What I ate the other week

I know, I know, who wants to know what I ate in a week. I would be thinking the same thing myself... but why not?  I am sure my family would read this anyway. This is the thing about my family - we always ask each other 'what did you have for lunch or dinner today?' in the same manner as 'Hello, how are you?'.  It's a mandatory question but comes so naturally that we don't even need to think. We are all obsessed about food, but in a good way.

My husband said, 'Are you cooking that for the sake of your blog?' Well, yeah it seemed that way in the end but it was also interesting to see what I had in one week;  it made me think what I should eat. You should try it yourself.


Sunday: Vegetable omelette with a slice of buttered toast for breakfast. I like lots of tomato ketchup.  Had a cup of green tea with almond cookie that I bought in Sicily for mid day snack. For some reason, I was not that hungry that evening so I had small portion of mozzarella salad with tomatoes, sun dried tomatoes, black and green olives and basils, with generous drizzle of balsamic vinegar glaze and olive oil. I then had a chocolate vanilla cornet for dessert.

Monday: 1/2 portion of Mexican Corn Tortilla soup (from Sainsbury) with some French loaf for lunch at work. This soup is really yummy. Finished the other 1/2 of the soup with Spanish Piquilo Pepper Tomato bread (from M&S) for starter and 1/2 Canadian lobster dressed with a lobster mouse with chips and salad (again from M&S) for dinner. We would have been eaten this for Sunday but my husband goes for Aikido training every Sunday evening so we never get to have a proper Sunday dinner as such, plus he just went to a dentist and got his back tooth taken out which he did not expect to happen so I thought this would be easier for him to eat for dinner. We then had lemon souffle for dessert (again from M&S). What do we do without M&S???

Tuesday:  Boiled egg and toast for breakfast as I made egg mayo sandwich for lunch for me and my husband, with grapes. I like mixing some grated cheese with egg mayo. For dinner, buttered mushroom with salad, followed by mushroom risotto (M&S again!) with parmesan shavings. There were chestnut, portobello and button mushrooms in this, yum.

Wednesday: It was Halloween and I was thinking of putting sweets out for children from neighbours in case they come for trick or treat. So I had a toast with Nutella!  For lunch I made prawns with salad wraps with drizzle of sweet chill sauce for me and my husband.  For dinner we had Icelandic Cod with a cherry tomato and basil with a parmesan crust (M&S again!). Seriously, what do I do without M&S...

Thursday:  Had mixture of honey & nuts and honey & oats cornflakes with skimmed milk for breakfast. I love playing Angry Birds and sometimes I play 10 minutes in the morning while eating breakfast ... terrible, and so childish but who cares! It's good for de-stress.  I have completed all Angry Birds series now so I got nothing new to play. My husband has promised to get me new Angry Birds Star Wars series - I wonder if Yoda will appear....  My family teases me that I speak like Yoda.
I made cheese and salad wraps for lunch for my husband and me. For dinner we had Japanese ramen soup noodles with grilled salmon.

Friday:  I had a croissant with strawberry jam for breakfast. I was working from home that day as my car went to garage for some repair. I made myself Japanese soba (buckwheat) noodles with tempura prawns and poached egg for lunch. I did manage to get a lot of work done, so I deserved a nice glass of rose. I could not find anything to go with it so I had some tortilla chips with salsa. My husband went for a weekend residential Qi Gong course so he was not around for dinner. I was not planning to make anything special and thought of something quick to prepare. My daughters, Emily and Maria were around so we just had scampi, chips and salad for dinner together.

Saturday: Emily and I were going to Cafe Coias for lunch to try their seafood soup, which we had been looking for for some time, I just had a cup of coffee for breakfast, made with Nespresso machine - this is the one George Clooney advertises, and he never lied!!!  This is a fantastic coffee maker, so easy, hassle free and easy to clean - perfect for a lazy cook like me and coffee tastes amazing! Then Emily and I went to Coias for lunch. It was really yummy - see my blog "Great Seafood Soup in Glasgow".
Because we had such a big meal, I was not planning to eat anything for dinner but I remembered that I had some prawns to finish so I had just 3 prawns with a glass of rose for appetiser. I love peeling off the shells and sucking prawns's heads - this is part of the fun for eating prawns. I then had a small bowl of Japanese soba noodle with just sprinkles of spring onions and seaweed for dinner.

Well, forks! These were what I ate the other week. I must say my food choice are rather random and eclectic. Perhaps too much M&S and not much home cooking but I am working during the day so it's a compromise - at least we tend to eat variety of foods and try to make our food colourful as possible.

I wonder what other have had during the week ...

Great Seafood Soup in Glasgow

I love seafood. At the moment what on my 'to eat' list is lobster roll in New England coast in the States. My husband and I have been talking about going back to Boston for a holiday and drive along the coast but if we are to do this, it got to be around the Autumn when leaves change colours beautifully. This would be almost a year away from now, if such trip really materialises.... so in the meantime, we need to find somewhere locally where we can eat great seafood.

My older daughter Emily found such place. It's Coila's Cafe (www.coiascafe.co.uk) in Glasgow. According to the website, the Coia family opened their first cafe in Dennistoun, Glasgow in 1928.

We went there on one Saturday afternoon for lunch. The place was fairly busy but we got a table without reservation. They had some American diner-like booths so next time we would like to book a booth.
There are quite a lot of good selections of dish on the menu but our mission that day was to eat this seafood soup or Zuppa Di Pesce. We saw a photo of this dish in somebody's Facebook page about a month ago and ever since we were salivating at the thought of trying this dish. So we ordered one to share between us and also ordered some extra bread to dip in and a portion of chips!

Zuppa Di Pesce - mixed seafood with garlic, chilli, onion
and celery cooked in a tomato sauce served with garlic bread.

Wow, it was really tasty, with abundance of seafood - langoustine, king prawns, squids, scallops and mussels....  For £18.95,  it surely worths it and with such volumes, so just as well we shared this between us.  Chips were also one of those typical chippy's chips, none of those frozen rubbish.
I had this soup with a glass of Pinot Grigio and Emily with a glass of diet coke as she was driving.  We then had coffee to finish off and left the restaurant with full and happy stomach.

Emily was driving to take us both back to her flat where I parked my car. I said to Emily, "Do you think I can legally drive now?"  Emily said, "Why, you only had one glass."  I paused and said, "Yeah, I feel a kind of ...... gooooood." We both burst into laughter, and Emily suggested that we should detour to Tesco for food shopping so that my feeling of 'goooooood' would wear off before she let me drive home.

We would definitely go back there again - next time we will book a booth and even order Zuppa Di Pesce one each!!!