Mr. D Bento #3 – Grilled Cheese Triangles

Happy Friday! I’ve got only a slightly better update on yesterday’s lunch: He ate all the hot dog rolls, but then he started to feel full (see previous note about muffin being eaten first), and he decided to save his ham and cheese sandwiches for after school.

Only, being five, he completely forgot to eat them, and so when I picked him up, he declared he would eat them right then. I was like, sorry, buddy, they’re probably no good. He was pretty bummed. It’s a pretty big improvement! As he said, he did not eat the poor clementine wedges.

Today’s lunch is a grilled cheese sandwich, something I had to explain to him, because I hadn’t made them in a while, so he couldn’t remember if he liked them. I actually made it using a technique I saw in a Best Foods ad online somewhere, where they said to achieve a really crispy grilled cheese, you just spread mayo on the outside.

I was a bit squinty-eyed about it, since I usually use butter, but I gave it a go, and it did in fact turn out quite crunchy. Not really good for a bento, since the steam in the box will soften it anyway, but it was good to know for another time. As for how it tasted, I can’t tell you just yet. I’m cabbage soup dieting this week, but once I’m done, I’m so ready to try it for myself!

After Day 1’s failure and despite my stating that I couldn’t give up, I was still feeling a bit low, so I asked him last night while putting him to bed if he wanted to go back to school lunch, and he gave me an emphatic NO, and said he really likes home lunch. He also let it be known that his classmates really love his lunches, and it seems like he enjoys that attention.

And then, it was so cute: He started planning out today’s lunch with me! He rattled off all these ideas for what I could pack for him (“We need the muffin, Mommy.”), and it made me feel really good about this.

Added in were two Lil’ Smokies wrapped in ketchuped bread (an invention/special request of Mr. D!). I couldn’t fit them elsewhere, so I used them to prop up the triangles. For sides, I have another mini chocolate chip muffin, a strawberry, and Envy apple fries.

He was small kine blown away by the concept of apple fries, so hopefully he eats them. I forgot that I’ve been timing myself to note to people how long things take. This bento took me just under 19 minutes to do, but that probably could have been cut down by a few minutes because I ended up making a grilled ham and cheese sandwich for my daughter too.

I’m trying to stick to no more than 15 minutes, because anything more at this point in my life sounds unreasonable. I think back to spending 45 minutes years ago, and I get the shivers.

Have an awesome weekend. I’m going to try to go shopping this weekend, because I just recently learned that DAISO (eeee!) opened here in Honolulu recently. I anticipate bento heaven.