I crossed Kazakhstan by air once, from South to North flying between the cities of Almaty and Pavlodar. It was a daytime flight in mid November on a small Fokker which flew close to the ground. It was interesting, watching for isolated signs of habitation on the vast, snow-covered steppe. I don't usually enjoy flying much but that was a good flight. Not only was I given the option of requesting a vegetarian meal when I bought my ticket, I was also served one on the plane. That doesn't often happen. The food was quite good, too.
That was an Air Astana flight. Their vegetarian food has been surprisingly good on a number of occasions when I've flown with them, but unfortunately I've only ever got my vegetarian meal on the outward leg. Never on the way back. The same thing has happened with most of the other airlines I've traveled with.
This was one of the things I found on my wee plastic tray. I made a note of the ingredients but I didn't really intend to try to reproduce it in the laboratory. It kind of happened by accident. I wanted to prepare something a little unusual, but I didn't have time to shop. I had most of the ingredients at home in the emergency-tin-stash cupboard and the only fresh vegetables I could find for sale on a dark muddy winter's evening were tomatoes.
Ingredients
5 to 7 tomatoes
50g tinned mushrooms
50g pitted black olives
50g marinated cucumbers
50g baby corn
1 tablespoon of olive oil
Cut the little green stalky bit out of each tomato and scoop
the seeds and core out with a teaspoon. Chop the other vegetables finely and
mix with the oil. Stuff the mixture into the tomatoes.