Lamb and hummus wrap lunches & egg slicer

Morning prep time: 7 minutes. In another minor Leftover Remake, I used grilled Moroccan lamb left over from dinner a few nights ago, and put it into a wrap sandwich with homemade hummus, tomatoes, onions, lettuce, cumin and flour tortillas. Grilled asparagus was left over from dinner as well, and a wrapped cheese, boiled quail eggs, and a strawberry round out Bug’s lunch. I tried some Taiwanese canned quail eggs (Dragonfly brand, packed in water) to see if they would be a fast substitute for freshly boiled quail eggs, but they were so bad that even Bug and his friend spit them out (they usually devour quail eggs). Very rubbery, unpleasant texture — it’s too bad, it would have been nice to have a quick stash of quail eggs.

Packing notes: Because Bug doesn’t like to eat large pieces of food with different textures in the same bite, I cut everything into smaller pieces for his wrap (below). I also covered the green container with Glad Press’n Seal wrap to keep the blueberries from rolling everywhere during transport. A tiny fork was for the (rejected) eggs, and little plastic dividers kept the wraps away from the moist asparagus and cut strawberry.

Bug has a bad habit of taking huge bites of fruit and then nearly choking on them. Japanese cookbooks for children’s bentos recommend slicing strawberries halfway through with a sharp knife or egg slicer to avoid this problem. I recently upgraded my egg slicer from a US$1 model because the wires loosened on the cheap one, making it difficult to neatly cut through anything (let alone mushrooms). I don’t anticipate having to replace this one any time soon — it’s a workhorse.

My lunch is the same, except the wrap fillings aren’t cut up and the strawberries are whole.

READ MORE:

• Need for speed: A mommy’s lunch manifesto
• Food safety for packed lunches
• How to pack a bento lunch and use gap fillers
• Choosing the right size bento box
• Biggie’s list of top speed tips, tutorials and equipment reviews