Tortellini with Meatballs Bento and Making Croquettes

Last night we had a few friends over dinner and I made spaghetti with meatballs. Paige wanted the meatballs for lunch today, so I packed some in a thermal container to keep warm. I also packed cheese tortellini with a few fruits and veggies.

Yesterday, I also worked on making potato croquettes using various rice molds. I thought it would be fun to make the croquettes into different shapes by utilizing the different rice molds that I have. I made a simple potato base of a mashed potato, cooked bacon, onion, salt, and pepper. Then I let the mixture cool and molded them with the different shaped rice molds. I used really simple shapes so that it would be easy to mold and bread.

After shaping the potato base, I dredged them in four, egg, and then panko. I covered the croquettes with additional panko and froze most of them for later use.

Here's a pic of the molds I used and the finished product. I fried a few of the croquettes today and they held up really great and tasted wonderful. The croquettes are the perfect size for a bento and also serves as a wonderful side.