And for lunch on Friday, I had...

Penne pasta with pesto, pinenuts and parmesan. And veg, but that doesn't begin with a 'p' so I thought I'd put that in the next sentence. Alliteration - every writer's friend. The veg included an onion, a courgette and a tomato. The pasta was brown, so I felt full for longer - I'm assuming I did as that's what you're supposed to find with brown pasta. I just like the more fibrous flavour and consistency, if you cook it al dente - a bit like brown rice versus white rice, as brown's just more interesting.

Anyway, I was full and felt better. I've got a cold at the moment, and as my mother always told me, 'feed and cold and starve a fever'. I tend to feed both, but I'm sure it doesn't matter.

Update on the week's eating - Thurs to Sat lunch

I can't believe I haven't blogged for an entire week. It's gone so fast. And I'm finding it difficult to remember everything I've eaten, which is most unusual for me. Lets think:

I had this prawn and noodle stirfry one day last week - I think it was probably Thursday as we'd been out till quite late and wanted some fast food. It was nice - I used a Blue Dragon oyster and spring onion sauce, some big prawns, chopped up veg including carrots, onions, courgettes, peppers and a lone leek, and we shared a block of sharwood's thin noodles and sprinkled it with fresh coriander. It was tasty.

On Friday lunchtime I was starving and wanted some energy food, so I made a pasta with pesto, an onion, a large courgette and cubed mozzarella (the 'light' version from Sainsbury's Be Good to Yourself - which was fine in this). Hmmm, I might have pasta and pesto today, I do fancy that.

For friday supper we had salmon, poached in the microwave in my fish steamer with semi-mashed, garlicky new potatoes, leeks in white sauce and broccoli. Sadly I don't have a photo of this meal - I must have been tired and hungry.

At the weekend my aunt came round for lunch and we gave her chicken fajitas. They were good and I realised how long it had been since I'd had fajitas. When I was a student I used to make myself veggie fajitas regularly for lunch - it was a quick, nutritious meal and tastes so good. Expect to see more tortilla-based platefuls on this blog soon!

Insalata Tricolore - Zizzi, 73-5 Strand, WC2R 0DE

Well, we've just returned from a bloggers' lunch to welcome a new colleague at Zizzi's on the Strand. There were seven of us in all, and we had 4 pizzas, a calzone, a pasta dish and a salad between us. Mine was the salad - an insalata tricolore. It looked lovely - green and healthy, with cherry tomatoes, slices of avocado and tiny balls of mozzarella nestled in the spinach leaves and a pesto dressing. But I was slightly disappointed with the amount of mozzarella - I think I had six miniture balls - not really a main-course size. The avocado was all perfectly ripe - which was very welcome - but it was slightly flavourless; there were plenty of halved, sweet-tasting cherry tomatoes, but there wasn't anything like enough pesto dressing. All-in-all it was fine and looked pretty, but it wasn't anything to write home about. And by the end of the meal everyone else was stuffed, but I was still feeling a little peckish - that'll teach me not to choose a salad next time...

Oh, also, they got my order wrong and brought me a crayfish and snowpea salad instead of the tricolore, so I had to wait several minutes for my meal while my fellow diners were tucking in. This was unfortunate - we'd all had to wait an inexplicably long time for any drinks or food to arrive. I wasn't too bothered about it, as these things happen, but I thought they could have made a better salad as I'd had to wait so long for it.