Lazy Chef = More Bento!

As the title says! My housemates and I went out to dinner and a movie (Toy Story 3!) Saturday night, wound up eating late last night (fish sticks and corn chowder), and just kind of phoned it in tonight too. Jordan and I had roasted broccoli, garlic mashed potatoes and chicken nuggets(!) (an egg for me). So let me just show you how I made that into lunch:

In the bottom compartment, I have some leftover mashed potatoes and roasted broccoli, but I've added half of a vegetarian Italian sausage that I browned in a pan with some onion slices. The onion and sausage are wrapped up together in a spinach leaf, and some red pepper stars add what the pros call "visual interest", but along with the onion, also recall the familiar Italian sausage accompaniments! I though that the veggie sausage was a bit dry compared to a regular meat sausage (it's the lack of grease), so hopefully wrapping it up in the leaf and the onions will help keep some of the moisture in, too.

The top "dessert" compartment has a bunch of black grapes and a little more than half an orange sliced up. I thought it'd be nice to balance the "heavy" foods of the bottom tier with some light sweetness.

I've really been enjoying packing these bento lunches. They come together very quickly with leftovers and bits of simple staples in the fridge, they look nice, and they're very emotionally satisfying to eat because there's still that home-cooked aura about them that is very comforting after a stressful day at work. If you take lunch to work with you, maybe you should consider them too!