Spaghetti (Squash) Bento

This one is so cheery it almost makes me forget we're in the middle of winter. I always used to roast my spaghetti squash but this time I used the microwave for 8 minutes per half and it seemed to work just as well. I noticed the strands were more fragile though, and they were soft and broke easily. Anyone else notice the same? Otherwise, the kids didn't seem to mind there weren't any actual spaghetti noodles.

This box is called Saladbook (I don't know if it's still available as I didn't see it on Amazon) and it's shallow but the diameter is quite large, so you can fit a lot of food in here, and not just salads. The lid snaps tight and is leakproof; a plus with kids who jam their lunch totes into their backpacks on the regular.

Inside MisterMan's Saladbook: spaghetti squash, meat sauce, avocado, romaine and tomato salad, pickled red onion and radish, steamed Okinawan sweet potatoes, strawberries, blood orange slices.

😊❤🍱

Spaghetti Squash Bento

Spaghetti Squash Bento, a photo by sherimiya ♥ on Flickr.

This quickie bento is an adaptation of one of my basic pasta stand-bys: spaghetti with sauteed onion, zucchini, mushroom and nitrite-free chicken sausage. It still contains all those things but I intended to substitute the whole wheat spaghetti with spaghetti squash. I've never made this squash before; have you? All you do is bake it for awhile, then slice it open lengthwise, scoop out the seeds and then pull out the spaghetti-like strands of flesh. I was skeptical, but that's really how it turned out! I tried it out on the kids, and they seemed to like it just fine. If I had tossed it with tomato sauce or pesto, I bet they'd like it even more. I ended up not completely omitting the pasta, just so that they'd have some comfort food in there too. I filled up two sections of this bento with this one-dish meal, and saved the 3rd for cottage cheese topped with berries and carrots.