNOW BEFORE YOU PREPARE BENTO

1. Food safety: Always wash your hands before and after preparing bento. Likewise, wash your hands frequently especially if you are molding rice with your hand. Wash also all tools and accessories before and after making bento. This is to prevent food contamination. We don't want our kids to get sick of food poisoning, do we?

2. Design and proportion: I know you are excited to try all the techniques you learned from the internet, but remember: in design less is more and more is less. Also keep in mind that our goal is to serve our kids not only beautiful lunches, but well balanced as well. So in general, the food components in a bento box should be proportioned like this: 

Avoid over crowded food components in one bento box. As for me, I choose my design based from the school subject for the day, activity of my kids or the things they like. For example, if today they have sports, then I make rice formed into a ball. If they have a piano recital, i make decorations with notes and piano. Sometimes I based my design on holidays or even movies which they recently watched. 

Coming home for lunch, after a very "scary, boring, murderous and brain-draining" math subject (adjectives compliments of my kids 😃)

3. Tools and accessories: There are lots of tools and accessories which you can buy from Japanese specialty stores or even online. Substitute and improvise if you are on a tight budget. To contain condiments and sauces, sometimes I use recycled bottles from my kitchen, like empty mayonnaise container or even cute salt and pepper shakers. 

   Organize and label your tools and accessories for easy access and viewing. I use transparent or see-through containers for organizing my bento things so I can easily find them. Before, I used to dump all things in a drawer, then I ended up buying 2 identical things because I can not find the first one 😁 

You can buy picks in specialty stores or online. However, these are just optional. You can make simple but beautiful bento without picks.

I use these for condiments, sauces, fillers and desserts

Sometimes I use recycled bottles for condiments, sauces and yogurt. This is also good for containing smores because it is transparent.

4. Sauces and dressings: As much as possible, separate the sauces and salad dressings in a container to prevent food from being soggy, mushy or even spoiled. It is best to pour sauces and dressings on food right before eating or serving. There are also lunch boxes with built in dividers intended for sauces and dressings. Use containers with covers to prevent spillage. With a few exemptions, I only pre-pour sauces when I'm using them as part of the design. 

Whenever I eat out with my family, I look for things which I can recycle and use in my bento preparations. Most of these materials come with the food we order and are usually thrown away after dining, but I prefer to re-use them. I think it is also my own little way to contribute to mother nature.

Here are some of my re-used materials: gravy cups from a chicken fast food restaurant which I use for sauces and condiments, black picks from a siomai (dumplings) kiosk and little colored spoons which came with a candy pack I bought recently.

5. Lunch box covers: Examine the cover or lid of the lunch box you are using before putting the food components in it, so that you will know what amount of food is just enough to fill in. One time I prepared a rice bento with a girl's face on it made of nori sheets. I put the lid and when I opened it again everything was ruined. All the nori sheets were scattered here and there, and no any girl's face was noticeable. When i checked the lid, i found out that there were these protruding air locks at the back of the cover which probably messed up the nori sheets when i put the lid. 

These are just a few of my reminders for you out of my own personal experiences. I hope these will help you somehow. 

In times you find your bento is a flop, don't lose heart, that only means that you have chances for improvement. Don't over buy accessories and tools, choose only those which you can and will use. Be realistic, be practical, be creative and most importantly enjoy your newly found passion. 

Best of luck!