Lebanese and Armenian Mezze Bento Box Lunch

This weekend we were fortunate enough to be invited to our friend Sheila's for a Lebanese/Armenian feast! I wasn't going to pass up an opportunity to learn to make some of these traditional dishes, so I went over early and got a hands-on course on making hummus and baba ganouj, two of Mike's and my favorite dips.

Let me tell you, it's a lot of work! Lots of prepping and chopping, but absolutely and totally worth the effort. I wish I had thought to take pictures of the preparation, but I was too busy measuring and mixing. When I try to recreate this at home, I'll do a step-by-step for the blog. There was SO much food that we got leftovers as party favors, and this is what I put together for today's lunch:

On the left, we have homemade hummus (garbanzo beans, lemon juice, tahini, garlic, cumin and salt), and baba ganouj (eggplant, tahini, garlic, salt, lemon juice), with some Armenian pastries below that. The two on the right are made from phyllo dough and are sort of baklava-ish, with rose scented honey and pistachios. They are DELICIOUS.

On the right, we have taboulleh in the yellow cup (parsley, mint, bulgar wheat, little heirloom tomatoes and lemon juice, cumin, salt, etc), Mediterranean olives, and lavash bread. 

All I can say is, these are the prettiest leftovers I've seen in awhile!

How To Use Up Bento Leftovers

Lots of people have been asking, "what do you do with all the leftover bread from those cute sandwiches?" Which is a very good question. We hate waste! But when you're cutting out cute shapes, waste is inevitable. Luckily, there's lots of things you can do with leftover crusts. 

I will admit, I've saved tons of crusts with the intentions of making bread pudding (YUM!), but then the bread molded before I remembered my intentions! While bread pudding is delish, and uses tons of crusts, you do actually need to make it, which does take some time and effort. If you can't be bothered, you can always toast the crusts and then dump them in a food processor to make bread crumbs, which can be stored for quite awhile and used in all sorts of recipes from meatloaf to meatballs to chicken parm to casseroles, etc. However, my usual default for bread crusts is croutons. Mike and I love soups and salads, and croutons are the perfect accompaniment.

Here is my simple tutorial for croutons:

See all the leftovers from my dino sandwich? Don't worry!

Chop them up into uniform square-ish shapes. They can be as big or small as you like, but smaller is a little easier and faster for cooking.

Melt some butter in a pan on medium heat. I like to use at least 1 tablespoon per slice of leftover crust. It needs to be enough to lightly coat all your pieces. Dump your croutons into the pan and toss them to coat. 

Once they are all coated, sprinkle on whatever seasonings you like! I used a chicken seasoning which has garlic, salt, pepper, onion powder, tumeric, fennel, and parsley. More is better, so your croutons will pack a flavor punch!

You can try all sorts of herbs, or even things like lemon or orange zest. 

Let them sizzle a bit and toss everything every couple of minutes, so they get brown on all sides. Tah-dah! You've got homemade, delicious croutons. They're so crunchy and yummy that I sometimes eat them as a snack.