A quick potato salad recipe!

This is just a quick post because I was so chuffed with my potato salad that I had for lunch today - made out of the left overs in my fridge last night - that I wanted to share the recipe! Unfortunately I have no photos except a terrible one of the second half of the salad in it's Tupperware ready for tomorrow's lunch! But seriously, this is a real easy, really tasty potato salad that you can make the night before a miserable Monday morning to cheer you up later in the day - and it really did put a smile on my face at lunchtime!


So here we go... quantities are vague as ever - makes about two portions - but you can really just use up left overs for this recipe!

Ingredients

a couple of handfuls of small potatoes (or chop up a couple of bigger potatoes!)
about 100ml sour cream
a splash of white wine vinegar
generous twist of salt and black pepper
a handful of fresh dill, chopped finely (or just use about a teaspoon of dried dill like I did!)
1/4 red onion chopped very finely
1/2 cucumber, seeds scraped out and chopped
about 100g smoked salmon (or however much you can spare!)

Boil your potatoes for around 15minutes or until soft.

While they're boiling, mix together the sour cream, white wine vinegar, dill and seasonings in a large bowl.

Drain your potatoes and add to the dressing while still warm. Leave to cool while you chop the remaining ingredients.

Once cool, add the cucumber, onion and smoked salmon and mix through until everything is coated nicely in the dressing. Pack up in a Tupperware or two for lunch the next day, or serve with a green salad and a glass of cool white wine for dinner!

Variations

If you have a different combination of ingredients in your fridge or want to try a different potato salad then go for it! Why not swap the smoked salmon for some smoked haddock and go heavy on the black pepper? Or you could easily swap the sour cream for crème fraîche (maybe use a bit less as this tends to be a bit richer) or natural yoghurt, though the red onion works really well with sour cream. And if you're less of a fish fan, then go for some cut up smoked bacon or pancetta instead and swap your dill for some fresh parsley. The opportunities are endless... so Happy Monday... have a lovely week and enjoy!

Food experiences in Beautiful Bosnia

Interrail Stop 8

To round off our interrail tour of Eastern Europe before hitting the Croatian beach, we visited the beautiful Bosnia and Herzegovina. Definitely one of my favourite places on our trip, with amazing scenery, fascinating markets and welcoming people, but a country still feeling the after effects of the devastating war in the 1990s. We chatted to the locals and absorbed ourselves in the history, and, of course, sampled some of the food!

Sarajevo

We stopped firstly in Sarajevo and walked all over the city, visiting the many different places of worship and browsing the markets full of interesting items. Down one of these side streets we stopped for a bite to eat in a little cafe and shared a huge plateful of ćevapčići - tasty little sausages that are a national dish in Bosnia and Herzegovina and can also be found in some of the other Southeastern European countries. Served typically with a flat bread, raw onions and sour cream or soft cheese... it's a kind of kebab that tastes AMAZING!!


After having this for lunch in the cafe, we later found the hostel guys cooking it on a BBQ... which was soooo much more delicious! Less grease but still all of the flavour, and a great way to line the stomach before a night in Sarajevo!
 

Mostar

We then traveled down to Mostar, a city you might recognise by its Old Bridge (Stari Most), which proudly stands now as a handmade reconstruction of the same bridge that stood before the war and a symbol of Bosnia's recovery.


During our brief stay in Mostar we went on a trip in a small group to see the small village at the source of the Buna river, Blagaj and the Kravice Falls (the gorgeous scene in the photo at the top of this post). At the river, we we lucky enough to eat a traditional breakfast of Burek and Bosnian Coffee.

 

We had already sampled Burek on other stops, but this was a different dish again... with the pastry formed into a different shape and filled with either cheese or meat... it was a hearty breakfast for a day of walking, swimming and jumping in at the waterfall!

The Bosnian coffee was strong and rich - not my cup of tea (or coffee!!!) as I tend to prefer it super milky - but it was worth a try and I'm sure it would be delicious if you weren't a wussy coffee drinker like me!!


So there you have it... a brilliant end to our touring around Eastern Europe with some delicious food and some of the best sights. If you've ever wondered about visiting Bosnia, then stop wondering and just go!

Thanks for reading about the food we tasted on our trip! I can't wait to go and see some more amazing sights and try some new dishes some time soon! But for now, keep popping back to see some recipes, cookbook and restaurant reviews...

Super Easy Open Baguette

This was a ridiculously easy but very tasty meal that I cooked for a friend the other night after work. When you want to eat nice food, but really can't be bothered to spend hours in the kitchen, then this might be one for you! You can change the ingredients to anything that you fancy (I think most people would add tomatoes to this but I don't particularly like them), or you might prefer different toppings altogether...

Whatever you put on it, a part-baked baguette topped with tasty bits is going to be a hit! And if you are anything like me, then you just cannot have too much cheese...

Serves 2

Ingredients

1 large part-baked baguette
2 tablespoons green pesto (preferably homemade but if it's going to be a quick after-work dinner like it was for me then shop bought will definitely suffice!)
1/2 red pepper, sliced
4 pieces parma ham
1 mozzarella ball, sliced
freshly ground black pepper

Method

Cut the baguette in half and then top up with the ingredients in the order shown below. Make sure to give a good twist of black pepper before putting it into a preheated oven (according to the baguette packet instructions). I would probably bake it for about 10mins or until the cheese is bubbling deliciously!

Serve with a green salad (delicious with rocket!) and add some roughly chopped fresh basil leaves to compliment the pesto flavours... Enjoy!

My best ever Fried Rice Recipe

The other night I made the best fried rice ever... it was tasty, healthy, cheap, easy and lasted me a dinner and two lunches! With just a few bits of veg I had left over in my fridge and a selection of Thai flavours I concocted this yummy dish, and I really didn't expect it to go quite this well... It was that good I probably won't be able to recreate it, but I've done my best to write a bit of a recipe for it here so that you can have a go and so I can try and remember how I did it!! Apologies for the big headedness - you will just have trust me that this was just THAT good!

Ingredients (don't trust these completely, alter as you wish, and feel free to add whatever veg you like!)

Serves 2-3
two white fish fillets (I actually just used cheapo frozen white fish!)
1 portion of rice (about 1/3 cup)
1 large carrot, grated
2 teaspoons of sugar
1 teaspoon of white wine vinegar
2 eggs
olive oil
1 red onion, chopped
about half a broccoli (cut the florets into small pieces)
2 lemon grass stalks, chopped finely
1 garlic clove, chopped finely
1 chilli, chopped
1 red pepper, chopped
3spring onions, chopped
1 tablespoon of soy sauce
1 tablespoon of Thai sweet chilli sauce
salt and pepper
a large handful of fresh coriander, chopped roughly

Recipe (or something similar!)

Bake the fish in the oven for 15-20mins depending on the size of the fillets. Boil a pan of water and add your rice. Cook until it is soft and then drain. Mix the grated carrot with the sugar and white wine vinegar. Crack the eggs into a jug and whisk with a fork. Leave all these to the side for later.

Put a dash of oil in your wok over a medium-high heat, then add the onion and broccoli and fry until the onion starts to soften a little.

Then add lemon grass, garlic, chilli and red pepper and fry for a couple of minutes.

Add the carrot mixture and spring onions and fry for a further minute before tipping the veg into a bowl, leaving the wok empty.


Put another dash of olive oil into the wok and add your whisked eggs. Keep moving it around with a wooden spoon until the eggs begin to cook, making sure that none of it sticks to the pan.

Add the ready cooked rice and mix in. Make sure all of the egg is cooked, then add your veg mixture.

Mix in your soy and sweet chilli sauces and season with salt and pepper.

Finally, throw in as much coriander as you like (it's my favourite herb and an essential flavour to this dish!), mix altogether and serve.

YUM!!!!!

Fabulous Food in Slovenia

 The sun's out and it's taken me back to my interrail tour around Europe in the summer... so today I thought I'd share a few of the delicious food experiences we had in Slovenia. This beautiful country was probably up there as one of my favourites - some of the scenery reminded me of Italy but without the price tag and some of the buildings reminded me of Austria! It was absolutely lovely and we managed to try a range of tasty dishes...

Interrail Stop 7

 

Street Eats

We stayed in the capital Ljubljana for a couple of nights, exploring Lake Bled and Lake Bohenj on one day and the city and castle the next.

Just around the corner from our hostel was a bakery called 'Dunajska Pekarna' that made the best chocolate croissant I have ever had. Seriously. It was warm and soft with melted chocolate in the middle and crispy pastry around the edge...  YUM!

 
On the topic of tasty sweets, we also sampled this traditional Bled cream cake: 'kremšnita'. Lake Bled (photo above) was probably the highlight of our stay in Slovenia. Famous for the island in the middle of the lake, the area has also got a name for this incredible cake. Looking at the photo you might think that it would taste sickly or stodgy, but you must trust me when I say this is just SO GOOD! Light, fluffy cream and custard in the middle, with a satisfyingly sweet pastry base and topping... I repeat, SO GOOD!

This next street eat is Börek (or burek) and doesn't just appear in Slovenia. With Ottoman origins, we came across it in the former Yugoslavia countries, each putting their own twist on the style. In Slovenia, the burek that we ate was meat filled and tasty! Shaped in a spiral and then shared between the two of us, this was a great meal on the go. We couldn't decide exactly what it was made from - it seemed to be a dough somewhere in between filo pastry and pasta (!!) - but whatever it was, it was delicious!

And last but not least, the smell of Nutella tempted us to try another pancake - very similar to those that we had in Belgrade, but this time we chose a sweet filling. I don't think that I need to say very much for you to know that this was just awesome!!

So by the end of our stay in Slovenia we had sampled several of the street eats and (though I may have left with a couple more pounds in weight!) none of it broke the bank!

Meal Out

 

As none of the food was particularly expensive (and all totally yummy!) we also treated ourselves to a meal out to a restaurant recommended by our hostel owner. The restaurant was called Gujzina and was not far from the main square and the triple bridge.

It was a beautiful restaurant and we were lucky enough to be seated at the window. We admired the loveliness of the whole thing and then proceeded to order the cheapest meal we possibly could (I know it's a bad way to choose from a menu but we were running out of money!!), settling for a set two course meal for two, including a white wine spritzer each! When the food arrived, believe me, we could not have been more delighted at the meal we had chosen!

A cold meat board starter with freshly baked bread was our first treat of the evening - a tantalizing selection of meats with smooth pate, a tuna mix, cheese and salad accompaniments - I don't think I could have picked a better starter than this, it was absolutely delicious!





A warm, hearty stew of red meats and potatoes was our next treat - a prekmurski bograč - served in a delightful little dish hanging over a candle. The flavours were similar to that of a Hungarian Goulash, but not quite the same. The menu described it as a Slovenian stew, including pork, beef, venison, potatoes, onions, garlic, pepper and salt. I'd love to know what other spices they used to create this yummy dish!

And our final treat for the evening was the bill... 22.90 Euro for both of us, including the drinks!! So if you're ever in Ljubljana then make sure you try this restaurant!





Delicious food, friendly locals and amazing scenery, Slovenia is definitely one to go back to for a longer stay. To round off our trip to this lovely country, I just want to leave you with on last photo...

A Real Wiener Schnitzel

Interrail Stop 4

While in Vienna we couldn't leave without trying the famous Austrian dish. We wanted to go to a traditional restaurant that would serve us up a real wiener schnitzel and we had a recommendation for a small restaurant cafe called Schnitzelwirt that would do exactly that.

We got so lost trying to find it that we thought they might have shut the kitchen by the time we got there... they were closing up outside as we arrived!

But luckily, my friend speaks fluent German and managed to ask them if they'd do a quick schnitzel and mixed salad for us to share with a couple of glasses of their house white.

We sat at a table surrounded by awards and newspaper clippings of the restaurant. It was a very traditional setting with lots of wood and a smiley Austrian couple sat opposite smoking, and chatting to us about our visit!

When the food arrived not long later, it was absolutely huge and so tasty - very simple with the apple and cabbage salad perfectly complimenting the pork - YUM!

As we hadn't looked at a menu, and the order had been a quick chat with a waiter at the door, we were a little concerned about the bill.

Knowing that it was recommended as a cheap place we were hoping for the best, but when the bill came we couldn't believe how cheap it was!!! 15Euro for the huge meal and two glasses of wine! I would have paid double that and felt we had got a good deal... so all in all a fantastic evening out and a delicious wiener schnitzel!

Beet Soup and Krakow Style Pork

Interrail Stop Number 2

Our second city stop was the lovely Polish city, Krakow. We toured around the castle, admired the Old Town streets, square and market, as well as paying our respects in a visit to Auschwitz (which was truly haunting but I would strongly recommend it as I learned so much from our tour guide and cannot begin to describe the scale and feel of the place in words or photos).

The day and a half we had in this city felt short, and it is somewhere that I would like to revisit for a longer period, but it was a great stop and we tried some traditional food...

After the yummy dumplings we tasted in Warsaw on the first of our interrail stops, we were looking forward to sampling more Polish cuisine in Krakow. We went to a tiny restaurant/cafe called Kuchnia u Doroty, recommended by the free walking tour group, and shared the famous Polish beet soup with croquette (Barszcz z krokietem) as a starter before two hearty main dishes - a Beef Stroganoff (Strogonoff) and Roast Pork with toast and Krakow style gravy (Maczanka po krakowsku).

Beet Soup

Croquette

We were unsure about ordering the the starter - beetroot soup, what was that going to taste like? But it was on nearly every Polish menu, so we went for it and it was absolutely delicious!! Satisfyingly salty and full of rich flavours, this warming soup had a winter food feel but without the stodge. The croquette was unusual, with undefinable meat in a pasta-come-pastry-come-potato roll, in a light crispy batter. It was a nice accompaniment to the soup, and soaked up the beetroot flavour when dipped in, but perhaps not the tastiest thing on its own!

Beef Stroganoff

Krakow Pork

The main courses were very large, very filling and unnecessarily carby (as was the case with a lot of the local food!). The stroganoff was good, but quite watery and lacking in flavour. The Krakow style sauce had plenty of flavour, but not entirely sure what flavours they were!! The pork was nicely cooked, as were the mushroom and potato accompaniments,but the toast was literally two slices of plain white bread sandwiching the pork. Obviously, with this much sauce it was just soggy bread, resulting in a very strange main course! 

So all in all, we were pleasantly surprised with the beet soup, and unpleasantly surprised with the mains!! Perhaps we were a little adventurous in ordering one of the only dishes on the menu that we had not heard of, but isn't that the point of trying food in new places?? Anyway, we had a great time, the staff were very friendly, the price was unbelievably low, and the cosy traditional setting made the meal a good one!

Polish Dumplings in Warsaw

Interrail Stop Number 1

So for our first stop on our interrail tour around Eastern European Cities, we went to Warsaw, Poland. We had been told to expect a very industrialised, built up and new looking city, which it was in some areas. But we were pleasantly surprised with the Old Town and castle, as much of what we walked through was gorgeous!

Anyhoo, the food... we had the most Polish dish we could find on the first night... dumplings!! Me and my friend ordered some refreshing lemon drinks, a portion of Great Hungarian Style Pancake (with goulash) and a mixture of savoury dumplings. Absolutely delicious but sooooo filling!!

Quick Mid-Week Meal

Chorizo, Mushroom and Onion Omelette

Just a quick, easy, on-the-go meal but a really yummy one. I love omelettes because you can put just about anything in it and it will taste great. This one is not so adventurous, but will give a great result.

Ingredients

butter
1/4 of an onion, chopped
handful of mushrooms, sliced
2 eggs
splash of milk
few chorizo pieces (this version is done with sandwich chorizo, not the good sausage stuff)
black pepper
cheese, grated (optional)

Recipe

Put your chopped onion in a frying pan with a small amount of butter. When it is starting to soften then add your mushrooms.

While these are fying, crack both eggs into a jug and add the milk. Whisk 'em up good and proper with a fork. I always add a healthy sprinkling of black pepper in here, and mix that up as well.

When the mushrooms are looking a bit brown and giving off that great smell, add the chorizo. Shortly after, pour in the egg mixture and turn the heat down a tad.

Leave it a couple of minutes to cook through - not turning too brown underneath, but until it is starting to look less runny on top. Add the grated cheese.

Give it a little while more, then use a spatula to loosen around the edges, folding it in half, then serve!

Easy peasy, yummy scrummy, cook me an omelette, I'm in a hurry!!