Burgers and Brownies

This weekend started out in the best way possible. With raclette, housemates, multiple bottles of red wine, and a late night trip to Tesco for chocolatey treats to eat in front of Graham Norton.
Raclette is a Swiss cheese, but as we were shopping in Aldi, we had to substitute it for a Bavarian smoked cheese. This was melted over salami/chorizo/proscuitto, and poured on top of roasted new potatoes, served with griddled asparagus, mushrooms, red onions, tomatoes, and peppers. It was EPIC. I'm drooling just thinking about it. I'm already looking forward to the next raclette night. nom nom nom.

Saturday morning was time to get my life in order, do my chores, re-heel shoes I completely destroyed by walking 5 hours a day for 6 days around European cities, and bake brownies!

White chocolate and dark chocolate chip blondie/brownie swirls

Saturday night was date night. Earlier in the week I had seen an article on the MSN home page listing their top 25 burger places in the UK, and one of their recommendations was a pub right by Ally's in Southampton. How could we not visit?! I proceeded to spend the remainder of the week building up my excitement for this burger.
The Rockstone was packed despite us arriving relatively early, we literally had to fight for a table. The extensive burger menu (almost 20 varieties to choose from) did not disappoint, and don't even get me started on the 18oz slab of meat that the couple next of us were attempting to work their way through! We opted for the Salzburger (bacon and smoked cheese) and the Livin' The Gouda Vida (chorizo and gouda) with a side order of onion rings and fries. As you can see the portions weren't small, I didn't even eat any of my bun and was still stuffed! The burgers were described as medium-rare but I would say they were slightly over-cooked for my liking.

After stuffing ourselves silly we waddled home and I finally watched Skyfall. I did fall asleep half way through so I didn't get quite as into the storyline as perhaps I could have, but I'd say it was only alright.


To attempt to redeem myself after the raclette/brownie/burger consumption of the past 48 hours Sunday morning was time for exercise. We drove to Eastleigh train station, ran along the River Itchen (I think) into Winchester, past the Cathedral and up to the train station there. All well and good except that an hour later I was still making my way home in my running gear and was freeeeeeeeeezing.
The route was one Ally had cycled before but I had never been along there before. It was a really nice route, and actually went some way to distract me from the fact that I was running 12.5km. Ouch. But all necessary for the half marathon training. 5 weeks to go.....

Just one of the pretty views along the River Itchen

After a rather muddy and rather looong cross-country run.

After (finally) getting home we made a variety of bruschetta for lunch : red onion, tomato and pesto, roasted aubergine, and avacado. And a cheeky brownie.

A couple of episodes of Grey's Anatomy and a cup of tea later it was time to head back to Reading, consume 2 and a half bowls of cereal for dinner (I should ALWAYS be supervised around cereal) and hit the sack ready for Monday morning. Booooooo.

In other news this week, I have booked my flights to Mexico, whoop whoop!!
I am presenting my research as a poster at a conference in Cancun at the end of April. Despite the fact that we are going for a conference, my supervisor did specifically pick this conference because "it's a lot more about the social side than the science" and taking his advice I intend to make sure I get adequate time on the beach in between attending lectures. CANNOT WAIT!!!!

Hope you have a good week

Victoria x




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