A little update

Hello everyone!

I know I haven't posted in a while and I am writing this post to explain. I finished school in the beginning of June. Then I spent my days enjoying my free time, having fun with friends, spending time with family, admiring the beautiful sights of Portugal and just relaxing. 

By the time I looked at my calendar it was July already and that meant two things, one, I was turning 18 on the fourth and two I had to start packing, because I was moving back to Hungary in a week. I spent my birthday with family and friends and it was amazing, but then came the packing. We packed up the whole house, we said our last goodbyes and left our second home. I was very excited to go home and also because  we went by car so I got to travel for a few days before getting back to Hungary. We stopped in Spain, Italy, Germany, Austria, ... 

This trip was so nice, but when we finally arrived I was more than happy to see my family, my house and my friends. I think you appreciate more the little, normal, everyday things if you are away for a while. I was just excited to settle in again. 

I missed blogging a lot and I thought about posting so many times, but I was in a rush with all the moving, traveling and getting home. I didn't want to put up something that I wasn't satisfied with. I just find it important to think about my posts and do quality work. 

I wanted to write this post to say I am still alive, happy and home. Sadly, I'm going to post less, since it is summer and I am traveling and taking some time for my self. Even if I'm not posting on my blog I upload pictures on my instagram so feel free to follow me there as well. ( http://instagram.com/breakfast_at_katas/)
I hope everyone is having a great summer! 

Bye! 

Tromba Rija

Two weeks ago we decided to take a family road trip and we went to two beautiful towns named Óbidos and Alcobaça. It was such a nice day, because we got to walk around the towns, talk, have coffee, relax and also we ate dinner at a very special place.


First we went to Óbidos, where I have been before, but I was about 9 years old, so I only remembered a few things. I loved this place, because you can see the castle and walk on the big wall that surrounds the whole town. The houses are painted white and have different coloured stripes on the sides. This makes the streets so colourful and lovely. Also I was amazed by all the different flowers and trees. We found a little antique book shop where we spent about 30 minutes looking around and also we ended up buying a few books. I bought a portuguese cooking book which has beautiful big pictures in it and I am thinking about trying one or two recipes. I think it is better to go this time of the year, because it is not crowded by tourists, it is just quiet and you can really see how the local people live there.
  

The beautiful view of Óbidos

The red and blue striped houses

The antique bookshop 

Then we went to Alcobaça where we saw the Alcobaça Monastery that has a beautiful church and a garden inside of it. We had coffee in front of the Monastery, but then it was time for us to go to the restaurant that we have picked for that night.

Alcobaça Monastery

The restaurant Tromba Rija

This little trip was a few days before my father's birthday and we knew we were going to celebrate it with the whole family on the actual day. But we wanted to take this chance and have a little mini celebration. In the antique shop my father saw this book that was called "10 best restaurants in Portugal" and he read about this place called Tromba Rija in Leiria. Lots of guide books recommend to try it. The book said that the owners of this restaurant grow all the ingredients for the meals in their own garden, soo we were expecting a farm. It turned out to be this little restaurant in the middle of a small town with 5 or 6 tables which was a quiet and intimate place. The owner lady was serving us with the help of a waitress. The walls were covered with thank you notes from people who loved the food and the place. On the menu it said that the restaurant had been open for 51 years. 

The owner lady started by showing us to our table an then explaining how the whole dinner was going to be. This was a "degustacão", which means that they serve you a whole range of the typical food of the region. 

First we had three courses of appetizers like bread with butter, tuna and olive oil, clams, shrimps, cooked chestnut (which was so good I'm going to try making them myself), local melon with ham ... 

There was also a table full of different cheese that we could try before of after the dinner.

Next came the main course which was duck flambé with arrugula and rice. The duck was so soft and heavenly and the arrugula matched it perpectly. 
Then they brought a fruit plate full off fresh and delicious fruits like mango, pineapple, grapes, strawberry and kiwi. 

When we finished, we went to the dessert table where we could try different desserts like an apple cobbler, arroz doce, chocolate pudding, passionfruit pudding... All of them were so good and I wanted to eat more and more, but I was so full. :)

Then they brought diferent nuts and a tradicional drink called Amêndoa Amarga that is an almond liquor that they put in the freezer so when you drink it it's iced and also they squeeze a little lemon juice in it. We liked this drink so much that the next day my parents bought a bottle and we've put it in our freezer. Everything that we ate was amazing and by the time we finished we were so full that we couldn't move, but none of us had any regrets!

My family and me at Tromba Rija

I love going to different restaurants and trying interesting and new food so this night was very exciting for me. I also like sharing these experiences with you guys. This place was definitely a memorable one and I really do recommend it to anyone who visits Portugal and loves to eat A LOT! 

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Pastel de Natas

Pastel de Natas is known as a Portugues speciality which is mentioned in every guide book as a must try. I personally love them and I've eaten them so many times. To taste the real ones you must go to Belém in Lisbon and find a shop/cafe called, Pastéis de Belém. A few weeks ago we went there with my family and the "pastel"s were so tasty that I decided to give it a try at home. To make my life easier I used puff pastry which I bought in the store. I started making them and I found out that it is not as easy as it may seem. I think mine turned out pretty good for the first try, but I will improve my recipe to perfection.

INGREDIENTS:
1 pack of puff pastry
300ml cream
3 tablespoon of flour
3 egg yolks
3 tablespoons of granulated sugar  (but if you like it sweeter you can add more)

cinnamon

For the top: 

powdered sugar

cinnamon

(Also you will need a blow torch to burn the tops)

Take 1/4 of the cream and the flour and stir until smooth. Then pour the rest of the cream, sugar and some cinnamon (to your taste) in a bowl and place it on medium heat. Stir until everything has dissolved and then take it off the heat and let it cool a bit. Then place the egg yolks one by one while constantly whisking.
Take the puff pastry and roll it out on your working surface (put a little flour under it and on top) and then roll it up and cut it into 12 equal pieces. Get your muffin tin, butter the insides and distribute the dough evenly with your finger. Then fill them with the cream we made earlier up to 2/3. Put the tin in the oven and bake it on 180°C (350°F) for about 30 minutes (keep an eye on them so they don't get burned).

When they are done, place them on a plate and let them cool a little. Then dust the top of each pastel de natas with powdered sugar and burn the tops with a blowtorch a little. To finish off dust some cinnamon on top. 

 Pastéis de Belém

 

I think you can decide which one is mine and which one is the original one from Belém, but still I had fun making these sweets and everyone who tasted it said it was pretty good :)

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Time Out Mercado da Ribeira

Last week was my elder sister's last weekend here in Portugal before she went back to University, so we made a family weekend out of it. We had amazing breakfast together, we went to the beach, visited friends, and we also watched old family home videos. For the last dinner on Sunday we wanted to go to a good restaurant and so we went to a place which is one of the best places I have ever been to. It is the Time Out Mercado da Ribeira in Lisbon. This big hall used to be a fish market (from the 13th century) and now it is like a big restaurant or stylish food court which has Lisbon's favourite food shops and restaurants.

When you walk in there is a big bright open space full of people (especially on the weekends). The outlook of the shops and restaurants have the same style, but they all have different food and drinks. You can walk around and look at all the open kitchens of the different stalls, and see, smell and experience all kinds of Portuguese specialities.

It is really hard to choose from all of the lovely looking food, but whatever you pick you can't go wrong.

Soup:

There is this fantastic soup place where every day there are 4 or 5 soups that you can choose from. We tasted a mushroom (with cheese and toasted onions), a mango (with almond) and a pepper soup(with toasted bread and bacon). All of them were amazing, but out of the three soups the mango was the best, because it was just the perfect combination of sweet and salty. Also I loved the titles of the soup containers. :) 

Mushroom soup

Mango soup

Pepper soup

Main cours:

For the main cours we decided to choose from various places. My older sister had pork (from the Alentejo region) with mashed potatoes, cabbage and bacon. I have never eaten pork that was so soft and heavenly and the bacon was just perfect with the cabbage. This dish was my favourite out of all. My mom decided to order a portuguese Bacalhau com natas which is an oven-baked dish made out of layers of fish (bacalhau), onions, potatoes and cream. My younger sister likes to keep it simple so she had a cheeseburger with fries. It is so simple but they managed to make something so mainstream so delicious. My dad ordered something more adventurous a Ceviche made from fish. :) It is made of raw fish with mango and some tortilla chips and salad on top. I tried the bruschetta wich was also very tasty. We shared all the food and tried everything we ordered and everyone agreed that the pork was the best of all.

Pork with mashed potatoes, cabbage and bacon.

Bacalhau com natas

Cheeseburger with fries

Ceviche

 Bruschetta

Dessert: 

We ate a lot of different food and so by the time we got to dessert we were full, but we couldn't miss out on the best ice cream. Santini has the best ice cream I have ever had. I always recommend it to people to try this place when they come to Portugal and nobody has ever regretted tasting it. I decided to have mango and raspberry and they were amazing, because they both tasted just like the actual fruit. My older sister had peanut and cantaloupe and my younger sister asked for a pancake with two scoops of ice cream on top (chocolate and chocolate chips).

We also tasted some macarons from another shop and we tried the peppermint, the chocolate and the coffe.

We had a blast, we laughed a lot and ate a lot and it was just great.I just loved everything about this place, the design, the food, the atmosphere the idea and the concept of it. I know that this wasn't the last time I went to Time Out Mercado da Ribeira.

A little father daughter arm wrestling

When you find out you are going to eat ice cream at Santini

I hope you've enjoyed this post and feel free to comment here on the blog, on facebook, on instagram, or on twitter. Have a lovely sunday! :) 

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