29 March - couscous and a chicken pie

Lunch today was a simple couscous salad; with spring onion, cherry tomatoes, roasted red pepper, green beans and a bit of bacon. Then in the evening we were out at the Lounge for drinks with friends. I'd been a bit disappointed with their food lately, but I had a really good chicken and gammon pie with chips and creamy leeks - definitely back on form.

1 March - courgette pasta

Sometimes the simplest, made-up dishes are the best and today's lunchtime pasta was one of those. Courgette, bacon and a small blob of cream stirred into some penne pasta ... yum!

This evening, I was out with friends at the Lounge. I went for the chicken and chorizo salad, mainly because it's usually not very salady - chicken, chorizo, peppers and potatoes. It was clearly a different chef on tonight though because it arrived as a huge dish of rocket (which I hate!) with a few bits of chicken and chorizo on the top - very disappointing :(

5 January - a jacket potato and a burger

For lunch, it was a jacket potato with some roast red onion, goats cheese and a couple of slices of parma ham. Then this evening, we were out at the Lounge meeting a friend. I wasn't inspired by any of the specials so after lots of deliberation, I went for burger. Lounge burgers used to be fantastic, wonderfully juicy, but recently, they seem to have gone downhill and become rather dried out, burnt offerings. I was hopeful that they might be back on form, but sadly, it was rather dried and disappointing. I won't bother trying again.

9 December - boiled eggs and pie at the lounge

There's something very satisfying about the simplest of meals and today's couple of boiled eggs were no exception ...

Work's suddenly got busy this week and I'm still feeling sniffy and woolly-headed and I just generally couldn't be bothered to think about shopping and dinner, so we just headed out to the Lounge and grabbed some food. I had a great chicken and gammon pie with creamy leeks and chips - tasty and easy and just what was needed, along with a couple of glasses of wine.

4 December - roast pork belly

We headed round to the Deco Lounge for brunch today - lounge eggs (poached eggs on toasted muffins with hollandaise) with smoked salmon for me.

I'd planned to make moussaka to use the aubergines that came in Friday's vegbox, but when I got to the butcher's, they didn't have any lamb mince. Lacking any other inspiration and not feeling up to trudging off to find it somewhere else (still very coldy), I had to come up with a quick change of plan. I got a piece of pork belly, which I slow-roast simply with some carrots and onions thrown in the roasting pan towards the end. We had it with some simple boiled cabbage and some gravy made from the pan juices. It wasn't bad, but although the pork was nice and tender on the inside, it was a bit too crunchy on the outside for my liking and just generally not really what I'd been in the mood for.

11 October - a jacket potato and late tapas

With some fresh figs in the fruit bowl that need eating up and some ricotta in the fridge, I decide to pair them for lunch; after all figs generally go well with white cheese (goats cheese, mozzarella ...). I go for a jacket potato with the ricotta dolloped on the top and the figs on the side. The ricotta's a bit too runny and tasteless though to be up to the job and even with a good grinding of sea salt, it doesn't really work with the figs. Oh well, you live and learn ...

I'm out early evening and drop into the Lounge on my way back about 9 to meet up with Tris and a couple of friends. It's a bit late for a proper meal, but a bit of tapas goes down well with a glass of wine.

13 September - tapas @ the lounge

We were back at the Lounge this evening, meeting a friend for a drink. It was Tapas Tuesday and after the yummy tapas the other day, I went for minty peas with feta, sweetcorn fritters and five-spiced shredded pork, which had a nice kick to it. Perfect picky food with a couple of glasses of white wine and good company!

9 September - the lounge and post-film noodles

I managed to eat out twice today. It was the end of my summer teaching stint, so we went for an end-of-course lunch at the Lounge. They did pretty well with a big group and mixed tapas starters came out really quickly and went down very well. Mains took a bit longer and came out in dribs and drabs, but as we were all nattering, it didn't really matter. I had a goats cheese salad - the actual goats cheese on toast was nice, but the salad was full of things I'm less keen on - my fault for being fussy rather than theirs!

We went out to the cinema in the evening and stopped off for some quick noodles on the way back at Tampopo, right next to the cinema at Cabot Circus. We just went in to grab a quick bite, but the noodles were actually really good - definitely a place to stop off after a film again.

18 August - homegrown tomatoes and a rabbit burger

The tomatoes on the terrace are ripening nicely and I'm now picking a good handful every couple of days. They've been building up a bit, so today I had a nice big Nicoise salad for lunch with lots of tomatoes, some green beans and some fancy tuna from a jar instead of a tin. The tuna was quite nice; a kind of halfway house between tinned and fresh.

This evening, we had an easy meal out at Deco Lounge, just round the corner. They always have good specials and today they were even more interesting than usual. I had a rabbit and pancetta burger! I have to say it tasted more porky/bacony than it did really of rabbit, but it was still really nice and a bit different.