A Field Trip With Pasta

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Posted by Meeta K. Wolff



Last week on Wednesday Soeren went on a field trip with the pre-schoolers at the KIGA (Kindergarten). As Soeren will be leaving the KIGA in August to join the International School, he gets to join up with the KIGA pre-schoolers for many activities and trips. This is preparing him and his friends, he will be leaving behind in his group to say their farewell. It's a bit sad as he was extremely loved by teachers and peers. However, the move to the International School will help him develop his English and get him prepared for our move out of Germany in the next couple of years.

He is really enjoying being a part of all these activities. As they were out and about all day on Wednesday we were supposed to give them enough to eat for lunch, snacks and more in between.


As the meals would all have been eaten cold, his lunch had to be something which would taste and work well when not heated. The answer was quite easy - pasta. The evening before I made us all a big pot of pasta with a vegetarian bolgnese for dinner and took a portion out for Soeren's lunch box.



Contents: Pasta with vegetarian bolgnese, fresh organic white/red cherries, yellow watermelon and a handful of blueberries. The raisin bread slice is spread lightly with butter and some clover honey. A little treat - a small box of Smarties.

Prep time: 7 minutes
I added the pasta to the box the night before and placed it in the refrigerator. In the morning all I really needed to do was cut the watermelon, add the other fruit and spread the raisin slices with butter and honey. I also made a large thermos of sugar-free homemade ice-tea for him to drink throughout the day. On the side of the lunch box, I placed his fork and spoon and for the watermelon he has a skewer to pick the fruit easily.

Pasta Recipe


For the vegetarian bolgnese
1 packet organic soy tempeh - chop finely in a food processor
1 cup re-hydrated Textured Soy Protein (TSP) - this comes dry and you will need to add 1 cup of hot water to re-hydrate it
1 can of lentils - blended to a paste in food processor
salt and pepper
vegetable bullion/broth
1 red onions - finely chopped
oil
1 red/yellow bell pepper - diced
1 aubergine - diced
1 zucchini - diced
400 ml organic fresh passata
handful of your favorite herbs - finely chopped

Fry the onion in oil until golden. Add tempeh, TSP, lentils and seasoning and cook for a few miuntes. Set aside.

In a separate pan add more oil and sautee the vegetables until slighter softer, but still have a crunch. Add the passata and the broth, allow to simmer for 6-10 minutes. Season with salt, pepper and herbs. Now add the tempeh mixture and allow to warm through.

Serve this with your favorite pasta and a nice green salad.

Hope you all have a great week.

I'll be off on a short vacation next week so I have to console any readers of my "Inside A German Bakery" series till I return. In the meantime I hope you enjoy all the other great articles written by the rest of our fabulous DT girls.



Are you interested in contributing to The Daily Tiffin? Drop us an email: blogmeeta@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing your ideas.

This Post was written by Meeta from What's For Lunch, Honey?

9 comments:

That's a very good Sauce recipe, meeta! full of proteins. Please may I ask what the soy products are called in German?

Anonymous said...
June 26, 2007 at 6:50:00 PM GMT+2  

Hi Latha, these kind of products I normally buy from a "Reformhaus" or a "Naturkostladen". The tempeh and othe soy products are from a company called Viana. They normally supply these stores with the soy products.

Meeta K. Wolff said...
June 26, 2007 at 7:36:00 PM GMT+2  

Lucky boy! Looks great and healthy.

Helene said...
June 26, 2007 at 8:30:00 PM GMT+2  

Wish somebody would make lunch like this for me :D.. Great lunch Meeta!

Suganya said...
June 27, 2007 at 1:46:00 AM GMT+2  

Thank you Meeta for the very quick reply. I'll look out and enjoy the sauce soon....

Anonymous said...
June 27, 2007 at 10:30:00 AM GMT+2  

Thanks Helen - he prefers this kind of sauce more to the regular meaty sauce.

Suganya, I know I often wish the same. Thank you!

Latha, let me know how it turned out.

Meeta K. Wolff said...
June 27, 2007 at 10:42:00 AM GMT+2  

What a delicious looking lunch! The sauce looks great - very creamy and tasty. How does the soy-protein taste? Is it meat flavoured or can you get it plain as well?

June 27, 2007 at 8:39:00 PM GMT+2  

In the store I go to you get both. I prefer the unflavored ones as they soak up the flavors of the sauce or dish you are cooking them with really well. The meat flavored ones taste weird. As I am not a vegetarian and know what meat tastes like - it's just weird to be eating something that tastes like meat and isn't really.

The reason I make such kind of dishes from time to time is because they offer a great protein alternative to meat. We eat meat but not in mass. We like to get the best of both worlds LOL!

Meeta K. Wolff said...
June 27, 2007 at 8:52:00 PM GMT+2  

They grow up so fast, don't they Meeta?
Lunch looks great!

Jenny said...
June 29, 2007 at 5:17:00 AM GMT+2  

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