Blissful Rosemary Chicken with Penne

Everyone knows I'm mad about food anyway, so here's another food post. I wasn't too sure what to cook tonight and since I'm bored of the usual, I went to consult my recipe bible allrecipes.com for quick food recipes (because I was also feeling lazy).

Somehow I ended up with this. Showed it to Boy, he was okay with how it sounded, so we went off to the shop for ingredients.

I made a few amendments to the recipe - I added garlic and rosemary inside the chicken, used mozzarella instead of smoked fontina (because I can't find it), browned the chicken before putting it into the oven, etc.

Flatten the chicken breast and scatter some chopped garlic and fresh rosemary on it.

Layer a slice of prosciutto and sliced mozzarella cheese on top. Preheat oven.

Roll up the chicken breast and secure with toothpicks. Brown chicken on a grill pan, around 2 minutes on high heat each side. Season well with ground black pepper and salt whilst browning.

In the meantime, empty a can of chicken broth into a small ceramic baking tray thingamajig and mix in a measure of white wine, ground black pepper and a dash of olive oil.

Place the browned chicken into the broth mixture.

Place the whole thing into the oven for 25 minutes. Whilst the chicken is in the oven, cook the penne according to package instructions.

The chicken is cooked and the cheese is melted! Obviously, get it out of the oven.

Pour all of the broth into the grill pan used for browning the chicken earlier and boil it on high heat until reduced to a gravy-like thickness.

Drain the pasta, pour in the "gravy" and mix thoroughly.

And dish it out on plates!

The result looked like this:

ASK + Angels & Demons

Boy and I went to see Angels & Demons yesterday at the cinema. But first, we had dinner at Ask. Here are pics of our nom nom noms!

Calzone di Pollo e Pancetta

That's what I had. The menu said it is "A folded pizza of sliced chicken breast, pancetta, sauteed leeks, mushrooms, mozzarella and our classic pomodoro sauce, brushed with garlic butter and sprinkled with grana padano cheese and served with a salad garnish." Sounds about right, and it was gorgeous. I even loved the soft, light, buttery crust... extremely yummy dipped in balsamic vinegar and olive oil.

Stuffed Chicken Breast

That's what Boy had. A special for that night, no description of what it's stuffed with, but it looks like pancetta and cheese and mushroom to me. I had a bit of his as well (because I'm a greedy cow!) and the chicken was so tender it melted in my mouth! Served with French beans, buttery herby mash and mushroom in sauteed leek cream sauce? Dunno. Haha.

The movie was pretty true to the storyline other than some stuff being taken out to make it into a movie that isn't 3 hours long. But I can't say this with 100% certainty given that I read the book years ago, before I started university. Of course, knowing the storyline spoilt it a bit for me, but it was good nonetheless. I did find that the clue-finding part of things were too rushed, since that was what I enjoyed most from the book, the whole explanation of how-they-got-there. But I suppose that would've made it too draggy for people who are only there for the blood and gore. I think Boy enjoyed it though, even though halfway through the film we argued about who is the instigator of the whole plot against the Vatican.

I did admit later on that I cheated because I read the book years ago so I knew about the ending anyway. :P

All in all a good night.

Anniversary gifts and more

Some stuff that I haven't posted yet even though I really should've some time ago... mainly because I'm so lazy nowadays. :P Mostly photos though of things I got or things I bought because I don't exactly have many things interesting that is going on in my life, just Boy's life is always more dramatic than mine! But that's his story to tell.

What Boy got me for our anniversary almost 2 weeks ago (as stated before):

A teddy bear (and a card, not pictured).


Camwhoring with the Elizabeth Miller white nappa leather jacket.

I was lusting after the jacket for weeks and Boy decides to buy it for me. He was also the one who suggested getting a white one instead of a black one. The black jacket looks too much like Russian military, apparently. :P Haven't had much use so far since it's been rather summery most day and the jacket is definitely made for colder weather.

Other than that, I bought myself a new pair of work shoes, which were on sale in my size. My old Earth boots that I wore for work was wearing out on the linings and rubbing the back of my feet raw. :(

Black Asgi low-heeled mary janes.

Not much else to say so far, so I'll end the entry with one of my new high-calorie addictions, thanks to work keeping us fed with these things when we do exceptionally well:

Cream-filled Belgian bun.

Damn, they're good. And yes, I know they don't help with the whole weight-loss thing either, but I have no willpower. :( And yes, that means that I haven't actually lost any weight since I joined the gym... :P

A long update! (sorry)

Phew. Got back from London and I'm knackered. Not just London though - I woke up at 6am today to catch the 6:51am train to head to London with the plan to arrive there by 8:50am so that I can then make my way to Oxford Street by 9:30. Early mornings aren't for me. So much so that I had breakfast and then got a cup of coffee to go, without sugar, just to wake up a bit. I also made the mistake of wearing my 3" stiletto-heeled shoeboot to tramp around in London. I forgot how many flights of stairs there are in the Underground system... argh! Oh, and I had to run to the meeting too because I thought I was going to be so late because the train was running very late!

I turned up at 9:35am for a 9:30am meeting, only to find out that it doesn't start until 10am. Fuck. My feet... they would cry it they could.

The meeting was okay to start off with, but grew increasingly more and more boring as the day wore on. A lot of what they covered in the afternoon was just repetitive, because they already covered that during summer placement, and during pre-reg. So I'm a bit pissed off about that. A lot of stuff are business trade secrets, so I'm not going to even start to bore you with it, but sad to say the highlight of my day is lunch.

Lunch! :D

We were given 45 minutes and the whole of Oxford Street/Bond Street to choose from, so I went off on my own to do a bit of exploring to find a nice place to eat that isn't McDonald's or Subway or Burger King. To be honest, I've come all this way, might as well get something different from what I can get in Lincoln, right? After walking for around two to three minutes, I found a not-very-obvious sushi place and decided that since I've been craving for Japanese food and Boy doesn't seem very keen on trying, I'll treat myself to some Japanese food whilst I'm in London. ^^

Went in and had a bit of a mini-shopping trip!

The shop I went into.

Two boxes of Japanese curry cubes, two dorayakis (for Boy and I) and a box of authentically Japanese Hello Panda!

Lunch! It was awesome! I love unagi!

I'm not sure if I like unagi (grilled eel) better or the Japanese beef rice bowl, which is equally awesome. *sigh* Why does Boy not like Japanese food? He doesn't even want the dorayaki I bought for him. :'( I did tell him there is no raw fish in the ingredients.

Anyway, there isn't really much else to talk about today since I didn't spend time at Oxford Street spending the remainder of my bank account since I can't afford to, so I just went straight back to the train station, where I was given terrible service by an incompetent woman behind the Information counter.

4:25pm
I approach the Information counter where the woman is sat, arms crossed and looking very bored.
Me: Hi, can you tell me how I can get to Lincoln please?
Her: Have you got a ticket?
Me: Yes.
Her: Show it to me.
Me: Oh, okay... (why do I need a ticket to ask for information, I don't know) Here.
Her: Hmm. Well... *checks computer* You just missed the best connecting transfer at 4:10.
Me: That's no use to me anyway since I didn't get out until 4:15. When's the next one?
Her: There isn't going to be another train from Newark North Gate until 7:15.
Me: Well, can you check if there another way then? (I know damn sure there is, via Retford, but I didn't know what time)
Her: *checks her computer again* You can take the 5:35pm train to Retford and change there to Lincoln.
Me: Okay, thank you very much.

I later found out that it was the 4:35pm train to Retford, not the 5:35pm. So I missed it, and had to wait another fucking hour and some for the 5:50pm train to NNG anyway. So I was not happy at all. First of all, why the fuck do I need to know I "just missed the best connecting transfer" 15 minutes ago? It does not help. I just want to know when the next train is so that I can actually be on it, not try to time-travel to catch the "best train". And second of all, how did 4:35 become 5:35?! And what was with the fucking attitude??

So yeah. Anyway. Enough about today, I'm annoyed and tired enough already and I still have foot blisters to put up with (but that I agree 100% is my fault, so I won't whinge anymore).

Since I haven't been blogging a lot, here are some of the pics that you missed out on!

At the drunken Saturday work party (25th May) at the Coliseum...

I know, damn cheesy, right? Boy bought me the rose from some random woman who was selling those roses in the pub for £3.

Yes, you may have realised the barbecue idea didn't work out. But £105 worth of drinks is still quite a lot, we found.

And then just when I swore off alcohol forever, there was our 2nd anniversary (since we got together) on the 30th, which we celebrated at iMMO (our usual haunt for celebrations due to the good, but pricey, food).

The happy couple. :P


Boy's chocolate mocha cheesecake and my sticky toffee pudding! Yum yum yum.

No other food photos because I was so hungry I dug in before I remembered to take photo of them. :P Sorry! It was good though! We shared one of their heavenly light and fluffy garlic bread, and for main I had a chicken and cheese ravioli dish and Boy had something called pollo milanese or something like that.

Okay, this is getting too long, so I'll sign off now and let you get on with life. :P