Chicken and chorizo pasta with salad / Italian mozzarella melts with hasselback potatoes

A quick post tonight because the past two days have caught up with me and I’ve been yawning so much that I’m concerned that I’m not going to make it to 9pm end of The Repair Shop, which I’ve promised mum I will. I’ve spent much of the day looking at various glass doors to see if Star wants to come in, and wanting to cry every time there’s no cat there.

After last night’s vet trip I wasn’t much in the mood for cooking, so wasn’t sorry that mum had picked a meal in a bag out of the freezer for dinner. I cooked it by simply pouring the contents into a pan and, while perched on my stool, stirring regularly to stop it sticking (although it stuck in places anyway). The only bit that I struggled with was checking if the chunks of chicken were defrosted: it takes time for temperature sensation to register with my dodgy hands, so my fingertips were burned (again) by the time I was able to confirm that the piece I was holding was, indeed, hot.

The end result was by far the best of the Iceland bagged meals we have had, having actual flavour: the chorizo slices were mildly spicy, the tomato sauce was decently tomato-y and herby, and the pasta wasn’t overly mushy. The chicken was a bit soggy and unflavoured, and there was one bit of grey-ish something that I foolishly put in my mouth to discover it tasted as unpleasant as it looked.

By this evening (Wednesday, with the vet appointment having been on Tuesday), both mum and I had recovered a little, subject to the above mentioned moments of cat absence-generated melancholy. Mum decided, from the available options, that she fancied a vegetarian dinner: we have, I admit, been eating more meat- and fish-based meals recently, as I’m an inveterate carnivore.

The Italian mozzarella melts, from Iceland (of course, although next week’s grocery order is from Tesco, for the things that you just can’t get from Iceland, like loo cleaner and baking powder), fit the bill nicely. They were pretty good, although went from chunky burger-looking objects when frozen to, once cooked, what mum, with perfect accuracy, termed “splats”.

The hasselback potatoes¹ were best described as ‘unobjectionable’: maybe I needed to leave them in the oven longer, but they were distinctly lacking in crunch, and had none of the salt and pepper seasoning flavour listed on the bag, probably because it came in powder form in a separate sachet which, unsurprisingly, failed to stick to the frozen potatoes.

Then I had a couple of mince pies from the last box we have (sob) with Tesco’s Finest vanilla ice cream, one of which I have already put on this week’s order, and may go back to amend to two of (if you’ll excuse the dodgy grammar).

I totally forgot to take any photos of either part of today’s meal, which I will put down to my tiredness. Which I will continue to try to ignore for the next hour and ten minutes until the end of The Repair Shop, when I can slope off to my bedroom for some hot Ribena, a few rounds of my favourite tower defence game (with which I am and will continue to be obsessed, right up until the moment I’m not, after which I will never look at it again), then the nightly fight with my contact lenses (another victim of my dodgy hand situation), and sleep.

G’night, folks.

1. If you’ve never come across hasselback potatoes (I may or may not be spelling the first part right: I cba to look it up), they’re potatoes cut widthways to about two-thirds of the way through, so they fan open to absorb more flavour and give extra crispiness. Or not, in the case of these ones. ↩︎