I cooked this dinner: a stir-fry of macaroni, chicken thigh strips, sugar snap peas, baby corn, mushrooms, cherry tomatoes and garlic with oyster sauce and soy sauce.

I’d marinated the chicken (three boneless skinless chicken thighs cut into strips), with light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, a teaspoon of sugar, white pepper, a little corn flour and a little sesame oil. I rubbed the marinade into the chicken (really rubbed it in!) and then left it in the fridge to get yummy for a couple of hours. Jac used to think my pasta stir-fries were weird, but their tastiness eventually won her over. I don’t think stir-frying pasta is so strange – it’s just noodles after all! The funny thing is, I tend not to use the more noodle-like pastas for stir-fries – I don’t use spaghetti, linguine or fettucine, for example. I like using vegetable spirals, soyaroni or macaroni because it means I can eat the dish with a spoon. I think this love of eating with a spoon comes from a combination of laziness (it’s easy to eat – no carving involved) and gluttony (fast to eat – good when you are ravenous, which I usually am).

For our work bento the next day, I packed leftover macaroni stir-fry, a small salad (lettuce, baby carrots, cherry tomatoes and cucumber), and for sweets, orange wedges and jelly.

I removed the peel and cut the orange into bite sized wedges and included an animal food pick for easy eating. They were navel oranges, of course, so no seeds. Regular readers will know very well I don’t do fruit with seeds – I always go for seedless watermelon, seedless grapes, and seedless oranges! The jelly was port wine-flavoured jelly, left over from a trifle Jac made for a barbie she attended on Australia Day (more on the trifle in a post coming up). I really enjoyed that wibbly wobbly jelly. Jac told me later she wasn’t so keen to begin with, but once she’d eaten the savoury items, that sweet, soft jelly was a perfect way to end the meal. She should have more faith in her lunch packer! Heheheh.

What I love about this macaroni dish is it tastes great hot or cold – very handy for bento or a picnic.

Of course, I did include a note with Jac’s bento.

I don’t think I’ve mentioned what I call my little bento note cartoon cat – I’ve always called him “Tubby” in my head. I don’t think I’ve drawn his body before, and with the word “tubby” in my brain, my hand drew a very tubby Tubby.

As usual, I protected the note with a little grease-proof paper. I GLAD-wrapped the jelly too – the messiness potential was just too great, I think. :)