Lunch, 16/03/2008. Ahhh, my old favourite, fried SPAM and egg with rice. My favourite side with this is baked beans, and sometimes I like to mix corn kernels in with the baked beans. I eat the corn and Heinz baked beans as a hot side dish with SPAM, egg and rice, but I also love eating them cold, straight out of the tin with a spoon. Quite uncivilised, but oddly satisfying. SPAM, though, I always have to eat hot, fried in a pan, with or without egg.

Dinner, 16/03/2008. Jac had bought us a couple of plump chicken schnitzels from the supermarket. She panfried them and served them up with sliced fresh cucumber, cherry tomatoes, corn kernels (I’d used only half the tin of corn for my lunch) and mixed salad greens.

Jac had cooked the schnitzels to perfection. I’m normally not into chicken breast meat at all, but these were tender and juicy, and absolutely delicious. The schnitzels’ crispy crumbed coating provided a tasty texture contrast to the moist white meat.

Dinner, 17/03/2008. We had beef and vegetable rissoles from Woolworths, served with salad and two sauces for dipping – ketchup and aioli. These rissoles really had vegetables in them – carrots and peas – I could see the orange and green flecks peeping through the brown meat before cutting into them, as this photo shows. The rissoles were thick and meaty, with a springy texture and a juicy chewiness. I had a leftover rissole with rice for breakfast the next morning.

Dinner, 18/03/2008. Jac had also bought spicy marinated chicken wings from Woolworths, and we had them for the dinner the following evening. They tasted of chilli and lime and the sauce was finger-sucking GREAT! They were succulent, but really tiny – I easily devoured half a dozen of them. The mixed salad came in a pre-washed pack and consisted of English spinach and julienned carrot and beetroot, and Jac sliced up some fresh cucumber, cherry tomatoes and orange baby capsicums to go with it. Jac knows I am not a fan of beetroot, and I think she half-expected me to pick beetroot out of the salad as I ate, but I decided to give it a go. After all, the fresh beetroot cut into batons bore no resemblance to the beetroot that I loathe – tinned beetroot, such as this product by Golden Circle. The beetroot in this salad didn’t really have a distinct flavour – it made its presence known mostly through its crunch. And there was not a drop of it-stains-everything bright pink beetroot juice in sight! I started eating the meal using cutlery, but finished it unashamedly with my fingers. It was just much easier that way. It was just the sort of meal you had to be grabby with to really enjoy. When we finished dinner, there were just two pieces of chicken left on the oven tray, along with a lot of that tasty marinade. When it had cooled down, I covered the tray and put it in the fridge overnight. The next morning, I had those last two pieces of chicken with rice for breakfast – I tossed the rice in all that spicy, yummy marinade before zapping it in the microwave with the chicken. It was so tasty.