Scrambled eggs and (cold) ham. Distinct lack of carbohydrates available this morning, so I whipped up some eggs.

Lunch:

Covent Garden Co. chicken soup, with a ham baguette.

Dinner:

Home-made burgers (made simply with minced beef and a pinch of salt) and potato wedges (McCain, not home-made).

Scrambled egg on toast.

Lunch:

Meatloaf and mashed potato (bought by P from M&S). I do make home-made versions of these (which are tastier) but with a flight to catch, needs must.

Airplane:

Tuna and mayo / ham, cheese & pickle half-sandwiches, and a breakaway chocolate bar thing.

Dinner:

Arrived late (c’mon, I was flying from Terminal 5 – what do you expect?) so had to order some bar food from the limited menu. The hotel, in an effort to be all fusion-y, had a weird menu so I ended up with a salmon and wasabi bagel. Unfortunately, the wasabi had been spread like it was cream cheese, so every bite was a tearful experience, much to the amusement of my colleagues. If I hadn’t been so hungry, I’d have sent it back.

Since today was a Bank Holiday, and nobody was under any time constraints, P cooked up some bacon and scrambled eggs, which we had on toast.

Lunch:

A Very Bad Lunch: a 4 piece variety bucket from KFC, shared between me and P. Excuse: the selection in M&S was uninspiring and it was a cold day, so a hot meal was required; since we have no microwave, a ready meal from M&S would have taken at least 35 minutes, and that’s not even including pre-heating the oven.

Dinner:

P made quesadillas filled with smoked salmon and cream cheese, served with some potato wedges and salsa. I followed it up with some freshly popped popcorn, sprinkled with some caster sugar.

Breakfast:

A rare cooked breakfast, although it was only scrambled egg on toast. Amélie had some, too, although I obviously over-cooked her egg just a bit to make sure it wasn’t too wet. Oh, the other difference was that she didn’t have toast: she had scrambled egg instead.

Lunch:

Decided to try a home-made version of KFC today. Major difference between my version and KFC’s version would be the fact that the chicken I bought was free-range (or so the packet said).

So, I had 8 chicken drumsticks (dark meat obviously being the tastiest part of the bird – I really can’t understand the English obsession with chicken breast), which I marinated for a couple of hours in a concoction of lemon juice, garlic paste, basil and chilli powder. I then dipped the chicken in some flour that had been seasoned with salt, loads of cayenne pepper, a dash of ground cumin and another dash of chilli powder.

You’ll notice in the photo that some of the drumsticks are darker than the others. That’s partly because I cooked the chicken in two batches and the second batch didn’t have quite the same amount of time in the fryer. However, I also double-dipped the second batch, so after coating the drumsticks in flour the first time, I then dipped them into a lightly whisked egg (let down with a bit of water), then dipped them into flour again.

The double-dipped batch had an undeniably crispier and crunchier skin and you definitely got a bigger kick from the spices. For me, that makes it a winner but P said she preferred the single-dipped batch.

Dinner:

We were supposed to have a Sunday roast (beef) but since my mum and sister came round to see us, I didn’t really have time to prepare it properly. Also, the spuds I was hoping to use were somewhat sprouty, so we deferred the beef until Thursday. Instead, I made use of the char siu, pak choi and bean sprouts that my mum brought round. I added onion, sprouting broccoli, spring onions and some fried noodles to the mix, and knocked up a stir fry. As usual I made too much.