I’ve never hidden the fact that I use processed goods, mixes, and ready-to-eat stuff for my bento. It makes bento prep easier and faster, especially during lazy mornings. Plus, there are mornings when cooking everything from scratch just isn’t feasible, especially when I’m in need of a quick bento filler.

One of my refrigerator staples is bottled Pesto, particularly, the ones blended with Sundried Tomatoes. It’s pretty flexible as you can use it for pasta, rice, as a dip, or even as a recipe ingredient.

In this case, I used it the classic way—slathered over pasta. For an additional sundried tomato kick, I added a few slices as I went along. To go with it, I added a couple of pesto bread sticks from Pan de Manila to round it off.

On the side, weirdly enough, I threw in some Hakao from Hatchin. I didn’t know what to add in my last compartment and I was in a rush. The freezer yielded a pack of frozen Hakao which I quickly reheated in a microwave steamer and it was good to go. It was good! Much better than the other frozen Hakao brand I used to buy—this one was more shrimpy and solid, with the wrapper staying intact. I added a sauce bottle of Kikkoman soy sauce and lemon juice and it was a happy happy meal for me come lunch time.

Prepared in 15 minutes. Not bad for a quick lunch, definitely.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 23rd, 2007 at 6:05 pm and is filed under bento. 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.