... and so my journey ends

Well the food blog is a year old today and I have decided that this is a natural point to end my food logging experiment.

I hope you've all enjoyed reading it as much as I have enjoyed eating it.

Anyway, my final entry begins with breakfast. A fine canteen job, mainly necessary because I didn't eat any tea last night (went to the pub after training).

This did mean I wasn't very hungry for lunch, so I had a salad from the canteen.

After work I went home and met up with Nathan, Higz and Lee - so we could discuss Nathan's stag do.

We ordered a pizza each, I opted for a large dominos "meltdown" pizza (level 3) - this included Spicy Meatballs, Chilli Cheese Slices, Jalapeño Peppers plus a generous drizzle of American Style Mustard with added fresh Red Chilli Peppers and topped with Chilli Flakes. Due to some phone issues the picture is currently (possibly forever) unavailable.

*edit 06/11/06 - thought this post looked a bit bare for a grand finale, due to me losing my phone with the pic of the pizza on it before uploading. Partly because of this, and partly because they are so damn tasty, I had myself a Dominator with the Meltdown Level 3 topping last night and took a pic to fill the space*

Well anyway, so concludes a year-in-the-life of my stomach. Thanks for reading.. and may all you meals be banquets! Peace!!

Check out what I has made..

I did go to the gym on Tuesday night, but it was quite late in the evening (due to traffic). Afterwards I popped into Tescos, mainly because it is right next to the gym - but also because I wanted to buy some more of those salmon lasagnes that I had round my parents the day before.

I also needed some sauce for the taglietelli that Sarah had bought some time ago that needed using up and also the chicken left over from the weekend stew.

I ended up buying a few things, the sauce for the chicken and pasta I got was garlic and mushroom. I managed to find a salmon lasagne (only one, though, unfortunately). I also purchased some mushrooms, parsley, some tins of (mainly seafood type) soup, a loaf of bread, lots of herbs and spices.

I also picked up some discounted items from the reduced to clear section. I have noted the good thing about going to the supermarket to get food to eat immediately, is that they sell fish and seafood stuff that needs using up for not a lot. So I bought a salmon terrine (smoked salmon filled with a salmon mousse) for a quid and a pack of seafood for 75p.

I meant to eat it as a starter before cooking the chicken and pasta, but I ended up filling myself up.

I decided to cook the pasta stuff up anyway - so I chopped the chicken, some mushrooms, an onion and some garlic and fried it up. I also boiled the taglietti.

I also spiced up the mixture with black pepper, mixed herbs and lots of parsley.

When the mixture and the pasta was cooked, I drained the pasta and added it to the rest. Then I added the sauce.

Once it was all mixed up and cooked through, I rammed as much of it as I could into some tuppaware. Then what was left in the pan I ate myself. Very tasty.

I actually remembered to take the tuppaware containing my creation to work the next day for lunch, but was dismayed to note that the canteen was serving lamb lasagne (one of my favourites of the canteen specials).

However I warmed my pasta in the canteen microwave and ate it anyway. It was very nice (although I was still thinking of the lasagne all the way through it).

After work I went to the gym again and did my usual workout. I went straight from work, so I could have had a lot of time there - but my tummy started moaning at me, so I was forced to go home and eat.

I tried one of the seafood soups I had purchased, it was some kind of seafood gumbo and contained prawns and lobster amongst other things. I spiced it up with chilli powder, pepper, mixed herbs and parsley and it was quite tasty. I had lots of bread for dipping, so it filled me up nicely.

So to today, Thursday, as we should all know by know.. Thursdays are roast dinner days in the canteen. Today the meat was pork and the portions were generous. One small gripe was that they have started charging for stuffing now - tightwads - 25p for a chunk of stuffing. That must have been what pushed my bill up past 3 quid.

I did have a carrot and coriander soup with a roll for afters though.

Tonight I will be training with Greyfriars again, although I doubt I will be able to play this weekend in the cup match - as I am on-call this weekend. Booo! Which especially sucks as the footy team are having a night out in the evening, which would have been a good drinking chance.

Count the Salmon..

This log entry kicks into action on Friday afternoon where the canteen did not appeal and forced a couple of us to the Hungry Horse. I had a whole chicken crown with a pork sausage and veg with a jacket potato. A few people in my team at work are not fans of the Hungry Horse, they write it off every time but never giving a very good excuse. I like the Hungry Horse, myself. I used to eat lots of 20oz steaks there (before I started being a bit more careful over my dietry habits). The mixed grills there are also top drawer.

As with any typical Friday afternoon, though, when I got back I ended up working on a fairly large fault that wouldn't go away and (as on-call chappy) had to stay in the office trying to fix it.

This was a concern, as I had plans to go to Saffrons curry house after work with Sarah and some friends. Luckily I managed to resolve the fault before we had to order, so I was back in time to select what I wanted from the menu.

I haven't eaten at a sit down type Indian restaurant for ages and, not being a fan of poppadoms, ordered myself a keema naan for starters. Quite filling for a starter but washed down with Kingfisher lager sorted it out.

For my main course I chose the sag king prawn curry (one of the most expensive curries on the menu). I should probably try ordering a hotter curry next time as this was quite mild, but I just love king prawns and do like the spinach in the curry too.

It did fill me up very well though, perhaps I shouldn't have had a hungry horse for lunch. Or a keema naan for starters. I certainly wouldn't have been able to manage a dessert (not that they looked very appetising anyway).

I was proper knackered anyway, but didn't get much sleep that night as I kept getting paged.

Nonetheless I turned out for Greyfriars on Saturday afternoon (after eating a load of muesli). I started the match again and lasted the full 90 mins, but was left frustrated again and the team virtually collapsed against the opposition from Knowle. We lost 10-0 (although the Knowle team provided the ref, who kept giving dubious penalties).

I drove back from Knowle and met up with the other Greys teams for a beer and voting of man of the match (I got 2 votes for MotM, not sure why).

Then I drove my parents to some hotel in Brislington for a wedding party and then got home in time for a Moroccan stew that Sarah had made from chicken, chick peas, almonds, garlic, apricot and cous cous (I know all this as I found the ingredients in the kitchen). It was very tasty and very filling (especially as I ate most of Sarah's too).

On Sunday I wasn't allowed much of a lie in, as it was Sarah's sister's birthday - so Sarah drove me up to Surrey in the early afternoon. We did stop at Leigh Delamere services on the way, for breakfast. I had a poached salmon and watercress which had probiotic yoghurt in too apparently. It kept the hunger pangs at bay for a bit anyway.

The birthday meal was at a restaurant called the Boat House in Chertsey. I didn't take any pictures, but the food was good. I had a starter of prawn salad with avocado and a main course of a shoulder of lamb with roasted vegetables.

I got dropped off at Reading train station, where I was unpleasantly surprised that the cost of a fare back to Bristol Parkway was £35. Then endured the hour long train ride to Bristol, where my brother picked me up and took me home.

Monday (yesterday) I went to work and ate my lunch in the canteen. There was, again, very little choice (I am going to have to read the canteen feedback intranet at some point for some humour) - but I decided on a vegetable chilli. It was OK. Just OK. I of course had the obligatory soup (vegetable) for dessert, with a brown roll.

After work I went to the gym with my Dad in our new van. I had quite a short work out as we also had to use the time to renew our membership for the next year (worked out about £150 each). I weighed myself after the work out and was 95.5kg.

I got to drive the van home - very strange, not what I am used to (obviously).

My Mum invited me in for tea, so I ate my tea with my parents. It was salmon lasagne and was very tasty indeed! I will have to get some of them from Tesco myself. It was well nice. The potatoes were Cypriot, also pretty tasty.

Well today is Tuesday. For some unknown reason I had a baguette for breakfast. It was a salmon, lemon dill, crème fraiche and radichio baguette. Fancy.

I still had lunch, though. It was an uninspiring line up, but I plumped for the vegetable risotto which I added peas and carrots to. It was mediocre to poor, even by canteen standards. At least the tomato soup was nice and tasty.

Tonight I plan to hit the gym again and then rush home to watch the footy (Man Utd v FC Copenhagen)

Sarah did leave some ingredients round my gaff, so I might cook myself something tonight. Will need to pick up some pasta sauce type stuff though (I have chicken and tagliatelli).

Another week on-call..

Monday night I was paged around 3.30am which afforded me and extra hour or so sleep before work on Tuesday, which was nice.

Tuesday's canteen orientated lunch was a sausage casserole.. there wasn't much to choose from, but the casserole was OK.

The canteen was out of soup, so I had to have a more conventional dessert - a natural yoghurt with strawberries and honey. Not cheap at £1.45, but not bad.

After work I went home and used up the rest of the prawns in a sandwich with salad, very tasty! I do love prawns. The bread was freshly baked in Asda the day before.

I didn't get up to much on Tuesday night, that I can remember. I think I watched the first episode of Lost season 3 with Higz.

On Wednesday I went to work and ate in the canteen, as usual. I had lamb and vegetable pie, followed by a carrot soup (with the obligatory bread roll).

After work I went straight to the Patchway Sports and Social to meet up with the guys to watch Croatia v England. A pretty disastrous game, really that ended 2-0 to the home team. As England drew away to Macedonia the previous Saturday it leaves us on the same points as 4 other teams, but with 2 of them having a game in hand. Not to mention the team below, which also has a game in hand (that would put them above England if they win).

No more qualifiers until March 2007 for England now, so we will have to wait a long while before we get to rectify the situation somehow.

I felt quite rough on Thursday morning and had to have a bit of a breakfast in the canteen. I had beans on toast with a rasher of bacon and a sausage too. I turned it into a sandwich and ate it (messily) with my hands. Quite tasty though.

When lunchtime came, I wasn't that hungry and it was roast dinner day! The roast was beef and it looked good, but I instead opted for the vegetable lasagne - which was also nice.

I would have had the soup afterwards, as it was broccoli - but I was a bit too full.

After work I went straight to Golden Hill to train with the Greys 3rd and 4th team. I had a good start, bagging 4 early goals. My fitness, touch and confidence are all improving every time. Hopefully I will start the game on Saturday (away against the Eagle House Elite Reserves).

After training I didn't feel too hungry, so just had some slices of toast and marmite.

Tomorrow Sarah is coming down and after work we will be meeting some people for a sit down Indian meal. Curry-tastic!!

White Van Holmz?

I went football training on Thursday after work. Another pretty good session, definitely felt fitter and scored another goal. My parents needed to borrow my car, as their one is broken - so I dropped that round after football and popped in for a surprise tea.

Breaded chicken with boiled spuds and various vegetables.

Friday was a day that I had been looking forward to for a while.. a corporate event in town on a Friday afternoon meant easy access to a night of drunken debauchery. I had a quick sweet and sour vegetables with rice in the canteen before heading to town.

The plan came off well and myself and several work colleagues were in a pub on the waterfront nice and early. When we got hungry, we went to Lloyds Bar One and ordered our meals (most from the 2 for 6.99 menu, although none of us ate 2 meals at that time - unlike me on my birthday night out at the same place).

I apparently had the lasagne, although I don't remember ordering it or eating it (yes, I was obviously wasted by this point). I do like the lasagnes from there, it's a real shame I can't remember eating it. It must have satisfied me because I think I fell asleep soon after (although I did get a second wind and went to Sloanes eventually with the guys).

Somehow, Saturday morning I woke up in my own bed at home (I have since heard from Tony that I had a taxi back with Mike and himself, although I can't still remember it). After eating a quick bowl of muesli, I got my football stuff together and met up with my footy team mates for the game.

I was pleased to have been chosen to start the match (more to do with lack of other players than my own rise in the pecking order, perhaps), we lost the match 6-1 despite going 1-0 up. I think the highlight of the game for me was a confrontation with one of the opposition full-backs who threatened to meet me after the game, managed to keep my cool and not get sent off - must be getting old.. although I managed to last the 90 mins without getting out of huff, but I think that says more about my involvement in the game than my fitness. Getting better though.

After the game I went home with the intention of going down the social to watch England v Macedonia in the Euro qualifiers. However felt quite knackered, so Lee came round and we watched it on the telly instead.

At half time my lazyness must have peaked, because I couldn't even be bothered to cook myself anythinf - so Lee and I ordered a pizza from Pizza Hut (I was curious to see what pizzas from there are like and I had some mailshot mentioning several offers). Unfortunately I couldn't order online, as the site incorrectly suggested they didn't deliver to my postcode (so probably won't use them again). The offer was buy one get one half price and also some free garlic bread.

I ordered a large supreme deluxe with a "cheesey bite" base (basically the crust was a series of dough balls filled with cheese, quite impractical really) and Lee had a chicken delux with the same size and base.

I ate the whole of mine during the footy and felt quite sick, it tasted nice - but the cheesey bites made it very filling. I don't think Lee liked his much, as he left half of it round mine (and refused to take it with him). So Higz and I had that for breakfast on Sunday.

In non-food news, I also got a van on Saturday. I have been talking of getting one for a while, but now my parents are without a car they decided to get themselves a runner while they are car-less and offered me the chance on going halves with them on a van. So they bought a white Ford Escort 1.8D van from somewhere for 500 notes, which I will take off their hands when they get their one back.

So as I said, Sunday breakfast was leftover pizza and I didn't eat much else until the evening - where I got very hungry and never had much food in the house. I ended up cooking some potato wedges, boiling up some curried rice from a packet and then opening a tin of vegetable curry and eating that. It was, ummm, different. Not bad though.

Today is Monday and the beginning of a week on-call. Well until 9am on Saturday anyway, because a chap from work needed the weekend after off to go on holiday so asked me to swap. Which should work out better for me anyway, as there is no footy game that week - so I may end up playing this Saturday after all.

I had lunch in the canteen today, opted for chicken curry with rice. Not bad. Was a shame the soup was leek and potato, so I didn't bother with that..

After work I went to the Mall, I haven't been there for ages. I wanted to use up some birthday gift vouchers and get some CDs and DVDs. I was also after a kit bag for football. I didn't manage to get a kit bag, but I did see 5 people I knew there - popular place that Mall.

After the Mall I went to Asda and picked up some food for tea. I bought some salad, some herring, some prawns and some mussels. I decked the salad out and sprinkled it with lots of prawns and mussels. I also stuffed the herrings with prawns and mussels and cooked it up. Extremely tasty!

I've also just noticed my insurance is up at the end of the month, I have got a quick quote online and it was 550 quid! That is without the van.. ouch!

Traffic chaos and tasty foods.

Monday evening didn't go as planned due to traffic getting out of work (a local road closed causing a surprising amount of traffic - and will continue to do so for the next 4 weeks), it took me an hour down one short road - normally it only takes 5 mins to get all the way to and from work.

I did go to the gym after, though, but the traffic did kill my evening. So when I got home from the gym I decided on a bowl of muesli with a chopped up apple, rather than cooking the sausages and pasta I had.

Tuesday I was more prepared for the traffic and I took my gym stuff with me to work.

In the canteen at lunch I had myself a pie with a turkey and sweetcorn filling with peas, courghettes and carrots. Not that bad really. I even had a dessert of mushroom soup.

After work I cut through the traffic and went to the gym (not far from work) until the traffic subsided and then I went home.

With lots of the evening to kill I cooked up the tagliatelle with some spinach and pea sauce (I even threw in a tin of out of date spinach - at least that's used up now). I also cooked some pork and mustard and cumberland sausages. Some of which I ate immediately, some I put on my pasta and some I put aside for another time.

I did spice the meal up a bit with some pepper and various spices and stuff. It was quite tasty and very filling.

After that I went round Welsh Chris' and got drunk while he and his mates played poker. Card games aren't normally my thing, but it did look like a lot of fun.

Wednesday lunchtime was again spent in the canteen, the meal of sausage hot pot was OK - the portion wasn't great so I loaded it up with veg.

It wasn't enough to fill me up and the soup (vegetable) had run out already !!

There were quite a few desserts available, including pineapple crumble, treacle sponge and a few others. I opted for some kind of flapjack cake with raspberry, it was quite tasty and not bad for 40p..

Again I had my gym stuff with me, so went straight there after work and worked out for an hour or so. Then I went home and ate the rest of my pasta that was leftover from the day before. It actually tasted better than the previous day for some reason.

Today, Thursday, I had to get up early and go to the dentists for my 6 month check up. Never pleasant, but over and done with now - and no more check ups until April 2007.

For lunch I again went to the canteen. The roast was lamb, but instead I opted for beef lasagne. Lasagne is always good and this was no exception.

I am planning on going football training direct from work tonight and tomorrow I am effectively working a half day, as I have a workshop in town from 1400 - 1700 - so I may as well stay in town with my work mates and get slaughtered.

It is also Sarah's 27th birthday tomorrow - happy birthday! She is spending it in New York. They do some really good steaks there apparently..

Burgers, Beans and Baguettes.. oh, and Bison!

Didn't really eat anything on getting home from the gym on Wednesday night. I was really tired, not from the gym, but just in general. I ate just a few rounds of toast and tinkered round on the computer for the rest of the night.

Thursday was roast dinner day (woo!) - the meat was turkey and it was quite tasty. No doubt I supplimented my meal with soup, although I can't remember what flavour it was..

After work I went straight to football training, where I had a good session - felt quite fit and scored 4 goals.

Although tempted to stop at Subway again, I drove on home knowing I had some bread to use up. I had beans on toast in the end, using Mexican Mean Beanz.

On Friday I ate lunch early in order to allow me a full hour in the pub at lunch, so I grabbed a salmon baguette from the canteen and ate it outside while Trew had a smoke (as pictured).

I went to the Orchard for lunch and managed to squeeze 3 Stellas in.

After work I had to go round my parents as they needed to borrow my car for the weekend as their's was broke, Sarah came down from Surrey and met me at their's. Sarah suggested going out for a meal and I fancied Quinceys, so I treated her and my parents to a meal there.

I had a starter of crab cakes, quite tasty.

But the main course I opted for was bison burger (and I paid the 3 quid extra to double up). Man, was I stuffed.. especially with all the Stella I was drinking too.

I finished off with an Irish coffee, after which I felt quite tired and bloated. Needed to sleep.

The next day, Sarah dragged me to Sainsburys to buy stuff for lunch. I always hate going shopping on a weekend, preferring to go late at night on a weeknight when it is quieter. However none of the food in my kitchen was up to scratch for what Sarah wanted to eat (not a beans on toast fan?)

Sarah bought a few packs of Quorn mince, some tasty looking sausages, some tagliatelle, some potato wedges, some organic hot chocolate, some pasta sauces, lots of seed type things (and some dry roasted soya nuts which were surprisingly nice), kidney beans, chilli con carne mix and various other things. Ahh, she did buy me some beef jerky - which is always a treat!!

Then we went home and she cooked up a quorn chilli con carne with potato wedges. Spicy, although slightly sweet too. Sarah asked me if I noticed anything different about the chilli (apart from it not being made with real meat, obv) and I said it tasted alright. Then she said she had made it with chocolate powder.. it did start to taste quite sweet after that (although probably wouldn't have noticed if she hadn't told me).

Later that day we picked up Tony (from his new digs in LW) and got a coach to Monmouth to watch Fate By Chance rock it up in some Community Hall type place (not quite the mosh pit I expected). Still managed to have a fair few sneaky cans of stella on the way there and lots of Fosters (it was all they served) when I got there.

We got home around 1.30am and all crashed (Tony reacquainting himself with my sofa).

Higz got home on Saturday from America, which was good to see. His full Florida review can be found here, I am very jealous of the food they had out there. Almost worth the flight money on its own, I expect.

Sunday morning I woke up and we needed to drop Tony back off in LW and then get round my parents, so we could give Sarah her birthday pressies before she went home (she is off to NY for her actual birthday, so we won't see her).

On the way to LW, we stopped at McDonalds because we were hungry. I tried a "Big Tasty" burger, it was alright - but never worth 3.99 or however much is cost.

Back at my parents' we gave Sarah her pressies and then she went back to Surrey and I stayed round my parents for Sunday dinner.

The roast dinner was chicken and it was pretty big, loads of meat on it.

When dinner was served up it included stuffing and sausages wrapped in bacon - nice work!

I went home and watched some TV while tinkering round on my PC (playing Football Manager 2006, there's a new version coming out soon - I probably won't get it, though, as I am still playing the old one quite heavily).

This morning is Monday and my first food blog entry of October 2006. Incidentally this food blog started in October 2005, almost a whole years worth of food I have eaten there.

The canteen options were quite lame this morning, I ended up settling for a vegetable curry with rice. It was OK. I had a soup with a roll for afters and it seemed to fill me up.

I am going to the gym after work and then will probably eat that tagliatelle, pasta sauce and sausages when I get back (the stuff that Sarah bought on Saturday that we never got a chance to eat).