KookyCulinary

Gosh, I totally forgot that today’s the posting day for the daring bakers challenge. I almost missed it!
When this month’s hostess Rosa’s Yummy Yums revealed this month’s challenge, I was very excited to find out that it is pizza. Currently every Friday night is Pizza night in my house, so I am always on a lookout for pizza recipes.

Just like last month’s challenge, this recipe is taken from Peter Reinhart’s The Bread Baker’s Apprentice. One of the challenge of this month is to take a photo of us tossing the pizza into the air. Hmmm… obviously mine is missing because my toss-up was a total failure!! Haha! The dough ended up with lots of holes!! In the end I ended up just stretching the dough. 

I only made half the recipe because I ran out of bread flour. I wish I had made more because they turned out so good! I baked the pizza on my baking stone, so they turned out really crispy. I tried to make it as thin as possible because that is my favorite type of crust - thin & crispy.

I made 2 types of pizza. The first is the caramelized onion, bacon and ham pizza for me and the hubby.

For my little girl, I made her favorite cheese pizza. Sorry for the bad photo. I had to take a quick photo before the little one grabbed it.

In conclusion, everyone loved the pizza. I will definitely make it again. Next time I will make the whole recipe so that I can make a dessert pizza.

Using my curry puff mold, I made peanut butter & jelly “curry puff”, then sprinkled with some pink & purple sugar.  Kinda like fairy bread but with filling. It turned out that Lil’ C loved them! I also added some whole-wheat dino nuggets(from Costco), flower-shaped scrambled eggs and grapes.

* Dust Dust* * Dusting cobwebs off the blog! *  Wow, I can’t believe it’s been almost a week since my last entry. I didn’t think that it has been so long but I guess time really flies when you are busy. Actually I have been online but have mostly been busy with work. Time on the blog has been very sporadic. I have also been busy trying to plan Lil’ C’s 4th birthday party. We’ve also been having amazing October weather despite the cold. We are actually seeing blue skies, a rarity this time of the year. Usually it’s rainy and cloudy.So we are spending lots of time outside. We went to the pumpkin patch, the park and even fishing yesterday.  Ok, enough rambling! Back to food!

I really miss the tea-time in Malaysia, especially all the kuih-kuih and fried snacks. I remember there used to be a van by USJ2 that had all sorts of fried stuff like fried bananas, cempedak, sweet potato etc… As heart-clogging as they are, we used to make a lot of snack run to that place during the weekend. Here, we don’t get that luxury. I want my fried cempedak!!!! :( Oh well, I guess fried bananas will have to do for now.

This time instead of making Kuih Kodok, I just cut the banana into bite-size, coat them with this ready-mix flour and fried them. They turned out pretty good. I still prefer the Hup Loong batter flour but I can’t get it here, so this will have to do for now.  

Got a little carried away with all the colorful flag picks today. Little sticks of carrot, cheese and edamame, cheese stars and chicken mozzarella ravioli in marinara sauce and yes, more blueberries! Lil’ C loves blueberries and since it is blueberry season, I let her indulge in as much blueberries as she likes before the season closes.

Recently I find that my eyes get tired even after reading for a short time. I think it is due to my eyeglasses. It has been almost 2 years since I changed my eyeglasses. So it is definitely time to get a new one. As much as I like new eyeglasses, it always dismays me when it is time to get a new one simply because eyeglasses are so expensive.

I have been shopping online to see if I can find any good deals on eyeglasses. Well, I think I may have found the solution to my problem and do you know what it is? It is ZenniOptical.com. Zenni Optical has a huge selection of eyeglasses available for me to choose from. The best part is that they are all available at a very low price. This particular frame that I like is only $12.95. Can you believe the low price? They even have eyeglasses for as low as $8.00. The reason that they can keep their price low is that they sell their own manufactured eyeglasses direct to the customers. That means no hidden middlemen markup price!

With such low prices, I can even afford to get 2 eyeglasses. I will wear one pair daily while keeping the other pair for emergency purpose. After all, the shipping cost is the same whether I buy one or two.

This bento was made on one of those non-inspiration days, hence a really simple bento consisting of pepperoni pizza, blueberries and Go-Gurt (yogurt in a tube).

Or some call it Pan Mee. This is one of my hubby’s comfort food and it is now becoming Lil’ C’s favorite dish.

My MIL who’s a great cook does a yummy mee hoon kueh, unfortunately she’s one of those that cooks without a recipe. So I had to come up with my own version and this is my own simple version.

For the dough:
250 gm plain flour
1 egg
100 ml water
1/2 tsp salt

To make the dough, I just throw everything into the breadmaker and let it knead on the dough cycle. After the 30 min dough cycle is completed, just place it in a bowl, cover with saran wrap & rest for about 1 hour.

For the soup, just make an anchovy base soup, then add in meat and fishball. When it comes to a boil, start tearing little pieces of dough into the soup. You can also use a pasta maker to roll into thin noodles if you like. When the dough is cooked, add in vegetables. Top with fried anchovies & serve.

* Sniff Sniff *
* Cough Cough *
Sigh.. the first flu of the season has gotten to me. I think it was due to the drastic weather change over the weekend. It actually dropped down to 37F on Saturday. It’s still fall but we are experiencing winter weather already. Hope it’s not a sign of a very very cold winter like last winter!

Anyway, back to today’s bento:

Egg with Roti Canai (Asian pancake) Roll, Broccoli with cheese butterflies, Blueberries and Apple Cinnamon Bar(from Trader Joe’s)

For the Egg with Roti Canai Roll, I pan fry the frozen roti canai first. After which I made a thin omelette. Then just stack the omelette on top of the roti canai and roll it up. Use a pick to hold it together since it doesn’t really stick together. This is my simple version of roti telur.

I get lots of emails from readers asking where they can buy bento supplies. So I will try to list out some of those places that I know.

• DAISO - This is where I get most of my bento supplies. In the US, they are mostly located in the Pacific Northwest and the Silicon Valley area. Check out this link for the store nearest you. In Canada, there is a huge Daiso in the Aberdeen Center in Richmond, BC.
• ICHIBAN KAN - My favorite online bento supplies store. This is a great place to get your supplies if you live in the other parts of US and have no access to a bento store. Their prices are very cheap. But note that their shipping starts at a minimum rate which means shipping is the same if you are ordering 1 item or 5 items. So try to accumulate a few items when you order. That’s something I don’t have a problem with!!! My problem is ordering too many!!! : P  Anyway, they are located around the San Francisco area if you ever want to drop by their store.
• AMAZON.COM - If you are looking for a bento to put hot food, this is where you can get it. Mr. Bento and Ms. Bento are great options. Check out more bento options HERE.
• MICHAELS & JOANN  - These 2 stores have lots of cookie cutters and silicon cups like this sunflower cup. When you sign up for Joann’s mailing list, they will send you a 40% off coupon every few weeks. Michael’s usually offer 40% coupons in the Sunday papers too.
• Korean grocery stores - My favorite place to get my Lock-Lock boxes like this bento

I’ve never bought any bento supplies in Malaysia before but from what I heard, these are the places to check out.

• 100 Yen Stores - There are a few of these stores scattered around the KL/PJ area. Check out this post by Bento Pet for more details.
• New Stylish Tokyo - They seem to have quite a lot of cute stuff.
• Daiso - Wow, I didn’t know they had one in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah. Here’s the address: Unit No S-101a, 2nd Flr,1 Borneo Hypermall, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah,Malaysia

SINGAPORE:

• DAISO - Check out their locations HERE.
• Sanrio stores - These can be found in most of the shopping malls. You can find some Hello Kitty supplies there.

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Phew! That’s a long list. I am sure that there are more places to buy bento supplies. If you know of any, please let me know so that I can add them on to the list. Thanks!

Disclaimer: This is not a paid post. It is just my personal list that I am sharing.

Tags: Bento Supplies

Yes, it’s another bento post. Sorry to those who are visiting for non-bento entries. 2 weeks ago, I started working part-time. So between my new job and chauffering my little girl to all her activities, I have not been baking/cooking much. Bento seems to be the only thing that I have been consistently making!! Hopefully when I get used to my new routine, I’ll be back in the kitchen more.

Meanwhile here’s another bento for my preschooler

Croissant with raspberry jelly, turkey and cheese on a stick, bunny apples, black grapes and cheese flowers