Laptop Lunches #115

Its amazing to me. I took more pictures of this particular lunch than almost any I've ever made, and every single one of them turned out blurry. Oh, well. I do, at least, have good photos of my pasta salad, so you can look below for that.

A nectarine, the last of the peanut butter granola bites with strawberries, a variation on Ukranian crab salad with pasta (recipe below), Sweetfire Love Beets, and a Babybel cheese wheel.

The summer I was 18 I went to Ukraine, to a village outside Kiev named Vishneve. There I ate borsht and fried chicken (unbreaded) and a whole lot of brown bread. In surrounding villages I ate strawberry dumplings and roasted pork and strangely flavored cakes. In Kiev I had the best pizza I've ever eaten and was somehow persuaded to visit a McDonald's where they used fresh cucumber slices instead of pickles and charged extra for ketchup. Everywhere I drank tea sweetened with beet sugar and ate something called "Vodka mountains," a chocolate that looked like a mountain and was, so bemused locals told me after I'd had about six in a row, laced with vodka. I loved the food in Ukraine, but nothing compared to a simple crab salad made with crab, hard boiled eggs, and onions in a mayo-based dressing. If anyone can get me a recipe for that, I would be very grateful--I ate nearly a whole big bowl of it when I first encountered it. (And again, the locals laughed at me.)

The flavors of crab, egg, and onion are the basis for this salad, which for some reason is perfectly in focus from the night before:

Ukrainian-Style Crab and Pasta Salad
Serves 2-3

1 cup small veggie pasta shapes (I used tomato-carrot mini farfalle by Barilla)
1/2 cup shred-style imitation crab meat
1 scallion, white and green parts, sliced thinly
1 hard boiled egg, chopped
1/4 cup light mayo
1/4 cup romano cheese
Salt and pepper to taste

Cook pasta according to package directions. Drain and rinse in cold water. Mix with imitation crab meat, scallion, and hard boiled egg. Add mayo and cheese and stir gently. Taste and adjust seasonings.

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