For kids, one of the big problems during bedtime is the proverbial monster hiding under the bed. My problem, on the other hand, is the monster under my salad!

I wasn’t planning to go all cutesy with this bento. It was just supposed to be a simple hamburger lunch. While I was putting it together in my brain though, I thought, “Hey, why not turn the patties into eyes?”

Much later though, as I was putting it together, my mom wandered into the kitchen and said, “Is that supposed to be Grover?” That sealed it, monster it is! To complete the look, I included a monster hand sticking out at the corner using little bread snacks. It doesn’t look much like a hand but I like it because it was really part of the lunch and not something I added just to complete the look.

Contents:

• Mashed potatoes. Reheated from frozen.

From our Tip Jar
I learned something new with this bento—mashed potatoes freeze well. This is actually a small amount of leftover mashed potatoes from a few days before. I dumped it on cling wrap, molded, wrapped, then froze. To reheat, I just peeled the plastic off, placed the log on a microwave-safe dish, then nuked on high for 2 minutes. Good as fresh!

• Mini-burgers. Ground beef mixed with salt and pepper then seared in butter. 100% all beef goodness after my own heart. Lovewise and healthwise, hwehwehwe. The burgers are topped with cheese and nori eyes. The nori’s taste is barely perceptible when paired with cheese. And we all know how magical cheese is when placed on burgers, don’t we? Oh, and his nose is a tomato wedge.

• Romaine lettuce leaves, torn into bite-sized pieces. The little squeeze bottle outside the bento has Caesar’s Salad dressing. I usually like making my own Caesar’s Salad dressing, but not when I’ve barely woken up. Fortunately, we always have a bottle of ready-made salad dressing for moments when I’m too lazy to make dressing. Among the few brands that I find acceptable is Newman’s Own. Of course I’m still partial to homemade but in a pinch, Paul Newman’s is a good dressing to use.

• Oishi’s Bread Pan to serve as croutons. Bread Pan is a pack of mini-garlic bread nibbles that’s not only a tasty snack, but also doubles as flavorful croutons. His “nails” are made of cheese.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 18th, 2007 at 2:06 pm and is filed under bento, food spotlight, take a tip. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.