Category: foooood

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foooood in portugal just life

consoada

consoada, the family dinner on christmas eve, is the epitome of christmas celebrations in portugal. families get together and a ton of food, homemade wine and sweets are consumed. there’s nothing fancy about it: everybody brings something and we share it all. and then, when people are nearing sugar coma, santa claus descends upon us and distributes the presents. because the family is quite big and loves to give cleverly disguised gag gifts, the process takes hours… plus for the first time in a really long time, there’s a baby in the family again – his name is martim, and he loves to help people tear the wrapping paper off their presents! :)







it never gets old! :)

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foooood in slovenia

‘shrooms!

autumn is my favourite season. it’s cold, but not freezing, the leaves turn to gorgeous colors… but the best part is the food! there’s persimmons, roasted chestnuts, apples, hot chocolate, gluhwein here and there… and mushrooms!

portugal isn’t a very “mushroomy” country, and it was only when i left home that i started to realise there was more to mushrooms than the yellow-mushy-canned variety. since then we’ve been in a path to enlightenment, slowly discovering different varieties and flavours.

and then we came to slovenia and we were blown away. due to a perfect combination of forests, humidity and sun, this country is mushroom paradise! mushroom picking is something everybody seems to know about: which ones to pick, how to pick them, how to cook… it’s a national hobbie! it’s so popular that there’s a law forbidding any person to pick more than 2kg in a day!

on a recent hike with the ics club, we’ve learnt a couple of things about this art. first, everything red is a big no-no, potentially deadly, and there are a few deaths per year caused by ingestion of poisoning mushrooms. and when picking mushrooms you should never pull them up from the roots, instead cutting with a blade to preserve the crop.

here’s a sample of what we saw on that hike:


+10 points for slovenia! :D

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foooood

lighter banana muffins

i think these were the best muffins we’ve done in a long time. they’re fluffy, moist… and they have banana, which is always a big plus in my book :)

for 8 small muffins, you’ll need:
– 1 egg, beaten
– 2 ripe bananas, mashed
– 1 cup flour
– 1/2 teaspoon of salt
– 1/4 cup of sugar
– 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda

preheat the oven to 175C. lightly grease and dust 8 muffin cups.
in a medium bowl, combine eggs and bananas. in a separate bowl, mix together flour, salt, sugar and baking soda. stir banana mixture into flour mixture. fold in broken walnuts if desired (we did, they were good).
pour batter into prepared muffin cups, bake in preheated oven for 20-25min.

voilà! :)

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foooood in the netherlands

Patat with mayonnaise

there’s something so simple and right about this… the netherlands might be the land of snacks & small pleasures :)

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foooood in the netherlands

stroopwafles!


how can one come to the netherlands and resist the omnipresent stroopwafle? it would be like going to belgium and not eating chocolate…
the sweet smell coming from a tent on the alkmaar fair was enough to stop us on our tracks and grab a couple of them. these thin slices of warm waffle, stuck together with syrup are a divine dutch treat. yum!