Macaroli Bentos

Thank heavens for freezer stock. I’m coming off a bout of insomnia and had one heck of a time managing to wake up this morning. I’m generally in the kitchen packing bentos by 8am, but it was almost 8:20 by the time I got in there today. Thankfully the kids were up and dressed and eating breakfast and it was just a matter of getting something packed for them.

I had plenty of fresh fruits and veggies, but I didn’t really have any main courses. I also didn’t have time to cut up any bread or make mini sandwiches. So I rummaged through my bento shelf in the freezer and found “Macaroli.” Macaroli is some odd product Thing One spotted on one of our Aldi runs and talked me in to bringing home. They are basically frozen ravioli filled with macaroni and cheese sauce. A bag was .99 cents and there was easily enough for 4-6 kid meals in there.

Plus you can make them in the microwave in 1 minute and 20 seconds.

So I dumped some onto a plate, popped it in the microwave and let them cook while I got out fruits, veggies and some pepperoni. By the time I was ready to stuff things into the boxes, the macaroli were ready to go.

So you’ll see them paired with Pepperoni and accompanied by black olives and pickles (because I didn’t have time to cut up celery) as well as orange slices and grapes (because I already had a container of grapes that had been picked off the stems and washed.) A super quick snap of each bento and they were packed up and on their way in about 8 minutes start to finish.