My bento lunch the next day – with more SPAM to use up, I made SPAM stars and fried rice*. The fried rice was very simple as usual – leftover rice, green beans, garlic and egg, flavoured with soy sauce. I made the stars using a cookie cutter. Feeling somewhat uninspired by what was in the fridge / pantry, all I managed to rustle up for the second tier of my bento box was red seedless grapes. But as uninspired as it was, those grapes were lovely. I fried up the stars and the rest of the SPAM that was left over. I packed the stars in my lunch box and ate the off-cuts for breakfast with a little buttered bread. :)

Bento - SPAM stars with fried rice and red grapes

As I was packing my lunch, Jac wandered by and said, “That fried rice looks good, but is it okay if I don’t have any SPAM in my lunch?”

Bento - SPAM stars with fried rice

So I packed Jac fried rice without SPAM. It looked a little plain, so I garnished it with grape tomato halves. If we’d had some fresh red chilli I would’ve sliced some up and used that, adding a little bite to Jac’s fried rice, but the tomatoes did the job of adding colour. I also packed her red grapes and three slices of frozen pineapple. I don’t even remember when we bought the pineapple, but there was a bag of it sitting in the freezer – I thought it would be a nice inclusion in Jac’s lunch.

Fried rice, grape tomatoes, pineapple and red grapes

For Jac’s bento note, I drew her a cartoon pig (below). That evening, Jac asked me, “So why didn’t anyone come to Petunia’s party?” :) I hope you guys get the joke even if Jac didn’t!**

The bento note for Jac - a sign of the times

About the bento gear featured in this post
I like eating my fried rice cold, which is why I packed my lunch in my yellow bento box, which I purchased on eBay. I don’t microwave that bento box.

Jac likes to eat her fried rice hot, so I packed her lunch in one of our microwave-safe Decor Tellfresh Quarters . You can buy them from many Woolworths or Coles supermarkets, for around AU$7.00 each. They come with four of removable white compartments (hence “Quarters”). Obviously on this occasion, I used two of the quarter compartments to hold the fruit.

Notes
*A variation on SPAM fried rice. I like what I like, after all! :)
**Not that I’m suggesting that swine flu is a laughing matter.

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