Have A Waste-Free-Lunch!

Hey Follow My Example~ Use Metal Food Carriers! or Reusable Plastic Containers!

Picture courtesy of "thislittlebento"

Visit Here to Find Out More on How To Create Waste-Free-Lunches

Please consider reducing the amount of lunchtime waste your family generates. Think about what you can do to cut down on waste. Here are a few suggestions for getting started:

• Pack a cloth napkin instead of a paper napkin.
• Pack stainless-steel utensils instead of using disposable plastics.
• Pack a reusable drink container instead of disposable juice boxes, juice pouches, cans, and plastic bottles.
• Pack lunch items in reusable containers. Laptop Lunches work well because they allow for an appealing horizontal presentation.
• Avoid using plastic wraps, plastic bags, wax-paper bags, and aluminum foil.
• Avoid purchasing pre-packaged items. Buy foods in larger containers and leave them at home for recycling.
• Pack lunches in a lunch box or backpack instead of relying on paper or plastic bags.
• Tell your friends, or better yet, start a waste-free lunch program at your school or at work!
• Check out http://www.wastefreelunches.org/ for information on how to get started.

Bento #30

Managed to walk 2km in 24mins this morning and walked to the shops to pack my lunch. We had porridge last night so no extras for lunch today.

It took me two hours to get home from work last evening as it was pouring cats and dogs and a kitchen sink or two! And the road in front of our apartment complex was congested with traffic going to and fro at 11pm! And this morning instead of 20mins to get to work, it took me 45mins! and boss saw me driving into the basement carpark some more! aiyoh!


Well, today's bento has another of my favorite food - (R) yam cake (but do take note - its without the sweet sauce!) garnished with cili flakes ~ courtesy of Domino Pizza! (L) Vegetables Curry with tou pok (ladies finger, brinjals and long beans) (Top) Tau Foo squares with sweet sauce. Yam cake was lovely dipped in the curry!

Bento #29

I did my 3km walk in 32mins this morning and had an additional 15mins walk to the shops to tau pau my lunch. Breakfast was the usual small portion of milo flavored oats with sliced banana, a slice of papaya and an orange.

I had to pop by Shamelin Perkasa to collect a cheque for the company and was caught in a massive jam coming out of there. Darn! Diverted to Jalan Kuchai Lama to use the road to Bangsar and darn - another stretch of bumper to bumper until Bangsar Village!

Reached work at 11am! Could someone kindly update me on the REASON FOR THE TRAFFIC CONGESTION THIS MORNING!!??


Today's bento is courtesy of the delightful people running the coffeeshop at Taman Maluri. Even the lady at the shop was delighted with the mini tiffin carrier! She calls it 'hoay sam fan harp' ~ happy heart rice box! So she knows of others packing 'happy heart rice box'!

(L) Sweet & Sour fish patties with green & red capsicums
(R) Fried rice with green peas, diced sausages topped with sambal petai with ikan bilis
(Top) stirfry chinese cabbage with carrots and red capsicums
(Stand-a-lone) A yummy apple & peach crumble tart from Celicakes!

I so love my 'hoay sam fan harp' ~ happy heart rice box!

Bento #28

Goodness! what dreary weather the last few days! Started raining as I am typing this post. This morning did 3km in 31mins, yesterday did 3km in 34mins. No bento for yesterday. I had pizza which came in its own box!

Breakfast today was slice of papaya, an orange and half a mango. Two slices of wholemeal bread with sunflower spread and orange marmalade. And one half boiled egg.

Today's bento had one shaped brown rice ball garnished with cili flakes on a bed of chicken floss. I steamed the kangkong this morning and there is my favorite dark sauce with ginger braised chicken (part of my frozen stash). I heard someone is bringing me some chow tou foo and ABC soup for tea!

Bookcrossers @ RA's Read While Waiting Project ~ 23 Aug 08

UPDATED!
Hathyia came with a friend:

Me in my black bookcrossing T:
Zain thanking all of us for participating; seems that there were three groups at KLSentral today!
Getting to know each other: Joe and Hathyia are gonna to contact each other for some work! There you are, pays to participate!
P.S.: I released the book I was reading to Elaine at the event!

UPDATES: (I was part of the 'upstairs group' which made more of an impact!)

More on Read While Waiting Project: at Sharon Bakar's blog and Random Alphabet's site

Bento #27

I had a 34" min walk this morning involving my usual three rounds (well, not exactly the usual route cos refuge collectors were doing their rounds and I had to divert a couple of times).

Breakfast was a small bowl of milo flavored oats with a banana sliced into it. Half a green pear and an orange.

For today's bento I am using for the first time a mini tiffin carrier! So darn cute. Each layer is 300ml so totalling 900ml but you will note that none of the three containers were packed to the brim. So my bento lunch today is roughly the same as my other bentos ~ 600ml.

Aint it cute!!

For comparison:

One shaped rice ball garnished with cili flakes, surrounded by chicken floss.
Some steamed kangkong and spears of asparagus and carrots.
Braised tenderloin meat marinated with oregano, sesame oil, salt, pepper and a bit of dark soy sauce. Fried them with garlic, ginger, onions and tomatoes. I toasted three mushrooms (they were thick stemmed with a tiny cap) sliced 1/4 inch thick lengthwise, drizzled some olive oil and some black pepper and toasted them in my toaster oven. Added them to the tenderlion meat towards the end of cooking. Yumms!
Off to KLSentral after work! Watch out for the old lady in a black Bookcrossing T-shirt!

Random Alphabets' RWP ~ Read While Waiting Project

COPIED FROM MS PUZZLES' BLOG:
QUOTE:
These are the same mischievous people that collaborated on the Freeze KL project and has returned with the Read while Waiting Project.

Where is it gonna happen? Saturday 23rd August

What time? 3pm -3.15pm

Location? KL Sentral. Area infront of KFC, Dunkin Donuts & KTM Komuter.

What do you need to bring? Reading Material of course!

What's gonna happen? Millions of random Malaysians are doing their commuting, one thousand people will suddenly stop what they're doing and pick up a book to read at EXACTLY 3PM. The idea is to confuse those who are not in the know as to why everyone is suddenly reading at the same time.

Meanwhile a hidden camera will record their reaction and the results uploaded onto Youtube.

Sounds fun? Wanna join?

Read more on RandomAlphabets and if you have Facebook go to link.

See ya on Saturday!!!!!!
UNQUOTE:
UPDATE: Keep A Date With Random Alphabets on Saturday, 23rd August 2008


Objective:
1. To see more people reading (any form of literature) whenever they wait
2. To make people more conscious of whenever they are about to go somewhere and know that some waiting will be involved, then bring something to read

This is what RA has in store for RWP:

1. Pay It Forward Bookmarks
2. BookCrossing campaign in conjunction with RWP. To be launched after 23rd Aug
3. Look Up More flashmob 12th July
4. D-Day 23rd August. Join RWP on Facebook.

To date: 6500 people invited.

RWP ~ Read All About It HERE!

Bento #26

Dh, Diyana and I metup for a simple dinner at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA for short) last night. My sister was arriving at 8.05 and told us to pick her up at 10ish but luckily we were early so she need not wait when she was out at the arrival hall at around 9ish. She was surprised with the speedy and pleasant service at immigration!

No morning walk for me this morning, had to send my sister back to mom's place before work. We had a quick breakfast at the local coffee shop in Taman Maluri. She had chee cheong fun and yong tau foo in a soup. I had wantan mee with everything except wantans!


Since there was no homecooked meal last night and we were out early this morning, my bento for today is store bought vegatarian fare. Three pieces of crepe stuffed with shredded carrots, cucumber and turnips garnished with mayo and cili sauce. I like the crepe - taste like roti canai but very light and thin. Stir fried french beans with gluten and carrot shreds. Lastly curry brinjals, cabbage, snake beans and tau pok. Yummy! Had my lunch at noon.

Bento #25

Weather was dreary this morning and DH had personal image maintenance requirement (done by me!) so no morning walk this morning. Looks like the big race has been postponed!

My breakfast was 2 slices wholemeal bread (from Baker's Cottage) with tuna in oil seasoned with a squeeze of lime. Half a green apple and an orange. And a mug of milo au natural..



Today's bento is 500ml with one shaped brown rice ball, one small tomato wedge cut, some steamed asparagus. In the insert I have tri-egg (century egg, salted egg and normal farm egg) steamed with minced lean meat, seasoned with sesame oil, salt and pepper). The steamed carrots is sweet! And a banana muffin from Celicakes.

BENTO PARTY UPDATES!!!

Bento Pet has finalised the plans for our first ever Bento Enthusiasts Party and here are relevant details. For those interested to join and have not previously emailed Bento Pet, kindly do so at Bento Pet's blog!

Venue: "Onsen"
Lot: B-G01, Block B Jalan Persiaran Surian, Palm Spring @ Damansara.
Kota Damansara. Tel: 7801 5366.
(Map will be posted soon)

Date: 6th September 2008
Time: 12.00p.m. - 2.30p.m.
Participating Fee: RM50/= inclusive of a complete Japanese lunch, free flow of Ocha (Green Tea), goodie bag of surprises and an afternoon of Bento-licious fun!

Read all about it HERE: BENTO PARTY UPDATES!

IMPORTANT ~ ADD YOUR NAME TO THIS PETITION

Dear Friends,

I have read and signed the online petition on 5 Aug 2008:

"Petisyen Kepada KeBawah Duli Yang Maha Mulia Seri Paduka Baginda Yang DiPertuan Agong berkenaan pemulihan Badan Kehakiman" hosted on the web by PetitionOnline.com, the free online petition service, at: http://www.PetitionOnline.com/6ai18u26/

I personally agree with what this petition says, and I think you might agree, too. If you can spare a moment, please take a look, and consider signing yourself.

Best wishes,
CHIAM YORK CHOO, Emily
Signature number at Petition: 2672 dated 5th August 2008

PS: Current total of signatures ~ close to 15k, our target is 50k, so do your part!

Bento #24

Back to normal! 3km walk done in 35mins ~ 1st km at 13mins, 2nd km at .....12mins therefore 3rd km AT 10mins! DH do not believe me so we are going to have a race tomorrow!

Breakfast was the usual fare, courtesy of DH (in our house - whoever comes home first from our morning walk makes breakkie!) ~ oats and fruits.

Today's bento is last night's dinner leftovers. I put the rice and the rest of the food in our rice-cooker-made- for-two to heat up while I tidied up and put them out to cool before I went out for my walk. One shaped brown rice ball garnished with asparagus and carrot. Next to it is half a rice ball covered with chicken floss. Two small slices of fried tenggiri fish seasoned with kunyit and curry powder on a bed of young bean shoots. And a fairy chocolate cupcake from Celicakes. I found a use for the yogurt container! The cupcake arrived safely. An improvement on yesterday's bento right?

Bento #23

Breakfast was my usual small bowl of oats with sliced banana, flavoured with milo! Slice of papaya and an orange.

Goodness, no morning walks since sat and this morning I had to shop for fresh produce at the wet market! Tomorrow then!

DH was away since Friday and returned yesterday ~ so I binged over the last three days! I fulfilled my craving for drumstick - KFC original recipe! had loads of banana muffins and one fairy chocolate cupcake from Celicakes in Sri Hartamas!

I had one breakfast of char kuay teow too, another of prawn mee! And as I cleaned one of the fridges I also made a lunch out of all my frozen bento stash (hence no homemade bento today .. nor yesterday!). Hopefully everything back to normal tomorrow!

Today's bento is all vegetarian from the market ~ glass noodles with beansprouts, black fungus, carrots and cabbage. Plus an assortment of vegetarian char siew, duck meat and foo chok. Yumms!

Using a new container - the main box is 600ml and there are 2 inner sections at 200ml each - so my bento today is 500ml! The lid is snap lock.

Random Alphabets' RWP ~ Read While Waiting Project

LATEST UPDATE: VENUE CONFIRMED: Kuala Lumpur : KL Sentral. Area in front of KFC, Dunkin Donuts & KTM Komuter entrance.
UPDATE: Keep A Date With Random Alphabets on Saturday, 23rd August 2008 ~


Objective:
1. To see more people reading (any form of literature) whenever they wait
2. To make people more conscious of whenever they are about to go somewhere and know that some waiting will be involved, then bring something to read

This is what RA has in store for RWP:

1. Pay It Forward Bookmarks
2. BookCrossing campaign in conjunction with RWP. To be launched after 23rd Aug
3. Look Up More flashmob 12th July
4. D-Day 23rd August. Join RWP on Facebook.

To date: 6500 people invited.

RWP ~ Read All About It HERE!

Sampling of Chef&Brew's Menu!

Lambshank!
Meatballs
Pasta
Spicy Tuna Salad
Baked Fish
Chicken Salad

Bento #22

My bento pic for yesterday went missing ~ I finally got my craving for chee cheong fun fulfilled! My favorite is the rolled type. And I did my 3km averaging 12mins each.

And TA DAAAA, I did 4km this morning averaging 10.5mins!!



From the distorted picture of today's bento, you will see the fruit I am having for lunch today! Abit bruised! Brown rice with fish fillet in tomatoe based sauce with ginger and capsicum. I made fish paste rolled foo chok with spring onions, celery and carrot filling. Mmph not as good as the first time I made it.

Bento Enthusiasts Bloggers Meet!

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Bento #21

Today's 3km averaged 12mins each. Mmph must do better tomorrow!

Breakfast was the usual small bowl of oats with a banana sliced into it with milo for flavor ~ no milk nor sugar! A slice of papaya, an orange and a kiwi fruit completes breakkie!

Today's bento consists of tuna in sunflower oil on top of a small cut tomato topped with tomato & cili sauce! And look! I got wild flowers on a bed of japanese cucumbers and out-of-sight lettuce and some peas. Two rambutans and a kiwi fruit. Also had half a pita bread for carbs! Okay or not?

Bento #20

Did my usual 3km walk averaging 13mins each km this morning... so no improvement at the moment. And had a peek at the numbers on the scale this morning before the walk.... Hey! despite my bingeing on sunday and the choc&cheese and Bento Pet's chocolate chip cookies (there are six pieces left by the way!) there is evident of another pound lost!!! Fantastic!

Breakfast was small bowl of oats with half a banana sliced into it, a slice of papaya and an orange.

Today's bento is yesterday's dry meat curry with potatoe, steamed brocolli and beneath the brocolli is left over fried turnip with minced meat in dark soya sauce. One shaped rice ball garnished with cili flakes, yesterday's two was abit too much. And oh the sprig of young celery leaves used as garnish for the curry is in honour of my supporters ~ sisters, Wendy and Sharon and mentor ~ Bento Pet! LOL! Hope you like it!

BTW, as I was having my lunch, a young supplier walked in and saw me and my bento lunch. He informs that in cantonese - its called 'loving heart rice box!' ~ ain't that sweet?

Bento #19

Intention was there to walk on Sunday but there was a light drizzle and I had washed my hair the night before ... no morning walk but off to the market earlier! Alas, I came home with two small plastic bags.... big sigh! any way tomorrow is another day!

Did my usual 3km walk this morning with the last 1km achieved in 10 mins! Yeah.... Hopefully same result tomorrow!


Today's bento is all home cooked. I shaped the rice last night, stuffed with chicken floss and garnished with cili flakes. Half a slice of fried tenggiri marinated with salt, pepper and turmeric powder, steamed brocolli. And I made the cucumber salad again! yumms!

Bento #18

Today's bento is vegetarian. Was looking for the chee cheong fun and yong tau foo but this particular stall is no longer open. So its three pieces of spring roll, kong poh 'chicken', crunchy ladies finger and four angled bean, braised gluten with black fungus. And.... am half way through a delish Choc & Cheese from Just Heavenly... mmph what diet am I on? LOL

Was chatting with Janet from Ipoh... might want to make Lui Char Fun this weekend ~ see Amy Beh's recipe here: http://kuali.com/recipes/viewrecipe.asp?r=1022

Bento #17

I walked two and half km this morning. Breakfast was small bowl of oats, slice of papaya, one orange and half a green pear!
Today's bento is all stash I accumulated by freezing leftovers! I tried steaming brocolli and freezing the extras - but I had to chuck out a couple of sorry looking ones. I shaped the rice this morning, there is another ball of rice under all that chicken floss - did not have enuf brown rice for two triangles so hand shaped into a not so round ball! Filled up the spaces with brocolli and bit of carrots. More brocolli with the balance of the foo chok wrapped fish paste I made the other day. Sprinkled olive oil, soya sauce and cili flakes and a kasturi lime for flavour. I must say, this foo chok roll is yummy! Will absolutely make it again soon.

And guess who brought me chocolate chips cookies this morning!???? Bento Pet! She came by to collect the bento set I bought on her behalf! At time of posting I have had my lunch and ...... five cookies! Everything was yummy!

Bento #16

I made a meat dish using fermented black beans on sunday and had some leftover. I added french beans, carrots and yellow cherry tomatos to it and turn it into a stew. Accompanied by the last of the new potatoes and half a pita bread to mop up the lovely sauce! And some lovely pineapple completes the meal.

I did not walk this morning but had been walking between 2km to 3km steadily for the past ten days. I thought I saw the needle on the weighing machine point at a smaller number this morning! Yeah! Looks like food portioning via Bento-ing helped when exercise alone did not move the needle!

Come on, do join me at food portioning in addition to exercise!

Bento #15

I spent an hour last night preparing my bento lunch for today! That is after DH had gone to bed! I made foo chok skin wrapped fish paste which I had mixed in chopped young ginger, spring onions, pepper, soy sauce and sesame oil. I used this mixture to wrap a few mini french beans too. Both were steamed and I drizzled some olive oil and soy sauce over them this morning. And to be served with a bit of squeezed kasturi lime juice over them and the extra french beans and cherry tomatoes. Next container ~ I have boiled new potatoes sprinkled with cili flakes. And the last of the mochii Diyana made and some longgans.

Yumms!


.Umi's Embroidered Gifts
Looking forward to collecting two of this ribbon embroidered pillows for my brother's wedding later this month.

Bento #14

Go Get Yourself This Fabulous Picture Presentation here!

Today's bento is homemade or rather yesterday's leftovers! Chestnut in brown rice garnished with cili flakes (courtesy of Domino's!); steamed minced meat with chai poh with egg on a bed of lettuce accompanied by steamed brocolli. For non asean visitors, the single hairy red fruit is rambutan whole and some peeled.

This is the other color available for the bento set I bought (mine is maroon/brown color) and for your information its the only color left.

I bought two sets of the above color and another two sets of the maroon/brown color last evening. I delivered one of each color to Wendy when Yatie and I dropped by Tini's to collect the baju kurungs we ordered. It was great meeting up with Tini and Wendy today!

This week I sadly brought home four plastic bags after doing so well (none at all) on sunday from the wet market! Two bags were from Jusco, which thank goodness are bio-degradable! One non-degradable from the fruit stall where I purchased rambutans and a juicy pineapple! And one small plastic bag from the Sin Mah in PJ Old Town where we picked up more beads, disappearing ink pens and threads. [Reminder to self: leave reusable shopping bags in the car!] Hope I dont add any more from my shopping tomorrow at the wet market!

A good weekend to all. Thanks for visiting

Bento #13

Go Get Yourself This Fabulous Picture Presentation here!

Bento #13 is truly a Malaysian Bento! I have not had Nasi Lemak for a while .... well certainly not at all in the month of July!

See, less than 300ml of the coconut rice! Well, its not tightly packed in!! A sliver of hard boiled egg, some sliced cucumber, peanuts and ikan bilis with a pat of sambal tunis (real spicy!). Yumms ~ lots of prawns & petai sambal and rendang chicken! Ok, no more nasi lemak~ that is until first week of September!