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.

Jumbo king prawn stirfry

Tonight we had a prawn stirfry, using Sainsbury's Taste the Difference Jumbo King Prawns (half price at £2.99). They were so nice we had to make a concerted effort to stop nibbling on them before I put them in the pan to heat through - it was one of those 'just one more each' moments, but we finally managed to resist after about six between the two of us.

Sharing the wealth between the supermarkets, I added one block of Sharwood's fine egg noodles (bought through Ocado, from Waitrose) to a pan of simmering water, put a Tesco mushroom stirfry pack into my wok with half a pack of Budgens' baby spinach and once it was cooked, a sachet of Blue Dragon chow mein sauce to warm through. (It's not like I'm proud of shopping at supermarkets so often - I wish other shops near us were open after normal working hours but sadly they're not, and if I want to do any independent/market shopping it has to be done at weekends, and that's not always possible.) So, anyway, back to the food... I drained the noodles, tossed it all together in a pan, tipped it into a couple of bowls and we ate it in front of the telly. Healthy, warming (see the steam rising from the bowl), filling, and taking just ten minutes from fridge to mouth, it's ideal fast food.

Pie Day

Feeling very proud of myself as I made a chicken pie last night. I started it on Monday night when I realised I had chicken and leeks I had to use up, so made the filling (using a recipe from Jamie's Dinners - highly recommended) in advance like some kind of uber-housewife. My husband got so over-excited about the meal to come that he wrote 'Pie Day' on the calendar - does that mean we need to get out more? Last night added some ready-made puff pastry to the top, baked until golden and served with mashed potato, mmmm. And we ate ALL the pie!

Yes, I feel sick.

I finished it a good ten/fifteen minutes ago, and I still feel sick.

Caramel slice

People say sushi is filling, but sadly they're wrong. It's only 3 hours since my 'deluxe' sushi meal and I'm already feeling pretty empty around the belly area. As I'm due to play netball in another 3 hours, I thought I owe it to my body to find something to raise my energy levels quickly. Intending to buy a Honeyrose Organic Brownie, I went downstairs to the cafe, only to find they'd run out. And there was a lonely looking caramel slice sitting just where the brownies usually reside. So it seemed like it was meant to be. It has a very thick, wonderfully sweet caramel layer; I would have liked the chocolate layer to be slightly thicker, as you can't really taste it much, but the shortbread underneath is light and crumbly and, although it doesn't have much flavour, it does its job - chiefly to support the caramel, just as the chocolate does its job topping it. Very sweet, very caramelly, very satisfying, and I imagine I'll feel very sick when I've finished it.

Pret 'deluxe' sushi

For £4.99 (and a stonking £5.85 to eat in) it's a rip-off. The maki rolls are fine, you do get lots of ginger and soy sauce, and and at least the rice sticks together so it's easier for novice chopstick users to eat without spilling it everywhere. But the ginger is very dry and flavourless, and the same goes for the prawn, salmon and tuna nigiri. All-in-all, it's pretty rubbish and I won't be buying it again.

Leerdammer cheese

Leerdammer cheese is pretty good stuff, you can add it to lots of things and it doesn't taste too offensive. Today I enjoyed a lovely Leerdammer, bacon and processed cheese combo on wholemeal brown rolls. Ketchup and HP sauce too, of course. Think I might have a KFC for dinner. Yum.

Pizza Expectations dashed

I was so disappointed when we went to Pizza Express last Saturday. I don't mean to have a bitch about it, as I hate it when food critics just moan and groan about meals they have eaten in lavish restaurants, but I actually left the restaurant feeling like I was going to be sick! In fact, I couldn't actually finish my lasagne because I started gagging, which was rather embarrassing. Normally it's a La Reine pizza every time, but I wanted to line my tummy as we were going out on the lash. My father-in-law raves about the lasagne there, so I thought I'd give it a try, but honestly, it was the worst I have ever eaten. Maybe it's just because I've had a few too many Delia home-made lasagnes? Her recipe is the best ever. Maybe I should forward it to Pizza Express. Gloopy and tasteless, their dish had the consistency of an Asda ready meal and surely noone in their right mind eats those. Yuck. You have been warned...

Scrambled eggs on toast

Is the best breakfast to warm you up. Creamy, steaming eggs on hot toast (preferably buttered with lurpak and spread with a thin layer of bovril) is also the ultimate comfort food. It's great when you're ill or wake up on a cold November morning and your heating is on the blink, like I did this morning - scrambled eggs on toast was just what I needed. It would have been best with crispy bacon too, but it was difficult enough in my semi-frozen state to do eggs, let alone bacon too. And the flat was so cold I didn't feel it was sensible to let the toast lose any heat as I buttered and bovriled it, so I had it without. It was good though - a hot breakfast on a chilly morning just can't be beaten.

Last night's dinner...

Was a triumph for a cook with no time, if I say so myself. I was knackered when I came in, but had to go and play netball, so I put the oven on to just under 200 degrees centigrade, stabbed a skewer through two big baking potatoes, shoved them on the middle shelf of the oven, then went out.

An hour and a half later I came home to a delicious smell wafting through the hall outside my flat (sorry, neighbours, if you came in hungry too). I went to the freezer and took out a tub labelled 'Beef and Ale casserole 24/09/06'. Ooohh, nice - please excuse the way I'm bigging up my own domestic goddess prowess, but I'm more used to peering at frozen meals I've cooked weeks before, wondering whether they're meatballs in a tomato sauce, chicken curry or some veg concoction, and worrying how long they've been stuck at the bottom of my freezer, then nuking them in the microwave and hoping I'm cooking the right accompaniments. But anyway, I love having home-cooked meals ready and waiting in the freezer. It took about 12 minutes in the microwave (2 stirs in the middle) for me to be sure it was piping hot throughout, then I left it to stand and shoved some leftover sweetcorn in the microwave too for a couple of minutes. I took the crispy (yet fluffy inside) potatoes out of the oven and, lo and behold, we had a warm, home-cooked, nutritious and tasty meal all ready in 15 minutes. Plus the potato cooking time, of course. Very satisfying.