2-8-2011 Pasta, Fake Meatballs, Sandwiches

A hearty set of lunch for myself today. I started the day with some more snow shoveling. We got about 4 inches between tonight and this afternoon. That's actually *nothing* compared with what we have had in the past. Ah, growing up in Virginia gives you such a different perspective on snow. For example, we shoveled the 4 inches, instead of busting out the snow blower. That's how you know it's not a big deal.

Anyways, I digress.
Contents of bento: pasta, fake meatball, celery leaves for garnish on the smaller bottom tier, clementine, dried cranberries, more fake meatballs, celery sticks and a dried peach under the meatballs to fill the space. Sauce in a side car.

A close-up of this part:


I actually ended up putting the sauce into my smallest side car. The container pictured was way too big, in my opinion.

This lunch is in my awesome and cute elph box that I got when I graduated from my master's program. However, it's pretty tiny and when it's packed more loosely like this, not really enough lunch. At least not during winter when there's lots of snow shoveling to do.

I decided a second, snack-sort of bento was in order.

Contents of bento: Three tiny sandwiches, garnished with celery leaf and flower pick. The sandwich fillings are (from top down) peanut butter and homemade grape jelly, provolone with dried apricots, and local Nantucket creamery cheese with olive hummus. They are sitting in little paper cups with sea life on them that I got from my contest SWAG.

Those paper cups are seriously awesome. They keep things dry because they are plastic coated. They're also very cute: you can almost see the one in the elph box. It has penguins on it :D

Everything was delicious. Packing the sauce in a separate container and dipping, rather than just keeping everything in one dish was a great way to ensure the pasta stayed al dente. I also didn't feel the need to heat anything up. Very efficient.