Chicken Quinoa Salad plus monbento review and giveaway

I recently blogged about bento which is a Japanese packed lunch arranged to look like a picture, which has been taking the world by storm. Well I have now received my second free Bento style lunchbox to review. This time it is the MB Tresor kid’s bento box from monbento.

It comes in four choices of colour and I selected Blueberry. I also received a matching MB Pochette bento bag to make it easy to carry your box. Once I opened the box up, I discovered it had 3 compartments, 2 smaller on top and 1 larger below, separated by an intermediary lid.

I decided to make a Chicken Quinoa Salad, as I had some leftover chicken from a roast. And then serve son1’s portion in the monbento box, so that his tea was ready to eat as soon as we arrived house. Always a plus, if I can get him eating asap on school nights when we’re late home, as he can’t have his chemo until an hour after eating and I don’t want his bedtime ending up too late.

Chicken Quinoa Salad

Ingredients (serves 4)

180g quinoa
540 ml cold water
75g cooked chicken
1 carrot
100g baby plum tomatoes
50g mange tout
2 tbsp mayonnaise
1 tbsp parmesan
salt and pepper

Method

Put quinoa and cold water in a saucepan.
Bring to the boil and then reduce heat.
Simmer for about 20 minutes until water absorbed.
Add more water if necessary.
Allow to cool.
Grate the carrot.
Shred the chicken.
Cut the tomatoes in half.
Add the chicken and vegetables to the quinoa.
Mix together with the mayonnaise.
Season with salt and pepper.
Sprinkle with parmesan.
Serve and enjoy.

And I used the two smaller boxes for desserts. In one I put a homemade cake and in the other I put a chopped kiwi fruit. I was originally going to put a whole plum in the box but the lid wouldn’t close and similarly I had to squash the cake slightly to get the lid shut.

So a tasty tea ready for son1 to enjoy, although no fancy bento food pictures. I’m always too busy to find the time to make picture meals.

And the verdict. Son1 loved having his tea in the monbento box. He found the box simple to open and liked being able to see the contents of the 2 small boxes, once he had opened his “parcel”. However he did cleverly point out that there was nowhere to put the fork that was needed to eat his salad.

The kids box retails at £16 each and the bag at £5.60. The box is made fun for kids with the interchangeable tokens to display in the lid. It measures approx. 16 x 9 x 10 cm with a
capacity of 0.9 L and is BPA-free. It is microwave, dishwasher and freezer safe.

I did find that the lid token got slightly wet the first time I washed the box. I think it was probably due to son1 not tightening it fully when he shut it after swapping the tokens around, but with hindsight, it would be best to remove the token before washing. Otherwise I was very pleased with this box.

I also received a leaflet aimed at the kids, but it was in french. I’ve now found you can download the english version from the monbento website.

And I’m hosting a rafflecopter competition to giveaway a kid’s bento box courtesy of monbento to one lucky winner.

a Rafflecopter giveaway – Please click on the link to enter.

And you may see my other giveaways here.

Disclosure.  This post is a review of a product I was sent for free.  All opinions are my own.