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Speed bento techniques: frozen spaghetti

Posted By Biggie On February 13, 2007 @ 1:02 am In bento, equipment, for kids, freezing, meat, parenthacks, pasta or noodles, tips, tutorial or how to | 32 Comments

This was a super-fast toddler bento (less than 10 minutes to pack both mine and my son’s). I nuked frozen homemade meatballs, steamed the broccoli and kabocha squash in a microwave mini steamer (photo behind the cut), and dropped in a foil cup of leftover spaghetti I portioned out for freezing.

[1] Speedy spaghetti lunch for toddler お弁当

Taking a page from Japanese bento cookbooks, I froze leftover spaghetti in foil liners set in mini muffin tins. Once they were frozen through a couple of hours later, I put them in shallow tupperware for longer-term storage. This way I have a cache of homemade pasta ready to drop into my son’s lunches when I’m looking for a red-colored dish. In the morning, I just put a frozen-solid pasta cup into the bento, and it’s totally thawed a few hours later when we’re ready to eat. If I were going to microwave them I’d have used paper cups instead of foil.

[2] Freezing spaghetti for bento lunches [3] Frozen spaghetti for bento lunches

As for taste, I ate my bento today (with the frozen pasta) and had a bite of my son’s (with non-frozen pasta). They tasted about the same, no significant difference in taste/texture. I wouldn’t leave them in the freezer for longer than a few weeks, though — if they got freezer burn that’d definitely affect the taste. EDIT: I now like these with a little extra sauce in a small container on the side to remoisten the pasta.

I made today’s broccoli and kabocha in this mini steamer for the microwave — I picked it up at Daiso for US$1.50. It’s sold as a steamer for meat buns, but it’s just the right size for steaming small amounts of vegetables or dumplings for lunch. It speeds up steaming time by 50%. You put a tablespoon of water in the bottom, place the steam tray on the bottom, put the veggies in, then cover (aligning the steam holes to allow venting). Nuke for 1-2 minutes and let it stand for a couple of minutes afterward to steam. It can also be used for storage if you twist the lid so that the steam release holes are not aligned. Amazon lists a similar one [4] here and a [5] large one here.

[6] Microwave mini steamer

Here’s my lunch — the same as my son’s except it’s got roast pork instead of meatballs.

[7] Speedy roast pork lunch お弁当

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URL to article: http://lunchinabox.net/2007/02/13/speed-bento-techniques-frozen-spaghetti/

URLs in this post:
[1] Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/24506652@N00/388209602/
[2] Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/24506652@N00/387561597/
[3] Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/24506652@N00/387801811/
[4] here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000BWI43W?ie=UTF8&tag=luinabo-20&linkCode=as2&camp=178
9&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B0000CFPT2

[5] large one here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0004F7IW4?ie=UTF8&tag=lunch-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&
amp;creative=9325&creativeASIN=B0004F7IW4

[6] Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/24506652@N00/388209604/
[7] Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/24506652@N00/388209603/
[8] Freezing spaghetti cups in Tupperware: http://lunchinabox.net/2007/07/31/freezing-spaghetti-cups-in-tupperware/
[9] Freezing unsauced pasta: http://lunchinabox.net/2007/07/12/freezing-unsauced-pasta/
[10] Use magnets to track freezer inventory: http://lunchinabox.net/2007/04/03/magnets-to-track-freezer-inventory/
[11] Need for speed: A mommy’s lunch manifesto: http://lunchinabox.net/2007/04/23/need-for-speed-a-mommys-lunch-manifesto/
[12] Biggie’s list of Top Speed Tips, tutorials and equipment reviews: http://lunchinabox.net/top-tips/
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