Roast Beef Wednesday!

<-- As promise a picture of the chicken pie I had for my tea round my parents' after the gym on Monday night. Definitely lucky as I had no food at home (and still don't actually). So to Tuesday.. it was payday, so we celebrated by going down the Bradley Stoke to enjoy their 2 meals for a tenner deal. I had the salmon and a few stellas to prepare me for going out in the eve.

After work I went off down Gloucester Rd to watch the second leg of the ECL semi final between Arsenal and Villarreal. I got very wasted and, due to some confusion at La Cuisine, I ate a chicken burger and a spicy beanburger (both before Lee had finished his cheese burger too). It certainly tasted better on it's way in than on it's way out (must have been dodgy).

Congratulations to Arsenal anyway, who made it to the final of the ECL - meaning there will have been an English team in the final twice on the trot (against the same opposition too, if Milan beat Barcelona later!)

Well I was slightly hungover this morning, but luckily it is Wednesday (so roast dinner in the canteen). The meat today was beef, and I was treated to two thick slices - which I supplimented with roasters, sprouts, red cabbage and carrots. Some horseradish sauce, gravy and pepper topped the meal off nicely.

St George would be proud!!

Last Thursday I they had lamb lasagne in the canteen (redeeming themselves for lack of roast dinner the day before?), it was a proper job too! I had that for lunch with some boiled potatoes, carrots and cauliflower cheese!

Which I then followed up with a bowl of cream of mushroom soup and a roll (for my dessert, you see).

Yet more lasagne followed, as when I got home I warmed myself up the remains of the lasagne from the night before.

Of course I pepped it up with various spices first (and grated lots of cheese over it). I munched that and then walked to the Social to watch Arsenal beat Villarreal 1-0

As usual, I didn't eat much on Friday. Just a quick sandwich for lunch (was a bit hungover, so that really did the job) and went to the pub (which really sorted my hangover out). In fact I was back
down the pub after work for a quick stella before I went home and had myself some garlic and herb quorn kiev type things, with some vegetable fingers, some vegetables and some potato wedges.

Saturday morning I woke up and, although really fancying a La Cuisine pizza, I "cooked" myself some boil in the bag cod in cheese sauce with some veg and croquet potatoes. It wasn't bad, but the pizza might have been a better option.
I think that was pretty much all I ate on Saturday (apart from maybe the last of my Easter Eggs).

Sunday I went round my parents' and cleaned and waxed my car and had a traditional English roast (in honour of St Georges' Day?). The meat was lamb on this occassion.

Today I was back in work, I had some spicy vegetables with noodles for dinner in the canteen. Not too bad, and much cheapness.

After work I went to the gym and then round my parents' for tea. We had chicken pie, but that will have to wait until the next blog entry, pic still on my phone!

My housemate, Higz, has made a kind of online top trump game using his mates as the theme - I don't really agree with some of the scores he has dished out, but a bit of a laugh anyway and it looks quite cool.

Another non-food mention is for my mate, Mark Pitt. He has just had his first book (Book of the Roid) published (under the name Damian Black) - good luck to him, should be on Amazon soon (watch this space!)

Easter Weekend

I guess I should pick up from last Thursday (which was obviously more like a Friday, as Friday was a bank holiday). Well I got home from work and Sarah cooked me up some quorn nuggets with potato wedges while I drank some Stella and spoke to some statistics man who visited.

Sarah and I went to the Glastonbury film after that, not bad but a bit long. The Levellers were actually really quite good.

We spent most of Friday cleaning my house, a proper clean too. I think Sarah made me a waffle sandwich in the morning and for dinner (dinner = daytime meal for all you toffs out there) she cooked me up some quorn escalopes with peppercorn sauce and some croquet potatoes.

All that cleaning had brought Sarah on a migraine, so I treated her to a chicken curry and chips from the chinese - while I had a king prawn curry and special fried rice. I didn't remember to get a photo of this, but it was quite nice.

In the evening I went to pub and then on to Rukus at the Thekla. It was the last ever drum n' bass Rukus and I got pretty drunk.

When I woke up with a hangover on Saturday morning (I got paged out, as I was second line of support on Saturday) and had myself a meal consisting spinach and ricotta pasta in a spinach and ricotta sauce. It started off nice, but seemed to make me feel sick towards the end of it.

Sarah and I did some more spring cleaning before we went out for the evening to the Black Sheep with Carla and Lee. We had a few drinks there before heading back to Carla and Lee's gaff. Sarah had to go home to fetch a cardigan and while she was gone, I shaved my head with Lee's clippers. Seemed like a good idea at the time.

When Sarah got back we ordered some take away food in from La Cuisine. I opted for my usual 16" La Neptune (mussels, prawns, anchovies, etc). As usual, it didn't disappoint and satisfied my hunger pangs.

I was first line of support on Sunday, so I was woken fairly early by my pager. Once I had sorted all that out, I ate the remains (yes remains) of my pizza and took Sarah round Mike's as she was off out with his missus for the day.

Mike and I then hooked up with Bud, Boz and Poj to go down the pub (I was driving, as unfortunately on-call).

Later on that evening, I met up with Sarah in town and ate at a Greek place on Park Street (I think it was called "All in One" or something). I had myself a delicious lamb kleftiko and then proceeded to eat everyone else's meals before driving everyone home.

Once back in Patchway, Mike and I went round Carla and Lee's again - where we shaved Mike's head also and watched King Kong.
Easter Monday afternoon when I woke up (another lovely bank holiday..), Sarah and I went to the Hungry Horse for lunch - where I had a rather nice peppered salmon kebab salad - before going to the cinema to watch "She's the Man" (god, that was awful - but Sarah enjoyed it).

Then we briefly went round my parents' house before Sarah went home to Surrey and I went home to cook myself up a massive lasagne! I peppered it, put ground chillies on it, seasoned it up with all sorts of spices and then cooked it and ate it (well, half of it - other half to eat tonight).

Yesterday was it was back to work for me. Not much in the canteen, so had macaroni cheese with some veg and croquet potatoes. In the evening I went to the gym (weighed in at 105.6kg) and then went round my parent's for tea. I had left my phones at home, so no pics - but was a really nice quiche with salad, potatoes and coleslaw.

Today is Wednesday, which is usually roast dinner day (!!) - but the canteen were not serving this as the pork they had ordered in was not sealed properly and went bad. Instead, I was forced to endure chicken breast in some kind of sauce with rice and salad.

Not bad, but I am looking forward to going home and finishing the rest of my lasagne. Then I am off to watch Arsenal v Villareal in the first leg of the European Champions League Semi Final.

Should be interesting..

Good Friday tomorrow!

Well, I went to the gym on Monday night for this first time since before my holiday. After quite a light workout (I was out of puff within half an hour..) and a bit of a pump on the weights, I weighed in at 104.8kg. Not too bad. Means after a fortnight of eating and drinking I only put on 1.6kg (quarter of a stone). Ached a bit since then though, more because of the weights than the exercise.

I went again last night too, but was still aching far too much to have a decent workout.
Monday night was good, though, my parents gave me a cooked roast chicken (it was a few days old and they were going to throw it out if I didn't take it off their hands). I ate the whole bastard thing when I got home.

Tuesday we went to the Hungry Horse for a bit of a treat. I had a lamb joint with a jacket potato and veg.

When I got home I had a butternut squash soup with bread and croutons (and an apple for dessert).

Wednesday was, of course, roast dinner day (first one I have attended for a while) and it was roast ham as well. My favourite. A few good vegetables like carrots, red cabbage and sprouts too meant that I had quite a treat.

In the evening, I used up some cod and mozarella cakes, some salmon and prawn cakes and some croquet potatoes with vegetables. Very nice. Quite a big plate in the end, very filling - but tasty too.

Today I skipped lunch and went to the pub, but Sarah is down and has hopefully cooked I up some scran that I can munch quickly before heading to the Colston Hall to watch the Glastonbury film documentary and the Levellers (whoever they are?)

Back into the old routine..

Well, I am back to work and immediately back into being on-call, so this week I have not had as much sleep to recover from the jetlag as I would have hoped. But it didn't take me long to readjust to the UK foodstuffs!

In fact, I have mainly been living off of roasts and sandwiches all week. I did miss my roast dinners whilst away and my parents cooked me up one for the first Sunday I was back.

Seemingly, still with a thirst for roasts, I went to the Orchard on Monday afternoon and had myself one of their famous carveries (at a special discount price of five pounds!).

On the Tuesday afternoon, we decided to go to the Bradley Stoke for dinner - where I reacquainted myself with the roast chicken. This was very tasty and also only cost a fiver (2 meals for a tenner deal).

Wednesday was, of course, roast dinner day in the canteen - but roast turkey didn't seem to meet with much approval, so we went to the Orchard again for another carvery (not much more expensive, but much better portions.. not to mention that they sell Stella!)

Thursday I decided to give the canteen a go again and had beef in a creamy mushroom sauce (not bad, but not amazing either).

Friday, of course, was pub day anyway.

Sarah was down this week, so on Saturday we went to Asda and bought some food for this weekend and next weekend. I expect more will be revealed as I eat it, but on Saturday evening she cooked some croquet potatoes, breaded vegetable things and some veg. It tasted better than it sounds..

Sunday she woke me up with some potato waffle sandwiches, she rated them quite highly - but I thought they were missing something. Perhaps if she does it again I will ask her to plonk a fried egg, some ham and some cheese in there too or something?

In the evening we went round my parents' house and had Sunday dinner. Starters of breaded camembert with salad, followed by Roast beef and Yorkshire pud, with various veg and stuff. Of course washed down with Stella and wine. I'm definitely back in England now!

Another bump back to reality this evening too, my first trip to the gym in a fair few weeks, I wonder how much I weigh now (I was down to 103.2kg before I left, but we will see!)

I am only second line of support for on-call this week, so maybe I will be able to get some more good quality sleep. Also it's only a 4 day working week today as Friday is Good Friday!

An American Banquet

Well, this is exactly what the food blog was designed for! If only I ate this well every week. I have just returned from 2 weeks in Orlando and here are a few stills of the American cuisine I sampled whilst out there.
After a crazy long flight there, we settled in and went out for a meal. The first restaurant we hit was a place called Uno's Chicago Grill on Internation Drive, Orlando (where most of the restaurants we ate at were located).

I forget what starter I had, but I opted for a teriaki salmon for my main course and enjoyed several pints of Stella before going home

and sleeping.The picture to the right, in spite of being quite dark, shows the skinless potato with sour cream and stuff on. I also had some veg with it and a garlic bread thing. Very tasty and a nice way to start my American culinary adventure.

Whilst in America, we ate several times at the Ponderosa Steakhouse - the all-u-can-eat buffet never fails to delight. Especially the all you can eat breakfast buffet. You can help yourself to as much sausage, bacon, beans, eggs, french toast, pancakes, syrup and much, much more as you can!!

This is one plate of the several I would eat in one sitting, sometimes I would eat some salad or fruit as well (just to make it look as though I was being healthy).

Hence the pic of the fruit I have posted here.

We did eat in the Ponderosa one evening, had a steak (and Sarah's chicken) as well as an all you can eat "grand buffet" (spaghetti,

mincemeat, bolognaise, vegetables, curry, chicken nuggets and much more besides). I would pretty much leave the place feeling sick with fullness.The next restaurant on my list is the Black Angus restaurant. I wasn't planning on eating a steak there, but after a few beers I changed my mind and had myself a very tasty Black Angus 16oz New York Strip.

It was very nice, if slightly pricey.

Another restaurant we enjoyed was the Bahama Breeze. The portions were nice and large, even the starters. So much so the waitress was very shocked we ordered a starter each. I had the Spinach Dip and Island Chips for starters (described as a breezy blend of spinach, artichokes and cheese, with a hint of nutmeg, served warm with tortilla chips).

This was very tasty and filling, especially as I ate the rest of my families leftovers.. but I had ordered the seafood paella for my main course and was determined to eat it (it was lovely).

The menu described the Paella (apparently pronounced "pie-ay-ah") as a traditional Caribbean casserole with shrimp, sea scallops, mussels, chicken, fish, Spanish sausage and peas, cooked with moist and flavorful yellow rice.

It was fantastic and makes up for the fact I never got round to having one when I was in Ibiza last September.

We did actually go back to the Bahama Breeze, as it was so nice, on the last day of the holiday. The one downer is I was actually ID'd on the first visit to this place. Stupid Americans.

One of the early days in the holiday, I managed to convince the rest of the family to visit Gatorland - we actually had a good time in the end, we fed the 'gators and I tried some alligator ribs and alligator nuggets. Very tasty.

On the whole, the food in the parks were pretty good and not as expensive as I would expect.

We obviously did all the theme parks.. Disney's Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom, Epcot, MGM Studios, Typhoon Lagoon as well as Universal Studios, Universal Islands of Adventure, Sea World, Discovery Cove (swim with dolphins) - it was quite a hectic schedule. But the villa was nice, with a private pool - so we did do some relaxing.. and one of the days me and my old man hired a Ford Mustangout for the day.

Anyway, back to the food (all this food stuff is making me right hungry)!! We did visit TGI Friday's one evening and I had another New York strip steak with some kind of sauce for my main course (but I can't really remember what I had for starters).

I ate this meal with vegetables and salad and washed it down with Stella. Nice work. I expect I finished this meal with an Irish Coffee.

One of the park snacks I really like is the Turkey Leg! Here is a picture of my Dad and I tucking into one of the giant turkey legs in Typhoon Lagoon!

Because they are smoked they taste quite different to turkey, almost more like ham or gammon - but very tasty! If quite messy.

As you can probably see, America wasn't all about the steak for me. I was also eating lots of seafood, fish and pasta. They really seem to do seafood quite well out there and I really love my seafood.

Pictured right is the seafood chowder that I had in an Irish restaurant of all places, near Pleasure Island in Downtown Disney.

Another fine restaurant we visited (twice) was the Olive Garden.

I had a Zuppa Toscana soup to start (described as spicy sausage, russet potatoes and cavolo greens in a creamy broth).

They even brought a salad out for us to share between the starters and the mains.

For my main course on this occasion, I had Seafood Portofino (descibed as mussels, scallops, shrimp and mushrooms with linguine in a garlic-butter wine sauce).

It was very enjoyable and we all decided that the Olive Garden would be worth a return visit.

As I had been banging on about going to a seafood restaurant like the Crab House or Red Lobster for the whole holiday, everyone finally succombed and we went to the Red Lobster for our evening meal quite late in the holiday.

You could pick your own lobster to eat, if you fancied it. But nobody did.

I had the New England Appetizer Sampler as my starter, this is Lobster, Crab & Seafood Stuffed Mushrooms, Bacon-Wrapped Sea Scallops & Fried Clam Strips.

As my main course, I had the Ultimate Feast, this was succulent broiled Maine Lobster Tail, tender Snow Crab Legs, savory Shrimp Scampi & lightly breaded Fried Shrimp.

It took a moment for me to work out where to get the meat from the crab's legs.. but the once I found it - wow. Lovely.

The lobster tail was also good, I am definitely going to have to have that again (maybe get a whole one next time).

Nobody else on the table were so adventurous, although my Dad did have some steamed oysters. They looked alright, but everyone was quite revolted by the slurping.

Anyway, as I said we returned to the Olive Garden on another occasion and I had the Hot Artichoke and Spinach Dip for starters, this was a blend of artichokes, spinach and cream cheese. Served with Tuscan bread.

Delicious!

For my main course I opted for the Tour of Italy, this consisted of homemade lasagna, lightly breaded chicken parmigiana and creamy fettuccine alfredo.

The final day, we had our evening meal back at the Bahama Breeze. For starters I had the Coconut Shrimp, which their menu describes as "our guests' favorite! Crispy large shrimp hand-breaded with sweet flaky coconut, with our delicious citrus-mustard dipping sauce". Not bad. For my main course I chose to try their Lobster and Shrimp Pasta, which offered Sweet Caribbean lobster and shrimp in every bite! Sauteed with fresh mushrooms, herbs, brandy and cream and tossed with linguine. A fine way to end the holiday.