Pasta Salad Bento

We had Capellini Bolognese for dinner last night and I have taken up the habit to cook more pasta than necessary as I know it will be a welcome ingredient in the bento. Today's bento will therefore have ... pasta ! :o)

Pasta Salad bento #2 - 11.03.2010


Because I turned the pasta into a salad, with different ingredients, I didn't add any additional vegetables to my bento.

The salad consists of cappellini pasta, spring onion, cucumber, tomato, smoked ham & lean bacon strips, a chopped up scrambled egg and parsley. I mixed a dressing of oliver oil and strawberry vinegar (a Taiwanese product I found in the Asian market, smells and tastes delish) into the pasta to avoid it drying out and getting sticky.

Some cucumber baran is separating the pasta from the different fruits : clementine, red and white grapes, red and yellow plum, nectarine, kiwi and the jelly like substance is a new strange fruit, the grenadillo. More about that below).



Pasta salad bento #1 - 11.03.2010


Sweetie took the owan tsukumi bento to the office today which has the same pasta salad as the sakura bento in the bottom tier. In the top tier there are mini tomato/mozarella skewers, green olives, quail egg, snow peas and sugar snaps, broccoli sprouts, cauliflower, bell pepper flowers and two pieces of manchego cheese.


No working day being complete without the essential vitamin break, I packed quite a few fruits in one of my new Kutusitanyanko boxes. The first really kawaii box, P. is taking to the office. As I have packed up both boxes in a solid colour furoshiki, it will be the lunchtime surprise. Let's see how that one will go :o)

Anyway for the fruits : half of the grenadillo (see more below), white and black grapes, red and yellow plum, kiwi, clementine and a piece of apple.






STRANGE FRUIT #2 - GRENADILLO

On my continuous quest of trying every strange thing in the supermarket, this is the latest instalment.

With a name like grenadillo, I thought the inside would be more like a pomegranade. As you can see for yourself, it is not.

The grenadillo is the size of an average orange, although slightly elongated, has a nice apricot coloured rind and was very lightweight, feeling kind of hollow. No particular smell from the outside. Opening it up neatly proved more difficult. The rind was papery dry and hard and after initial resistance, broke like an egg shell would have. The structure reminded me of an egg shell in general, somewhere in between hard and brittle.

Now on the inside, it doesn't look very appetizing, does it? Green/greyish jellylike substance with lots of seeds ... I sure know how to pick them :o) The taste however is delicate and sweet (if you can block out your apprehension - closing your eyes helps ;o)). I never had fresh passion fruit but it looks quite similar and I think tastewise they mustn't be too far off. I tried eating one of the seeds but it was like an apple seed, quite hard, so I don't think these are edible. Slurp it up and spit out the seeds seem to be the way to eat this baby. Upon googling the grenadillo, it appears that I should have cut it lengthwise instead of through the middle as I did. I don't think the cutting method alters the taste though.

More strange fruit tomorrow ... I got a last strange thing in the fridge :o)

3 comments:

Jacqueline said...

Aw, diese Kutusitanyanko Box ist so süß! Wo hast du die denn gekauft?
Deine Bento sehen wieder einmal wirklich sehr sehr lecker aus! Und diese Grenadillo klingt wirklich seltsam ^^"

Ingrid said...

Süß, nicht? Diese Bento ist Teil einer Serie von 3 500ml Boxen (jeder mit einem anderen Deckel - blau, gelb und rosa) und ich fand sie auf janetstore.com, wo ich die meisten meiner kawaii Artikel gekauft hatte.
http://www.janetstore.url.tw/product_info.php/products_id/26730

Jacqueline said...

Vielen Dank für den Link! ^-^