6/10/09 Bento- mushroom meatball

Number three, also in my glasslock container. Man, I do love that thing, though it is seriously heavy. I can't imagine how much heavier the larger ones are...

Bento contents: in a layer on the bottom on the left side, baby carrots and cucumber sticks;
red silicon baking cup with regular and red pepper hummus on top;
steamed broccoli in the middle with a sliced strawberry as garnish;
on the right-hand side, in a foil cupcake liner three mushroom "meatballs", one olive, and three pieces of cheddar cheese;
fishy of BBQ sauce at the top.
Not pictured: 1/2 whole wheat pita bread in plastic bag.

The foil cupcake liner had a piece of paper towel in the bottom to absorb moisture. I drained the olive before hand so it didn't get messy (of course, it was also on the paper towel). To put the foil in, I just flattened it and mashed it in the end to fit. Seemed to work pretty well. I ended up making a mini "meatball" sandwich in the toaster oven, and if I were to do that again, the cheese should be in smaller pieces.

I also had a tough time manipulating baby carrots and cucumber sticks into the hummus with chopsticks. I have a nice pair of chopsticks that I keep in my lunch bag and I do like eating with them. (I think it's probably because it's such a fiddly thing...I like fiddly.) But I think the baby carrots are almost too big to grasp and dip.

The little fishy container is from a great online store called www.from-japan-with-love.com. I ordered a couple of things from them, including the bear container in previous postings. The service was prompt and my order form was packed in this pretty, Japanese foil envelope. Lovely! For those of us who don't live near San Fran, finding Japanese bento things at a reasonable price is difficult. (I can only give my father-in-law so many requests when he's traveling before I feel like I'm taking advantage.)