Portugal trip 2012

Walking along the ocean in Madeira

In the spirit of our yearly European trip, we (and by we, I mean mostly me) planned and researched, and reviewed and investigated places to travel to. We decided on Portugal. Why? Well we had always wanted to go to Spain, but that is in a lot of turmoil right now, however we had always heard that Mike's grandfather, Papu, enjoyed Portugal. This summer I booked most of the trip and got everything in order. As I will describe, we had some bumps along the way, but in the end we had an amazing time and ate some really wonderful food. We both agree that the quality of the food throughout the trip was very consistent and high. 

Sunset over the north side of Madeira island

The schedule was to leave from Chicago, where we would be the weekend before hand with family, and travel to Madeira, an island colony off of the north of Africa for 4 days. We would then go back to the mainland and stay in Lagos, on the south coast of Portugal for another 4 days. Finally we would stay in the capital of Lisbon for the remaining 2 full days.   

View from our hotel

The bumps started a day before I left to join Mike in Chicago. I received an email that the third party company I had booked our hotel through (at this point I didn't even realize I hadn't booked through the actual hotel) had gone into bankruptcy and if we wanted to stay an our hotel, we would need to rebook and repay the full cost. Needless to say, I was very upset. We figured it was best to agree to the charge and get the payment back through our credit card. Worst case scenario we would be out some money, but still have a place to stay when we arrived with an upgraded room (since the hotel was very apologetic about the whole situation) 

First walk along the ocean

We flew through CDG Paris to Lisbon, where we found out that our bags had not made the connection and wouldn't make the flight to the island. Ok, second bump. 


Getting ready for dinner.... with new clothes since our bags never made it

Arriving into Madeira in the mid-afternoon, we spoke to the cab driver who agreed to take us on some tours in the coming week. We found the hotel and attempted to stay awake after the overnight flight. Thank goodness Delta perks got us into Business Class so we could get some sleep. But still no bags. We walked around the area and went to a restaurant for dinner with a ok food and a great view. We got back to the hotel to... still no bags. By 11:00pm the front desk called and said one of our bags had arrived. Unfortunately for Mike, it was my bag that arrived. 


Overlooking Funchal

Downtown Funchal

The next morning we took a day trip into Funchal. We did a little shopping, took the cable cars up to a Tropical Gardens, missed the first scheduled cab back to the hotel (third bump), but discovered a wonderful shellfish called Limpets because of it. 

Tropical gardens

1000 year old Olive Trees

Pictures of our travels through Funchal: Gardens, Cable car, Horse Fountain, Painted Door



 

       

Bolo (fried garlic bread) - a staple of Madeira

Getting back to the hotel that evening.... still no bag for Mike. Uh oh, fourth bump. We decided to get him a bunch of backup clothes since we still needed to go to dinner and he had been wearing the same clothes for 50+ hrs. We were just hoping that the bag would come in time for our hiking trip the next day. 

We went to the mall across the street and 20 minutes later returned to the hotel with.... Mike's bag waiting for us.

Fresh Mussels

Grilled Sardines

Grilled Limpets

We went out to dinner at an amazing place we happened to walk past and look up on TripAdvisor. They had a Mixed Fish on the Stone dish that was so good, we went back two nights later. The 'stone' is basically a super heated cast iron block that they sear the fish on in front of you. We had the mixed fish, which included salmon, octopus, swordfish, cod, and other local varieties. A very good find and evening, for a semi-rough start to the vacation :)  


Fish on the Stone and Steak Skewer at Real Canoa in Madeira

Baking Bread

For the past few months, I have been keeping some yeast I portioned off from my mom alive in my fridge. This requires weekly feedings to maintain the freshness. We went through some french breads and rolls, but I finally found something that makes not only beautiful, but really delicious bread.

The Dutch Oven Bread recipe that I have been consistently using is very easy and can be used with regular boxed yeast. I use an antique cast iron dutch oven that so far, has only had my bread in it. I think any deep pan would do just as well. I'm currently on the hunt for a smaller pot so I can make multiple loaves and give some of the bread to friends on weeks when I know we won't make it through the entire loaf.

Thank goodness that Costco makes 25lbs bags of flour, we go through a lot! Bought the air tight containers at Target, but still having trouble filling them. Perhaps a really large funnel.....



Beach Crazy

 Welcome to the Bahamas!

We spent and amazing vacation with my sister and her bf down on the island of Eleuthera in the Bahamas. The beach was amazing. Just a short (steep) walk down a flight of stairs, to an almost private beach.

We grilled the fish that were caught during the deep sea fishing trip, hunted for sea glass, drank some Rum Bubbas, got eaten by the 'no see ums' bugs, played loads of cards, and had an amazing time!

Holiday Recipe Cards

Have you noticed a lack of holiday cards out there? Similar to my lack of blog posts, yes.

I made up some cards for the holiday for my aunts to sell in at a local Christmas Tree farm back in Wisconsin. I printed them out on colored stock paper and cut them out. Would be nice for a cookie recipe exchange or for holiday recipes.

Feel free to save them and print them off for your own personal use. Rights reserved ;-)

Happy Holidays!

Santa

Mrs Claus

Reindeer

Smoked Motz

After taking our cheese class we took a break from making it homemade. But a new smoker purchase revived our desire when we saw smoked mozzarella on FoodNetwork's Best Thing I Ever Ate.

While it might look like a big 'ol marshmallow, it's the end result of a half gallon batch of whole milk mozzarella smoked low and slow for about 40 - 60 min.
The recipe for the cheese comes from Ricki Carroll's 'Home Cheese Making' book, which I would highly recommend if you are interested in soft to hard cheeses as a beginner. Very easy instructions and loads of information!

We had the sliced mozzerella in a crusty bread sandwitch with some pesto spread. It was also wonderful in a BBQ Pulled Pork Pizza which also came from our smoker. Mike's getting a lot of practice on the smoker and our dishes are getting better and better each time!

It got us so excited that we ordered a cheese press so we can start making hard cheeses. Hope to report back in a few months once they've matured!

Summer Sealife

I try to decorate some with the seasons, but I was feeling a little weak for Summer. I had some nautical themed things, some antique ocean babbles and shells, but not enough to center a room one.
Flipping through an old magazine for Pottery Barn, I saw some of their Sealife pillows. They were stiched in beige and really pretty with Seahorses, an Octopus, and other fish. I thought they would also look nice as hand painted items.

I got together some art paints, a color scheme, some samples and started. First I sewed the pillow together from some cheap fabric remnants. Learned a good lesson about zippers, always get a larger size, you can make it shorter, but you can't extend it.

After that I sketched the octopus out onto the linen and began to paint the base color with acrylics.

I did some highlighting and shading after the base dried. Finished it off with a sealant spray. I found some matching pillows in the same oranges and corals on sale at Pottery Barn and finally have my summer sea room.

Shipping up to Boston

Back in April I had the chance to travel to Boston for work. I was there almost the whole work week and then Mike came out for the weekend to save ticket prices on my return flight.

I stayed out in Cambridge, but got a chance to visit Harvard a couple times, Newbury St, Prudential Building (Top of the Hub restaurant had a wonderful view of the city!)

(Stonework on the Longfellow Bridge)

(Cemetery in Harvard)

(Statue in Boston Common Park)

It mostly rained while I was there, but then the weekend warmed up a bit and we were able to go on the 'Freedom Trail' seeing the historical sites of Paul Revere. We saw the Aquarium out on the warf where we stayed, which was very nice. An octopus woke up during the last 10 minutes of operation and it was mezmorizing!

We got to eat a lot of great seafood and tour some of the older pubs. As we sat in the restaurants and wondered around, we continued to see people with little pastry boxes from a 'Mike's Pastry' shop. So after a quick google map, we decided to go see what all the fuss was about.

The fuss was actually the best Cannoli we have ever had (sorry Chicago). It also happend to be across from the restuarant we visited twice, for their seafood and every day there were lines of people streaming out of the pastry shop. Simply the best stuff!

The restaurant that brought us back a second time was called the 'Daily Catch'. We were told they specialized in Squid Ink Pasta. We found the small eatery, which was no larger than 9 or 10 two person tables, with the kitchen right in the room. (This picture is from the front door and you can see the kitchen in the back)

It was more than well worth the wait. The octopus squid ink pasta was so so amazing! In fact I found an accidental peice of glass in mine and continued to eat it and never even said anything it was so so good and they were working so hard. We had to come back the next day for another pasta dish and pastry for dessert.