Tuesday's Tip: Preheating your Thermos

We’re big fans of leftovers in the Sweet Pea family.  Which is good, since I love to make big double and triple quantities of some of our favorite soups and freeze them for those busy nights when making dinner just doesn’t fit into the timing of the day.

But more often than not, leftovers don’t even make it to the freezer because our whole family loves leftovers for lunch.  This is why although I love to meal plan our dinners, I almost never plan out our lunches, since often we just throw whatever is in the fridge from dinners on our plates and in our lunch boxes for a lunch time meal.

Even R, with his non-consistent school lunchtime eating, is usually happy to have leftovers in his lunch bag, and more often than not, takes a pretty good stab at eating them all.  I love our Thermos Funtainer Food Jars, since they do a really nice job of keeping any leftovers I pack for R fresh and warm from the time he leaves our house early in the morning until school lunch time.

Soups, chilis, pastas, lasagna, even stir-fries, dumplings, pork barbecue and more can stay fresh in the funtainer.  Here’ s a quick Tuesday’s Tip to keep thing even warmer:

In order for a thermos or thermos-like container to stay warmer, “preheat” the thermos by simply filling it with nearly-boiling water for about 15 minutes prior to filling it with some food.  This heats the thermos before filling it with the hot food item and creates even more warmth for the food to stay heated.

I’ve come up with a really simple routine to make sure I remember to preheat R’s lunch thermos each morning.  When we come down to breakfast, I turn on a pot of water on our stovetop:



When the tea kettle starts whistling, I take out the thermos and fill it with the water:





Then I put the lid on it, set the timer for 15 minutes, pour out the water and fill it with R’s leftovers right before sending him on his way to the bus stop!

I’ve tried this trick and even after 4-5 hours, the food stays warm and ready to enjoy!

Life is sweet,
SPC

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