9/11/2009- Pasta salad bento

I learned an important lesson about leakage today. Oh man. Here's the pic after I packed it last night:

Contents of bento: Homemade pasta salad on the left: steamed broccoli, shells, red pepper, and some homemade garlic dressing that's been kicking around the fridge, topped with some shaved parmesan.
On the right: carrot sticks, green grapes, two Morningstar farms buffalo wing-a-lings (my name, not theirs) in a decorated paper cup, one prune under the red silicon cup which has a piece of oat-cookie-bar thing in it. There's a lettuce leaf underneath everything, which I hoped would prevent any leakage.

Now for the lesson on leakage. I mixed up the pasta salad last night and all was well. I knew it would be kind of juicy, so I spooned it out of the bowl, sort of draining it. I should have made a better effort. I don't know what happened, exactly, but it leaked under the middle barrier, it leaked up into the lid, which suctioned it over lots of other stuff on the right side. The only consolation I can give myself is that at least I put the oat bar in a silicon cup. It was untouched. And the rest wasn't really a big deal to have some dressing on. The wing-a-lings were especially good with it. When I make them to pack in a bento, I stick them in the toaster oven until they're dried out and crispy. There's no way to keep them from absorbing some moisture in the box, so I like to dry them out as much as possible. I'm really into them. As far as fake meat goes, I'm don't cook with it much, but things like this make great bento items. I also use those wing-a-lings in a great homemade pizza thing, which I may post about the next time I make it.

I'm also glad that the Totoro Bento Box didn't leak into my lunch box, so I suppose it's water-tight-ness is a good thing. Next time, I think a slotted spoon. Or maybe packing up the dressing separately. I ate the dressing soaked leaf, too. Hah.