bento 23 today (:

for moi ;D

Lid: String cheese, my cute clickety click fork! (:
Sidecar: Tangerine slices, ham rolls, banana oatmeal to go bar
Sealable container: Pizza mac+cheese

Okay, so I threw this quickly together this morning since I kind of woke up late [ well late enough for me to rush make my bento and try and get out the door to catch the earlier, two-car train ] I dumped the pizza mac+cheese onto a plate that i used to cut the ham up on for the ham rolls, threw in the microwave for a couple of minutes and sprinkled some extra cheese on top [ it was melted by the time I ate it 45-50 minutes later ]. This was the last thing I did before I went upstairs to shower, and honestly, it wasn't too bad slightly cold/room temp.
I threw the ham, tangerine and oatmeal bar together while I was making breakfast, so that wasn't too bad. Wondering how I made that pizza mac+cheese?

Pizza Mac+Cheese:
1 box kraft mac+cheese
1 can diced tomatoes [ I used petit diced tomatoes. They're basically just cut into a smaller dice ]
1 can sliced BLACK olives
2 heaping tablespoons [ okay, more like 4 heaping tablespoons, lol ] ricotta cheese
some hamburger, cooked with garlic salt, broken up
small handful of parmesean cheese
a couple handfuls of some sort of shredded cheese [ I used a Mexican 4-cheese blend, its what we've got ]
Butter according to mac and cheese box
milk/cream according to mac and cheese box
italian seasoning [ like, a half-tablespoon or so, just throw in however much you'd like ]

Ok, so while the noodles are cooking, pre-cook the hamburger with some garlic salt and maybe a bit of onion powder, if you've got it. Once the hamburger is almost done, cook the noodles however you like, and drain, finishing the hamburger and then turning the pan off while you prepare the other stuff. Leave the stove ON [ unless you've got a gas stove and can reheat the pan easily ]. Throw in the can of diced tomatoes. and let cook down a bit. Throw in the italian seasoning and stir. Throw in the parmesean cheese and the cooked hamburger. Stir. Put the butter in for the amount of mac+cheese you're cooking, and then put the noodles back in the pan [ the stove is still on, make sure the noodles don't stick though ] and combine with the tomato/hamburger mixture. Throw in your can of olives [ or if you don't like them, find something else! ] Add the milk. I personally start out with heavy whipping cream, as I like mine thick and creamy, and thin out as needed with milk. Dump the cheese packet into the macaroni mix and stir in until it's mixed in. Add the ricotta cheese and mix in until nice and creamy and all melted and stuff into the mac mix. Then put the shredded cheese in and mix until combined and melty.

You can also throw in pepperoni, sliced hard salami, whatever you'd like. It's mostly preference and what you've got. If you've got italian sausage, you could honestly throw that in too, and that'd probably be so delish!

I ate a heaping bowful of this for dinner last night and I still had 4 roughly 1-1 1/2 cup servings of this stuff, just perfect for my bento box! So it really is an awesome thing to make in advance and reheat later for quick and easy starch and protien. Although you may want to have more protien in this, since it's mostly carbs.