"you didn't tell me we had polenta left over!!"

Those were actual words I actually said last night when I was actually packing today's lunch. Heh. The polenta is left over from the grand meal Sally made Saturday night, of which I had thought there wasn't any left over. So discovering a bit of it in a container tucked a little out of sight in the fridge was like discovering a small decorative box of gold. Except, you know edible.

lunch, blue bunny & moons:

• creamy polenta with parmesan, garnished with broccoli; sugar snaps, mini smoked sausages, carrots, broccoli
• grapes (on a thin layer of Marcona almonds and with a few Marcona almonds as baran), cherries, strawberry; four halves of chocolate cookies Sal made for last week's picnic

One of the things I love best about bento is the way it makes you poke about in your fridge, freezer, and cupboard for those forgotten bits -- the last few cherries from a bag of them you'd snacked on one afternoon, the quarter of a tuna fish sandwich someone thought they'd finish later, the small carrot stub that was all that was left from a plate of crudites and you didn't have the heart to throw out. I hate, hate, hate waste, especially food waste, and one of the many benefits of doing bento is that it keeps those odds and ends from ending up in the garbage needlessly.