Snow Day Bento

There are few pleasures in life like a snow day in October.  Waking early, looking at the snow falling against the moonlight, feeling that anticipation of an entire day spent doing absolutely nothing that you were supposed to do, all these wonderful sentiments crept through my head at 4:30 am and then came to smashing and terrible halt.  Poudre School District schools are open, which means that DH and DD need to go out in weather better suited to reading by the fire.  What's more, DH has parent-teacher conferences tonight!  It is going to be a very long day for both of them. 

In honor of snow day disappointment, I give you my bento - full of hardy, warm food meant to fill them up and get them through a day of utter disappointment.  It is comfort food - fast and easy - but comfort food nonetheless.


Layer 1: This is an appetizer and dessert designed with DD in mind.  Yesterday, I spent a delightful day with dear friends making apple butter.  My friends have three small children, so working together on something like this makes a huge difference.  One adult takes care of kids, while the other gets on with the cooking.  Then, we switch and spell each other.  I left her with a hot pot of apple butter and 2 loaves of bread fresh from the oven.  I took home several jars of this coveted food stuff.  DD eats it by the bowl full.  So, this morning I made basic muffins (with no added flavoring).  We call them "miscuits" because they are muffins that taste like biscuits.  Silly, but it makes us smile.  :)  Miscuits are paired with a small container of apple butter.  On the other side are three cheese tortellini tossed with butter and Parmesan.  It's low on veggies, but this is a snack for around 9:30 when DD's breakfast has run out and she's eating in the middle of class.


Layer 2: I had some leftover rice in the fridge that needed to be used.  I also had some leftover sauce from beef stew the other day.  There were three tiny pieces of meat left for my lunch yesterday but massive amounts of veggies and yummy sauce.  So, here I've combined the sauce from our beef stew with some meatballs I had in the freezer.  It should be hot and filling for a cold afternoon.  I've sprinkled some of the herbs I used in the stew on top of the rice as well.

I hope your day is warmer than mine.  Our high, here in Colorado, will be around 34.  My bet is that we don't quite hit 34.  Overnight it will be in the teens and tomorrow the snow will all melt away. 

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