Thursday, March 29, 2012

Salad bento with quail eggs and the big Avondale spider



Did you ever see the blog Cooking Gallery? It is on my blogroll and among my favourite blogs to visit because it is full of fantastic bento ideas! And my kids like it too, but they cannot really take proper decorated bentos to school, it is not practical in NZ, so they usually have a sandwich, some fruit and when possible some raw veggies too, all stuff that can be eaten with fingers or with a bento pick. So bento tend to be fun meal to eat at home! 

And just for children? No! Yesterday I was at home alone for lunch and I thought that I should eat more salad. Kazuyo gave me some of her quails' eggs and inspired by Cooking Gallery pretty 'faces' and figurines I made a fun bento just for myself.


To be honest with you if I had made this for the kids I would have taken out all my flower cutters to cut the veggies like flowers and so on, but here I limited myself in making a little sleeping doll. Of course I would like to have a set of nori pounchers like these (I tried to cut the nori with scissors but it is hard), but I haven't seen them in New Zealand (let me know if you do!!) so I used some caraway seeds for the eyes and mouth. In the bento there are young spinach leaves, cucumber, cherry tomatoes, cannelloni beans, olives, quail eggs, baby carrot and avocado. Dressed with lemon, olive oil and salt. If you don't have quail eggs, you can use bocconcini, or for a vegan version a small new potato.



And now to the spider... maybe the photo doesn't give it credit, but it was a big one! For some reasons these big Avondale spiders always make lots of appearances when my husband is away, so I have to deal with them. It was around midnight and I was just turning the light off to go to bed when I saw it next to me! Aghhhh! I run down to the kitchen to get an empty jar (1 liter plastic yogurt pot), but usually these creatures are on the floor or wall and I manage to catch them by 'cupping' them with the jar and sliding a piece of paper underneath like I did in this post; this time it was on an angle and I had to get it in and quickly put the lid on. Tap tap tap ... It kept patting around the jar like mad with its legs and pincers and it was quite difficult to take a still photo!
I let it free outside in the garden, and run back inside locking an bolting the door! I know that Avondale spiders are not dangerous, but I just didn't want to sleep with one next to me..... creeeeeepy!!

Are you scared of spiders?




Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

21 comments:

  1. Those punches are very like scrapbooking punches - maybe you could try those? They are available in scrapbooking stores and other places like the Warehouse.

    Bento is so cute. I had grand plans of doing cute things with my kid's lunches but as you say, it is not that practical. I do write notes to them on their bananas sometimes.

    Speaking of spiders - I'm going to a thing called BioBlitz on the weekend (demonstrating my lichen dyed fibre) http://nzbioblitz.wordpress.com/category/bioblitz/bioblitz-2012-the-next-event/ and they are going to have some spiders for display :-) Among other creepy crawlies.

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  2. Writing notes on bananas is so sweet!!! :-).

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  3. Nooo ma che fantasia, e' deliziosa quella faccina!
    Un po' meno il ragno, non sono una grande fan del genere ;-)

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  4. Ale....quindi mi devo abituare a convivere con tali creaturine ^-^ ???
    Si può fare dai...

    Il bento è fantastico!

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    1. Ci si abitua, e poi e' peggio in Australia dove sono velenosi, e ci sono altre bestiacce! :-)

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  5. Che delizia quel bento, trooopppo carino!Pure io sul ragno non osso che dire..scappareeeeee!

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  6. I got a flower shaped nori cutter from the Japan Store in Cuba Mall, Wellington. I believe that they are associated with the Daiso store in Auckland so maybe they will have one?

    Love love love bento!

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    1. Someone just emailed me that she is going to Japan and will look our for it, and I will look here too... I like gadgets to "be found, discovered, to come to me"... if you know what I mean... so it is great to have feedbacks like yours, and Penny and all the readers who come up with suggestions! Thank you!!!

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  7. uhhh che carina la faccina ovetto!!! Anche noi ospitiamo un grande ragno peloso nel bagno...si chiama Mario...anche se la gnoma ne è spaventata noi ci siamo affezionati :)

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    1. Oh Lo, nel bagno mi fanno ancor più' paura perché non posso neppure nascondermi sotto alle coperte!!!! :-).

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  8. che meraviglia questa insalatina! il ragnetto un pò meno eheh :D baci!

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  9. Questa composizione è splendida, forse se io un giorno riuscissi a farne una poi mi ci affezionerei talmente tanto da non riuscire a mangiarla, hi hi!
    Per quanto riguarda il ragno sono decisamente terrorizzata anche se cerco di non ucciderli, se sono da sola in casa è una grana!(ma ora sono andata a sbirciare come si fa)
    Ecco, tornando al discorso di ieri, posso affermare con assoluta certezza che i ragni neozelandesi mi fanno lo stesso effetto di quelli italiani :-)

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  10. meraviglioso il tuo bento, semplice ma bello (avocado amore mio!) ^_^

    per l'aracnide.....brrrrrrrrr io sarei scappata di corsa, non ce la faccio...li trovo belli ma allo stesso tempo mi fanno paura :(

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    1. hehehehehe! Se era in un'altro posto scappavo, ma non è che potevo andare a dormire sul divano o con uno dei bombi, e lasciare la camera da letto al ragno! Doveva uscire lui!!! :-)

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  11. Ciao Alessandra! How pretty! I love your salad bento and great idea to use the avocado hole for the quail! I know, CG is crazy bento maker. I'm making bento starting next school year for my son. I have no idea how I'm going to do it. I used to pack my own bento when I was in high school (my mom made me...) and I have to say my creativity is zero. I wouldn't be able to come up with this beautiful salad bento like you did!

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    1. I am sure that you will make lovely bentos, and then taste and nutrition come first, after all :-)

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  12. Such a cute lunch! I love the bento boxes :) And spiders...petrified, especially the large ones! Huntsmen in Australia almost gave me a heart attack on several occasions!!

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  13. Well, Australian spiders are worse!! Brrrr!

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  14. Hi Ale, doing the tour of the blogs, missed lots of posts! This is really cute, but I could never make it myself!

    XXX
    Johanna

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  15. Thank you for the mention, Alessandra, I feel very honoured :)!! Your salad turned out beautiful and delicious...!!

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