- Lunch in a Box: Building a Better Bento - http://lunchinabox.net -

Travel, and speedy meatball lunches

Posted By Biggie On April 13, 2007 @ 1:20 am In bento, eggs, equipment, for kids, freezing, meat, onigiri or sushi, rice | 35 Comments

First off, I wanted to let everyone know that Bug and I will be traveling to Philadelphia for a week starting today (4/13/07), so my blog updates will be sporadic during the week. I’ll try to check in and respond to comments, but won’t be as responsive as I usually try to be. Second, thanks to everyone who has voted for this blog in the [1] Blogger’s Choice Awards so far — my goal is to hang around as a non-vegan blog on the top page for a while. Wish me luck! (November 2007 update: Open voting for 2007 has closed with Lunch in a Box in 3th place. Thank you! 2008 voting is [2] here is you’re interested.)

Morning prep time: 10 minutes each. A combination of frozen food, store-bought food, and refrigerator staples made Bug’s quick lunch possible today. The meatballs were store-bought (Aidells teriyaki chicken pineapple) with extra teriyaki sauce, I had a small batch of shaped hard-boiled eggs in the fridge for snacking (more below), and the little [3] rice balls were from the freezer and wrapped with [4] pre-cut nori for maximum speed. Grapes, blackberries and grape tomatoes round out the meal — and I packed a tiny toddler fork for the meatballs (cut in half for Bug).

[5] Speedy meatball lunch for toddler

Earlier this week I made rice to eat with Thai curry at dinner. I only make rice every 10 days or so, so when I do, I make a big batch and freeze the excess as individually wrapped rice balls (see my [3] prior entry on frozen onigiri). I mixed a bowl of medium-grain rice with [6] furikake (rice sprinkles), and popped it into [7] rice ball molds to shape before wrapping and freezing. A quick spin in the microwave brings these back to life.Bug really enjoys the shaped hard-boiled eggs, but I can’t be bothered to make just one in the morning specially for lunch. Instead, I make a batch of 5-6 at once with cheap egg molds that I picked up at a local dollar store (Ichiban Kan, US$1.50 for two), and store them in the refrigerator in the molds. You boil the eggs, peel them while they’re hot, pop them into a mold and throw them into cold water for 10 minutes to take on the shape (Cooking Cute has a tutorial [8] here). If you don’t want to fork over money for a uni-tasker, you can also use ice cream sandwich molds for the same effect, available from Amazon and Williams Sonoma (my tutorial [9] here).

[10] Frozen rice balls [11] Molds for hard-boiled eggs

My lunch is the same as Bug’s, but with larger rice balls and a cheese triangle that Bug seized when he spied it. Maybe one day I’ll be able to eat the cheese triangles that I pack in my lunches…

[12] Speedy meatball lunch

RELATED POSTS:

Share this post:
  • [18] StumbleUpon
  • [19] TwitThis
  • [20] Facebook
  • [21] del.icio.us
  • [22] Kirtsy

Article printed from Lunch in a Box: Building a Better Bento: http://lunchinabox.net

URL to article: http://lunchinabox.net/2007/04/13/travel-and-speedy-meatball-lunches/

URLs in this post:
[1] Blogger’s Choice Awards: http://www.bloggerschoiceawards.com/blogs/show/1463
[2] here: http://www.bloggerschoiceawards.com/blogs/show/20676
[3] rice balls were from the freezer: http://lunchinabox.net/2007/02/15/speed-bento-technique-making-freezing-yaki-onigiri-onigiri/
[4] pre-cut nori: http://lunchinabox.net/2007/03/15/speed-bento-tip-store-pre-cut-nori-in-freezer-bag/
[5] Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lunchinabox/457145954/
[6] furikake : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Furikake
[7] rice ball molds: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000216THK?ie=UTF8&tag=luinabo-20&linkCode=as2&camp=178
9&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B000216THK

[8] here: http://www.cookingcute.com/using_egg_molds.htm
[9] here: http://lunchinabox.net/2006/06/22/williams-sonoma-for-egg-molds/
[10] Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lunchinabox/457145950/
[11] Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lunchinabox/457145946/
[12] Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lunchinabox/457145956/
[13] Avoid airplane food, pack your own bento lunch!: http://lunchinabox.net/2008/01/03/avoid-airplane-food-pack-your-own-bento-lunch/
[14] Disposable bento lunches for my in-laws’ plane trip: http://lunchinabox.net/2007/09/26/disposable-lunches-for-airplane/
[15] Fried rice disposable bento for airplane: http://lunchinabox.net/2007/06/19/disposable-bento-for-airplane/
[16] Airplane bento lunches and stromboli: http://lunchinabox.net/2007/04/20/stromboli-lunches-and-travel-food/
[17] Biggie’s list of top speed tips, tutorials and equipment reviews: http://lunchinabox.net/top-tips/
[18] Image: http://www.stumbleupon.com/submit?url=http%3A%2F%2Flunchinabox.net%2F2007%2F04%2F13%2Ftravel-and-spe
edy-meatball-lunches%2F&title=Travel%2C%20and%20speedy%20meatball%20lunches

[19] Image: http://twitter.com/home?status=http%3A%2F%2Flunchinabox.net%2F2007%2F04%2F13%2Ftravel-and-speedy-mea
tball-lunches%2F

[20] Image: http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Flunchinabox.net%2F2007%2F04%2F13%2Ftravel-and-speed
y-meatball-lunches%2F&t=Travel%2C%20and%20speedy%20meatball%20lunches

[21] Image: http://del.icio.us/post?url=http%3A%2F%2Flunchinabox.net%2F2007%2F04%2F13%2Ftravel-and-speedy-meatba
ll-lunches%2F&title=Travel%2C%20and%20speedy%20meatball%20lunches

[22] Image: http://www.kirtsy.com/submit.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Flunchinabox.net%2F2007%2F04%2F13%2Ftravel-and-spee
dy-meatball-lunches%2F&title=Travel%2C%20and%20speedy%20meatball%20lunches