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!!!

Lunch at Thai Lemongrass Restaurant in Glasgow

Last Saturday we decided to go to Thai Lemongrass restaurant for lunch for a change. We love this place as the food is always excellent, good lunch menu and price, good service, lovely and relaxing atmosphere, etc. We love sitting one of the booths which provide some privacy and cosy atmosphere yet you can still look out the rest of the restaurant so it's not entirely closed and hidden.

We are sitting in one of the booth; view of the restaurant from the booth.

Another view from our booth.

We love their lunch special - for just under £10 you can get starter, main course and vanilla ice-cream. It also comes with yummy thai prawn crackers as appetiser.

Thai prawn crackers and Thai beer.

If you eat meat, you get to try different kind of flavoursome beautiful Thai dishes. All beautifully cooked. We don't eat meat but there are always something we can try from the menu.

We love their Thai fish cake but there have been some changes in lunch menu. We chose Thai fish cake/ vegetable spring onion combo for starter, which come with 2 different types of dipping sauce.
It is actually fish cake/chicken spring rolls combo but because we don't eat meat they tweaked this for us to replace with vegetable spring rolls. They also offered that we could just have This fish cakes, which was on previous menu but we thought we just try this one instead. They were really tasty but I love their fish cakes too much so next time I will ask for just fish cakes.  My husband wants to order Tom Yum Goong (hot & sour soup with shrimp) next time.

We then had Pad Thai noodles - Thai Seafood Stir fry noodle. It had prawns, squids, scallops, lots of vegetables and fried eggs with thin flat noodles in a very tasty sauce. It was very delicious. They also had seafood salad with lettuce wrap on the menu so we may try that next time.  

To finish off the course, you can also get vanilla ice-cream. By the time it comes to this point you would not want a huge portion of dessert so this is just right.

Overall we really had a lovely lunch, which was even better because of being good value for money, in a lovely relaxing atmosphere.
Oh, I should also like to add that this place has passed my toilet check! Every time I go there, the toilet (I can only comment on ladies...) is in pristine condition.

This restaurant - highly recommended!

Nuts about Doughnuts

My older daughter Emily went to Newcastle with her friends the other weekend and came back with a box of doughnuts. But they were not ordinary doughnuts,  they were from Krispy Kreme!!!

Krispy Kreme was first founded in 1937 in Tennessee in the US and is now an international chain of doughnut stores. Their signature doughnut is a glazed doughnut that is traditionally served warm.
They came to UK in 2003 to open their first store in Harrods department in London; this was closed in 2011 however there are appx. 35 stores in the UK and according to Wikipedia, there is a plan to open one in Scotland in early 2013, probably in Edinburgh! Emily thinks there will be a possibility for a store at Silverburn Shopping Mall in Glasgow. Watch for the space!

Back to doughnuts. Emily came back with a boxful of dozen yummy doughnuts from KK.

Top row - Strawberry Gross and Chocolate Sprinkles.
Middle row - Original Glazed, Maple Iced and Chocolate Praline Fudge Cake.
Bottom row - Chocolate Custard, Chocolate Iced and Glazed Raspberry.

Chocolate Praline Fudge Cake

I chose Chocolate Praline Fudge Cake as I love any kind of nuts so nuts and chocolate combination is TDF!  I check their website for information of this doughnut - it is 'rich chocolate cake, hand dipped in milk chocolate hazelnut sauce, encrusted in caramelised hazelnuts and finished with a dark chocolate icing drizzle'.  Mmmmm! Doughnuts!

Just as well the nearest shop is far-away Newcasle, otherwise we would really become nuts about doughnuts and that would not be good for our waistline!

Lunch at Pizza Express

I have not been updating my blog since 10th October 2012. We have now decided not to get a puppy after all for the time being. So I have then started looking for a cat option as they are low maintenance. They can be left alone during the day and no need for going for a walk... I have been checking on internet looking for cats instead of updating my blog, and then discovered 'Maru', a Scottish Fold breed cat in Japan who has become very popular on You Tube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uDuls5TyNE). I now want another Maru for our house, but the problem is that I am almost certain that I am allergic to cats. "Do you think I am really allergic to cats?" I asked my husband. He shrugged his shoulders. I am in denial. But buying a Scottish Fold is a huge undertaking as they are not cheap and if I suffer from allergy after all, we would not be able to keep it and that would be a shame for the cat. So, in the end having a cat is also put on hold. My older daughter Emily and her boyfriend Craig now own a kitten, named Bailey. Emily keeps sending me lots of photos of Bailey so for the time being I just looking at those photos instead of thinking of a Maru for me.

Bailey sitting on Emily's legs.

Since we were no longer pet hunting or going around pet shelters, our weekend is back to normal, going for lunch on Saturdays. This time we opted for lunch deal at Pizza Express. I have been getting emails from them all the time, giving me all kinds of deal to entice us to part our money. To be honest we have not been to Pizza Express for a while. We used to go there quite often, especially when girls were small. I remember we organised a birthday party there for my younger daughter, Maria when she was, I think, 8 or 10 years old. Maria and her friends got to make their own pizzas under the guidance of pizza chef and enjoyed their own hand-made pizzas. All then received certificates and mini chef's whites and hats.

Anyway, we decided to go for £12.99 three course meal deal per person.  For the starter, we chose Pizza Express famous dough balls with garlic butter. I also ordered Merlot Rose, which was very nice. I don't know much about wine but it was a gorgeous salmon pink colour with very refreshing taste. I really like that!

We then both had a plate of Classic Giardiniera pizza each. It has artichokes, mushrooms, red peppers, santos tomatoes, leeks, olives, garlic oil, tomatoes and pesto base. It was really delicious!

We then had cheese cake with mascapone cheese each. By then I was getting full. My husband said, "You don't need to finish if you don't want to." I said, "But it would go to waste." He said, "or it would go to your waist!". Very funny... I finished it all anyway.

 My husband then had cappuccino and I had macchiato.

£12.99 per person would be a good deal if you like to have 3 course meals but by the time you add a decent glass of wine and coffee, it's not really that cheap after all. But we did really enjoy our lunch and it was also nice to have lunch somewhere different for a change.

Now, all clean plate and everything I ate that day did go to my waist!!!

Mussels in Brussels!

My husband is in Brussels for business this week. He has just sent me photos of his dinner he had last night for my blog.

Mussels or moules a la marinere is the national dish of Belgium and now is the season (between September and February). This is done in white wine, shallots, parsley and butter, served with side frites (or French fries) and homemade mayonnaise. I heard that Belgians use a discarded shell as a spoon to scoop out mussels off the shells and the juices. There are hundreds of restaurants serving this dish in Brussels, off course. I heard Chez Leon (www.chezleon.be)  is a place to go albeit a bit touristy. Another place is Au Vieux Bruxelles (www.auvieuxbruxelles.com). I wonder which one he went to eat. He has lost counts of how many times he has eaten this dish as he goes to Brussles regularly for business, so he probably does not remember the name of restaurant as long as it's near his hotel and not too touristy...

Moules a la Marinera - where is the homemade mayo???

Cheese croquettes - I guess this was a starter.... 

I shall once day tag along with him to visit Brussels. I definitely want to eat moules a la mariner, Belgian waffles, go to Neuhaus and Godiva for chocolates!!  I suggested to my husband for going there for Christmas Market season but my husband is more like 'bah humbug' and now suggests Barcelona instead - mmmmm this would be a difficult choice as Barcelona would be definitely milder in winter and we love going there.
I will let you know what we decide.

Lunch at Sarti's

Since we returned from our holiday in Sicily, I have not got around to update my blog... as soon as I open my laptop, instead of updating this, I have been busy looking up information of small dogs for a possible family pet for our home. My husband is not convinced - no more holidays in sunny Italy or Spain, instead it would be a daily walkie with a pet dog in British weather that can have 4 seasons in one day!

Neverthless, my husband reluctantly agreed to come with me to visit some dog shelters. We have seen gorgeous white Alaskan Huskies, huge mastiff with adorable face and laid-back rottweiler but all too big for us. Last Saturday, we went to Dogs Trust and saw cute Lakeland terrier that has some serious problem with socialising, which mean that he is too difficult to be re-homed. We also met absolutely lovable 9 month old staffordshire bull terrier, but unfortunately still a big for us and a bit too energetic.
I am now thinking of Bishon Fries or Shih Tzu - they are small, cute and low shedding, AND they don't need much exercise that would suit me! However it is very unlikely that I can find them in a dog shelter so I would need to start looking elsewhere. Search continuous, I declare, while my husband shaking his head in dismay. So, we did not come home with any dog after all.

Anyway, back to main business. Before we went to the Dogs Trust, we went back to Sarti's for lunch. This time we opted for set lunch menu. The restaurant gave us a basket of complimentary focaccia bread to start with, which was really really delicious! We like to dip it into olive oil and balsamic vinegar but sometimes we may have it with olive oil and chilli puree or olive oil with garlic puree...

We ordered 2 glasses of house rose but as this was running out, the Manager recommended us to try something different - we tried this Bardolino rose, Bardolino Chiretto, which was really really nice. (Bardolino is by Lake Garda, north of Italy.)

For main course my husband had a generous portion of lovely mushroom soup and I had roasted red peppers and mozzarella salad, and as usual, the cheese was so soft and creamy it just melted in the mouth...

For main course, we both had penne with tomato sauce with roasted peppers, cherry tomatoes and mushroom and we asked for lots of parmesan on top!

And to finish off, we both had cappuccino. Cappuccino is breakfast coffee so Italians don't have this for lunch or after lunch as it's too heavy. We don't mind and we are not in Italy, so we had it anyway!

To tell you the truth, halfway through the main course I was so full and could not finish the pasta that I actually asked for a doggy bag! Yes, I know, how could I ask for a doggy bag at Sarti's!!! I have no shame ... plus the pasta was really tasty and it would be an absolute crime and shame not to finish it.

So in the end, we did not come home with a doggy but we did come home with a doggy bag!!!