Bento #19

Bento for Marcus' school lunch consisting of homemade beef lasagna, endamame, baby corn, Oreo and a Japanese rice cracker with black sesame seeds. Plus a pack of 250ml UHT full cream milk (not shown). 

 

The lasagna was leftover from the dinner I made the night before. After the lasagna was cooked, I packed the portion for his bento in a Lock n Lock container before putting it in the fridge. In the morning, all I needed to do was to transfer the LnL to the microwave oven to warm up the lasagna, let it cool before placing it in the bento box. This saves lots of time. 

I used the 480ml bento box since the lasagna is pretty heavy stuff for a kiddo's lunch and I gave him a good portion too. Lasagna is especially great addition to bento since it is one of those yummy food which is so nutritious and still tastes good even if it is not eaten pipping hot (unlike other cream or tomato based pasta). 

A bonus, to me, is that it freezes really well. So whenever we make lasagna (and I do at least once or twice a month), we can stash some into freezer for those crazily busy days. A few minutes in the microwave oven and we get a nice main dish for the bento. Using a LnL is great here because it can be transferred from freezer to fridge to microwave without moving the contents, which helps the lasagna stays in shape. And it helps that I can just throw it into the dishwasher afterwards.  

I was also acting on his feedback that he was always the last kid to finish his lunch in school. I figured it is probably because most kids eat sandwiches, fried rice and noodles kind of food with very little vegetables, nuts and fruits which require more chewing. Perhaps they have lesser food or just gobble up their lunch. So anyway, I decided to give him slightly less food, but still nutritious and filling. 

Verdict from the prince: The lasagna was so yummy! He ate all of it, including the slightly chunkier tomato pieces (which I included on purpose to 'test' if he would eat them since he normally wouldn't eat a tomato). Needless to say, everything else in the box and the pack of milk went to his tummy. When he got home from school, he gulped down another 250ml of milk.