"Hiding the Leftovers" Bento

Inspired by some Easter posts I saw online, I tried to make a "bunny bread" for today's bento, using crescent roll dough from Trader Joe's. I stuffed the bunny with provolone cheese and chopped up leftover turkey (yep, too many leftovers = creative lunches), and made another roll stuffed with artichokes, sun dried tomatoes, and provolone. The veggie stuffed roll is on the left, with melon stars, half a Caracara orange, and tucked in the back, some plantain chips and a little fruit snack flower. On the right is my attempt at the "bunny" with some celery sticks and peanut butter, and little fruit snack flowers for color. I brought some of the stuffed rolls for myself for lunch today, so I'll let you know how they taste...

Although I'm not spectacular at creating the bunnies yet, they were super easy and you should give them a try! Just buy the ready-made dough in the refrigerated section of your grocery store, chop up whatever you've got in your fridge, put them on the dough and roll them up! I baked them at 350 degrees on parchment paper. I liked that the Trader Joe's brand was not greasy and did not leave any grease marks. Plus it didn't smell artificially buttery like the Pillsbury brand.

The dough was easy to handle - some of them I just wrapped and pinched them closed, and they look like little balls. With some cheese decorations, or decorations with the leftover dough, they could be any animal or item you want them to be. Plus they only took 12 minutes to bake. Easy and neat solution for leftovers! I made everything last night except the celery sticks and the fruit snack flowers, so today I just arranged it all into the bento box. 

REVIEW: No complaints about this lunch, but I suspect it wasn't a favorite, either. I think those crescent rolls would be better if they were ham and cheese, or maybe proscuitto and swiss? Something with a little more flavor. The fruit leather flowers were a huge hit, and easy decorations, so now they're on our regular shopping list.