You can have too many Babybels...

I am back in Manchester! I have returneth from Bristol - the coldest city in England - well it was last week.
I was on a course for a week and only had a little jacket with me. At the end of the course in the feedback form we had to give five words to describe the course. By that time my fingers had stopped working from the cold but I managed to write 'Chilly'.

I shall describe my week with food.

We had a free breakfast every day - which is what happens when you stay in a hotel.

Day 1 Delicious Bacon sandwich. For the remaining breakfasts I ate fruit and fibre (leaving the dried bananas in a secret stash on the table for the next guest), fruit salad and babybels.







At breakfast every morning I made up a little emergency rations package for the day, including.....

and...

.......and a napkin full of dried apricots. The apricots were in a bowl next to the cereal counter (as you were meant to sprinkle them on your museli) but I like apricots SOOO much I just eat them without cereal. On days 4 and 5 of the course there were no apricots by the cereal :( I think they had become wise to my apricot poaching.)

On the first evening we had a posh meal with all the course leaders and important people and for the starter we had....

This was chicken with pesto and bit of curry (I think). One boy was so hungry he put his in his bread roll and wolfed it down quick as a bee! I was also hungry because we didn't eat the evening meal until 8.30 and I had eaten my packed lunch on the train that morning at 10.30 because I got overexcited. I didn't put mine in a sandwich though. After I had taken a picture of it a few people stopped talking to me as much so I talked to the sandwich boy as a few people had stopped talking to him as well.

This meal was also delicious.

After a week of being freezing, and eating a lot of chicken based dishes,(here's another one that I ate...)

I wanted something that didn't have chicken or babybels in it and was fairly easy to make so on Friday I had....

Smoked Salmon Pasta with a Rocket Salad.

This meal is delicious, fairly healthy and can be enjoyed at any time (i.e lunch or dinner)

You will need...

Smoked salmon trimmings (from the fishmonger, or you can get it from Tescos, but its a bloody rip off)

Half an onion or a shallot (I always think of shallots as a vegetable that would be fairly high up in a court in Tudor times)

2 tablespoons of white wine

Some munchrooms (maybe 8-10?)

Pasta

Rocket

Creme Fraiche (the sauce base for Guardian readers)

Put pasta on to boil, while boiling...

Finely chop your onion and simmer it in the white wine until the wine has evaporated.

Add the creme fraiche and the munchrooms to the onions and when the munchrooms have softened add the smoked salmon trimmings. Add black pepper.

Drain pasta and pour sauce over the top, grate on parmesan and add some rocket.

I often have this meal without the pasta as the sauce is quite filling, just add some iceberg lettuce to the rocket. You can also have it as a starter if you are hosting a posh dinner party. 

All I can remember from the last week is being cold (I also couldn't work out how to put the heating on in my room so once or twice I turned the shower on in the bathroom and sat near it for the warmth of the steam).

So today by mistake I bought another fur coat!!!! (ooops). However it was a Primarni Cheapo one but is still beautiful and lovely. I can't decided if I'm a dalmation or a leopard though...

Today I saw a poor old pigeon get run over and all its insides fell out. So tonight I will not be having pigeon. 

Poor old pigeon.

It's 6.24 now which means Gin and Tonic time! Goody!