Mac and Cheese Bento

Mac and Cheese Bento, a photo by sherimiya ♥ on Flickr.

Look, it's a thermal bento. In summer. Is it wrong? I was just in the mood for mac and cheese, so decided to pack a couple in my kids' thermal food jars. It's not essential to pack mac and cheese hot, and in fact I bet my kids would be happy to eat it at room temp, but there's something about ooey gooey cheesy mac that sounds so good to me. Last time I used The Pioneer Woman's recipe (for this bento here), and that was really good, but this time I used a bacon mac recipe. It could have used more cheese, I think, but it was still pretty good. I know the side box looks absurdly huge in the photo, but trust me; it's an illusion (it's actually propped up on the thermal jar lid). There's a lot of broccoli in the mac and cheese, so all I gave him on the side is: corn, carrots, strawberry, cherries and pluot.

Bacon Mac and Cheese (based on the recipe here)

8 ounces macaroni
2 1/2 cups milk
4 ounces each grated provolone and Asiago cheeses
2 eggs
2 scallions, chopped
3 slices sandwich bread, torn into small pieces
3 strips bacon
1 onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
3 T flour

Preheat oven to 375 F. Butter a 2-quart shallow casserole dish. Cook the macaroni until al dente, about 5 minutes. Drain, transfer the pasta to the casserole dish along with 1/4 cup milk.
Meanwhile, mix the cheeses together. Beat the eggs with 1/4 cup milk in another bowl, add scallions, bread and half the cheese, set aside.
Cook the bacon, remove from pan. Cook the onion and garlic in the same pan, about 4 minutes, then add flour, cook another 2 minutes. Add the remaining 1 3/4 cup milk to the skillet, boil, and whisk until thick.
Remove the sauce from heat and whisk in the remaining cheese, add the sauce to the macaroni and stir to combine. [Here I added steamed broccoli, chopped fine]
Add crumbled bacon to the egg/bread mixture, spread over the top of the pasta.
Bake about 40 minutes.