Using a stash

When you read other bento sites, especially ones where speed is a priority, there is much talk of building a "stash" of bento foods (in Japanese it's called "johbisai").  I love the idea but I'm not so good with the planning... I tend to be a little fickle.  This year I've been much better about putting away some items to use for later.  I have a few bags of mini felafel patties, some tiny store-bought egg tarts,  home-made red sauce, zucchini bread, whole wheat bread, tiny lasagnas and now some adorable pies made from fresh pumpkins!  I don't think my freezer has ever been so full!

I also like the more short-term stashes.  AKA leftovers!  Wednesday I roasted butternut and it's hanging out in the fridge just waiting to be scooped into a lunch.  Tonight I made a double batch of veggie curry so we could have it for lunch tomorrow too.

Today is a stash lunch.  I brought a little zucchini lasagna out of the freezer and let it thaw overnight.  In the morning I warmed it in the toaster oven with a little dollop of extra sauce on top to help keep it from drying out too much.  I threw some of that squash in the toaster oven at the same time to bake in the cinnamon flavor since I already had the oven going.  While the spiders were warming I carved a creepy ghosty face from a yellow pepper so I could top the lasagna with a splash of color (it was a nice lid too so that nothing got sauced on accident!).  Add in some sliced cucumber, broccoli and grapes on picks for a nice rounded lunch.   I let Monstro have a small piece of fresh pumpkin pie too.  He LOVES pumpkin pie!!

 I initially tried to pack this in the LunchBots Eco but it's just too big.  I couldn't find enough smaller items to hold the cups in place.

To make the tiny lasagna I used frozen cubes of red sauce (heated in the microwave), slices of zucchini browned in a skillet, no boil noodles and a little shredded cheese.  I just broke the noodles small enough to fit in the spiders and layered everything like normal.  Then I baked them in the toaster oven before relegating them to the freezer for a couple of weeks.  They weren't part of a bigger meal though.  I put them together one afternoon when I pried myself away from Facebook and now here they are! :D