This was a busy week for me. It was my anniversary and we did a lot to celebrate (Disneyland, whale watching, and aquarium. There is a whole long blog). So, I wanted to do a simpler lunch. Plus, I was craving a lemon-flavored dessert. Lemon is one of my favorite flavors for a dessert. I still wanted it to be adorable though, so I went with a Hello Kitty theme. Who doesn’t love Hello Kitty.
For the adorable aspect of this bento, I made a Hello kitty PB&J sandwich roll. This is actually really simple. I made the PB&J, cut off the crust, place it on plastic wrap and use the wrap to roll it into a shape that will fit the bento. I cut the face out of nori and used extra jam to make the bow.
To go with my sandwich, I made a chicken mac & cheese casserole. I started off by boiling the shell noodles and getting them into a casserole dish. Since I was in a rush, I bought a cooked rotisserie chicken and shredded it into the casserole dish with the noodles. Then I made a cheese sauce. I made a butter-flour roux, mixed in some heavy cream, garlic powder, salt, pepper, onion, shredded cheddar cheese, and blue cheese crumbles. I let this thicken a bit before pouring on top of the noodles and chicken. I topped it with seasoned bread crumbs and baked until slightly golden. Delicious!!
I wanted to make sure I was full by pumping up the protein in the dish, so I made a tamagoyaki, or Japanese egg omelet. This is where eggs, mirin, soy sauce, salt, and pepper are mixed together and then a thin layer is poured into a skillet. When it’s mostly cooked, I rolled that up, pushed it to the side and poured another thin layer. I continued this until I was out of egg mixture. It’s slightly sweet and very good. I also wanted some veggies so just simply boiled some edamame.
Finally for dessert, I was craving something with lemon and decided to make a lemon lime meringue pie. I made a shortbread crust and blind baked it. Then I made the lime curd from flour, cornstarch, lime juice, lime zest, sugar, and butter and poured that in. That set while making the lemon curd which was exactly like the lime curd but replace lime juice and zest with lemon juice and zest. I made a meringue with egg whites, sugar, and cream of tartar before browning in the oven. It was soooo good.
So how did my quick bento go? Is this something you could see yourself making in a rush? I liked it a lot, though it did edge on the sweet end of things. I might try to do something similar next time, but with a more savory sandwich if I’m going to include a dessert too.