Portugal: the sights - Sintra.

I'm finally getting round to posting some Portugal pictures. And we have a lot. So I thought I might as well group them into themes/days.

So here's Sintra - a UNESCO protected site, for its architecture (Lord Byron apparently liked it). There are a lot of palaces, including this one (Palácio Nacional de Sintra), which we drove by, but didn't visit:


There is a really great castle, originally built by the moors (it's called Castelo dos Mouros), and then adapted and expanded by others. It has some nice intact features and has a real castle-y feel:





We also visited a palace - the Palácio Nacional da Pena (in my head I always added an extra 'n'), which you can walk to from the castle. Here it is from the castle:



And here's the entrace. It's all pretty colorful throughout.




If you look closely, that middle building with the archway, is kind of blue-ish. It's actually covered in tiles that look like this:

The level of intricate detail on a lot of the palace was crazy. And we found out that Portugal has a lot of tiles. We walked around inside, where you weren't allowed to take pictures, and they made you wear your bags on your front, I guess so you don't accidentally knock into anything. But sometimes you ended up on the outside, where we could take pictures.



We also stayed in a nice hotel in Sintra. An old converted villa, in lovely grounds, with a pool, and views of the castle in the distance. Very nice!

First BBQ of the season.

The weather has turned warm here, at least for the past couple of days, so we got out the two grills and cleaned them up.

Yesterday we had cheeseburgers. Today we had pulled pork, smoked with pecan wood chips.

Hooray for warm weather!

A Saturday walk.

We went on a local walk on Saturday. It wasn't overly sunny, but it was mild and pleasant.

Also, in the woods the wild garlic has come up, so it all smelled very fragrant - and made me hungry!

(Again, I'm posting from my phone, do I'm not sure what order the photos will be in...)

Food processor!

The day has come. After many months of coveting and pining and then considering and researching, I am now the proud owner of a food processor.

The first recipe I made with it was "Yeasted Coffee Cake" from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything. It was kind of a bread/cake hybrid, which required cutting butter into flour - something that I hate doing by hand.

I forgot to take a picture of the finished article. It turned out looking nice, with a streusel topping, but I actually didn't like the end result that much. I think I wanted it to be more cakey than bready, especially with that kind of topping - but I think that's just how the recipe is.

I do have a picture of the quiche - which you've all already seen. I made the crust for that using the food processor. And that turned out really nicely. I've also made pesto, an apple pie, pizza dough and bagels all using the processor.

Next up will be some kind of recipe that requires a lot of slicing - I haven't used the discs yet. But I do love it - it's great!

My first quiche.

Bacon, onion and mushroom.

Pancakes!

When Team Vallentine decided to celebrate Pancake Day, we immediately had an issue about whose pancakes we would make. In the UK, traditional Shrove Tuesday pancakes are basically like crepes, and are only served with sugar and lemon. I, on the other hand was hoping to use this opportunity for a full breakfast for dinner.

We debated.

Then the true American spirit won out.

We'd have both.

Mark made his (a Delia Smith recipe - I guess you could call her the UK's Julia Child) and I made mine (Mark Bittman's recipe from How to Cook Everything), and I of course included bacon and scrambled eggs on the side. We were a true International House of Pancakes.

It was yummy! I don't know why we were so late to this party, but now we've arrived, I think we're going to stick around... I'm already looking forward to next year!

(Third to blog! Phew.)

(P.S. I posted this from my phone, since that's what I used to take most of the pictures - but for some reason I can't change the order, even from my laptop, so they're not in the best order. Need to work on how to do this better from the phone...)

Is that Spring I see?

I looked out today to find that although there is no hint of Spring anywhere, some crocuses that I planted last autumn have decided it's time to make an appearance.

A couple of other bulbs are also starting to poke their heads out. I can't remember what I planted where so it will be a nice surprise to see what comes up!