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Friday 29 August 2014

Cold buster smoothie

Finally, it is so good to be back home! Although it was an amazing trip, nothing beats coming home to home cooked food, a warm bath and the most comfortable bed!
Lack of sleep, hours of travelling and not the best of living conditions all probably contributed to my mild symptoms cold and flu. Therefore the perfect start to the day was a cold buster smoothie! When feeling poorly, the body absorbs more of vitamin C then it usually would when healthy. So a vitamin C and antioxidant packed smoothie was in need!

VITAMIN C SMOOTHIE
  • About 150 ml green tea, chilled
  • 1 orange/mandarin 
  • Large handful of frozen mixed berries
  • A few teaspoons of honey
1.Blend everything together until smooth and thick. Add more frozen fruit if a thicker consistency is desired. 

Xx

Sunday 24 August 2014

Eurotrip

Hello!
Wow I can't believe that it has been over a month since I've properly blogged or posted any sort of recipe! As I am currently travelling around Europe, it will sadly be a week or two more until I get back into the swing of posting.
Nearing the end of my trip, it has become clear that food has played a major role in our discovery of different cities! We tried to steer away from touristy eateries and sample the most authentic and traditional dishes.

Brussels 
This was a great place to start our travels whereby we indulged in daily waffles. The waffles here are out of this world! Thick and sugary yet still light, fluffy and slightly chewy- definitely the best ones I have ever had! On a rainy afternoon we decided to have a big pot of moules et frites which really hit the spot! We then sampled and bought some Belgium chocolate which were so smooth and amazing (which I sadly forgot at one of the hotels along the way). We finished off the trip at the Delerium bar, world famous for it's extensive list of about 3000 beers. Not a beer fan myself, I managed to find a few great beers, namely the cactus beer and the delerium red (berry beer) and have taken a new liking to this beverage.
Amsterdam
As hard as we tried, it seems like Amsterdam is not known for it's food! However, it was nice to see that people are relatively healthy with juice and salad bars all over the place. I don't actually remember seeing a Macdonald's here, so that's a plus! We did sample some streetfood, namely their croquette: fried stick filled with creamy ragout and their frikendal: a spiced sausage covered in curry and onion, delicious!

Berlin
Although Berlin was a great place to visit with respect to it's history and culture (if visiting, I highly recommend the daily Sandermans free walking tours as well as the concentration camp tour), the food was rather disappointing. Germany is known to have the most types of breads in the world and although we didn't try many, their bakeries and their extensive range of goodies were impressive! We gave in to a huge cheesy pretzel, usually sold by street vendors all around town.


Prague
Prague was a great place to visit with such charm to it, after our 12 hour train journey from hell (4 changes and a 4 hour wait outside a station at 1am!), I really wish that I had an extra day to visit the place. Food was much cheaper here so it was hard not to try abit of everything! Plum upside down cake, tripe soup, sour mushroom soup, pork knee and the list goes on, we certainly managed to get a good glimpse at Czech food within the one night we had in Prague!
Vienna
Arriving on a public holiday and only spending one night in this beautiful city, we didn't manage to sample much of the food. For dinner we did sample a traditional schnitzel, which was perfectly crispy yet still juicy. The flee market was also great with lots of fresh fruits and snacks.

Budapest & Zagreb
Budapest has been my favourite place of the trip so far! Such friendly people, so much to see and do and very reasonable and tasty food. We first went for one of their traditional sweet breads, Kurtosh which was amazing! Cooked fresh when bought, this sweet cinnamon flavoured bread is very light and perfect as a snack as you walk around town. The bakeries are packed of interesting looking cakes, all of which are rustic, full of flavour and far from the usually overprocessed sugary treats sold in the UK.
Our stop in Zagreb was rather short and rushed therefore not leaving much time to try any local specialities. However, we did notice that most streets had corn on the cob vendors which were a great healthy snack!

Italy
Without a doubt, Italy has been the most exciting to our taste buds! The thought of pasta and pizza would not usually appeal to me, however do not rule out these dishes until you have tried the authentic homemade kind! Three nights in Florence was far from enough to try out all that we had planned to, but so far nothing has dissapointed! It was also a great plus to have a temporary food market right outside of our hotel. From mushroom tagliatelle, gluten free chickpea flour farinata, bruschetta, baby octopus, grilled squid, chestnut flour trofie, bistecca and croquettes, melon & prosciutto ham, cannoli, gelato and so, so much more!
Now off to explore Rome followed by a couple of days in Athens!
Xx