Life in Luxembourg

Spiral biscuits - recipe (including photos)

noreply@blogger.com (Elena and Marius) — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 10:15:00 +0000

Ingredients:

300 grams of wheat flour
150 grams of salted butter
80 grams of sugar
2 spoons of hot milk
2 spoons of cocoa powder
1 egg
rum essence

Mix the butter with the hot milk until creamy.

Mix the egg with the sugar.

Add the butter over the beaten egg and then the rum essence.

Add the flour, gradually.

Separate the dough in two.

Mix one of them with the cocoa powder.

Spread both doughs on the table.

Pot the white dough over the cocoa one and roll them together.

Put the resulted dough in the fridge for almost 1 hour.

Cut the dough in round pieces. Not thicker then 1 cm, though.
Put the biscuits in the oven at 200 degrees Celsius for 10 - 15 minutes.

Enjoy!

The original recipe can be found here

Trip to Pazin, Croatia

noreply@blogger.com (Elena and Marius) — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 06:47:00 +0000

Very contrasting to the sea-side typical towns: this one is gray, cold and sad. After visiting it, one would better appreciate the sunny coastal places.

Trip to Labin, Croatia

noreply@blogger.com (Elena and Marius) — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 02:55:00 +0000

A nice little town.

Semolina with milk - recipe (including photos)

noreply@blogger.com (Elena and Marius) — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 02:46:00 +0000

Very easy to make it, but very tasty. I loved it when I was a child and I still do :)

Ingredients:

600 milliliters of milk
60 grams of semolina
1 spoon of sugar
vanilla sugar
jam

Mix the milk with the sugar and let it boil.

Sprinkle the semolina over the boiling milk, mixing continuously, but slowly, for few minutes.

You can eat it warm or you can put it in forms and eat it with jam few hours later.

Trip to Sveti Lovreč, Croatia

noreply@blogger.com (Elena and Marius) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 02:32:00 +0000

Another trap for tourists :)

Eating out - Brasserie du Cercle, Luxembourg Ville

noreply@blogger.com (Elena and Marius) — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 00:46:00 +0000

The food was great - Luxembourgish typical food, if you asked us.

You can easily feed four persons from the full menu of two.

The price is around Eur 80 for two and for all the food below.

Terrine de chevreuil

Toast aux champignons des bois

The food was brought to us like this:

..and we've put it on the plates:

Civet de lièvre façon luxembourgeoise

Ragout de marcassin à l'ancienne

Glace à la bière parfumée à la gueuze framboise

Pomme au four caramélisée à la cannelle accompagnée de glace vanille

Hotel review - Hotel Filipini, Porec, Croatia

noreply@blogger.com (Elena and Marius) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 23:43:00 +0000

This hotel is more like a Bed and Breakfast.

It wasn't our preferred choice, but the reviews were very good, so we decide it to try it.

Bad decision...the rooms were very cold, rather small and beds were horrible (we changed few rooms because the beds were squeaking), the internet barely worked and the breakfast was poor.

The Hotel is far from Porec, so if we don't have a car it will be difficult to reach.

Chicken in tomato sauce - recipe (including photos)

noreply@blogger.com (Elena and Marius) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 23:47:00 +0000

Ingredients:

chicken
250 grams of tomato sauce (or tomatoes in sauce)
1 spoon of fresh cream
10 grams of butter
laurel
thyme
garlic
1 onion
salt
pepper

In a covered pan fry the chicken with half of the butter and the laurel, for 10-15 minutes.

In a separate pan fry the chopped onion, the garlic and the remaining butter for a few minutes.

Add the tomato juice and the thyme over the onion and let it cook for 10 minutes.

Add the fresh cream and let it boil for almost 5 minutes.

Add the chicken over the tomato composition and put it in the oven at 220 Celsius degrees for 10-15 minutes.

We ate it with pasta, but you can combine it with potatoes or vegetables.
Enjoy!

Trip to Vrsar, Croatia

noreply@blogger.com (Elena and Marius) — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 23:10:00 +0000

A small port and smaller old town. Seemed to be the perfect place for water sports and trips to the nearby islands.

Trip to Poreč, Croatia

noreply@blogger.com (Elena and Marius) — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 13:34:00 +0000

A nice coastal town with a UNESCO World Heritage church and unique Venetian style houses.

Eating out - Restaurant Batucada, Luxembourg Ville

noreply@blogger.com (Elena and Marius) — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 04:32:00 +0000

The Restaurant is close to the city center (St Esprit Parking).

The food was OK, but rather tasteless. We were expecting something more exotic for a Brasilian restaurant, but the food was just plain bland.

The shape of the dessert was....surprising.

One thing we didn't like: each time when someone left, the waiters came and cleaned the table with some powerful smelling spray. You can imagine that,s really unpleasant.

Selection de finger food, tapas

Filet de boeuf d'Argentine au portio rouge et echalotes, pommes de terre en gratin ,legumes frais

Filet de saumon, sauce homardine riz basmati, legumes frais saute

Fondant au chocolat

La legendaire Banana Carlitos

Trip to Prague, Czech Republic

noreply@blogger.com (Elena and Marius) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 16:39:00 +0000

Few years ago we've visited Prague during the Christmas market.

The quality of the pictures is not so good, but the city is really nice.

Black and white biscuits - recipe (including photos)

noreply@blogger.com (Elena and Marius) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 03:04:00 +0000

Ingredients:

400 grams of wheat flour
300 grams of butter
120 grams of powdered sugar
3 spoons of cocoa powder
1 spoon of milk
1 egg
vanilla sugar
salt

Mix the flour with the butter, vanilla sugar, salt, sugar and the egg white.

Divide the dough in two equal parts.
Mix one of them with the cocoa powder.
Let them rest in the fridge for 1 hour.

Spread a part from the cocoa dough on the table.
It's better to be 1 cm thin. Cut small strips.
Do the same with the white dough.

Mix the egg yolk with 1 spoon of milk.

Combine the obtained strips like in the photo: one black, one white and another one black, or white, black, white. Brush each row with the egg mixture.
You can make 3 or 5 rows.

Try to cover the mixture with dough like in the photos bellow:

Put it in the oven at 180 Celsius degrees for almost 10 minutes.

Enjoy!

The original recipe can be found here

Trip to Buje, Croatia

noreply@blogger.com (Elena and Marius) — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 02:31:00 +0000

Perhaps not...(to quote a famous line from White Chicks).

Trip to Groznjan, Croatia

noreply@blogger.com (Elena and Marius) — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 02:16:00 +0000

A very small medieval village on top of the Istrian hills inland. A change of scenario compared to the usual seaside towns.

Trip to Novigrad, Croatia

noreply@blogger.com (Elena and Marius) — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 02:53:00 +0000

A very small, but very nice seaside town. Definitely worth it, to get a feeling of a typical Istrian place.

Trip to Umag, Croatia

noreply@blogger.com (Elena and Marius) — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 02:29:00 +0000

There is not that much to it. OK for a couple of hours of strolling around.

Hotel review - Sol Garden Istra Hotel & Village, Umag, Croatia

noreply@blogger.com (Elena and Marius) — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 19:56:00 +0000

A very nice resort.

You have everything you need here. There are few pools outside and one inside, several restaurants, sauna, gym, tennis field and a beach.

The breakfast was absolutely delicious. We also had buffet dinner - very good food, infinte choices and huge quantities.

Free private parking.

Strawberry mousse - recipe (including photos)

noreply@blogger.com (Elena and Marius) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 14:15:00 +0000

Ingredients:

400 grams of strawberries (you can use frozen if you can't find fresh)
200 grams of fresh cream
3 spoons of sugar
vanilla sugar

Make the puree from the strawberries mixed with vanilla sugar.

Mix the cream with the sugar until creamy.

Mix the strawberry puree with the cream.

Enjoy!

Trip to Savudrija, Croatia

noreply@blogger.com (Elena and Marius) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 06:27:00 +0000

We found a similar picture on the internet and we wanted to check the place out.

That's all the village right there. Somewhere in the middle of nowhere.

But sometimes that's good. We were left with the impression that this is somewhat of a culinary treasure. There's a small port for fishing boats and about 4 restaurants in front of it. The restaurants were pretty crowded, so we assume that that's the place to eat fresh fish and seafood in northern Istria.

Trip to Piran, Slovenia

noreply@blogger.com (Elena and Marius) — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 13:04:00 +0000

A very pleasant little town.

It is forbidden to enter in the city by car, because is very small. The car must be left in the parking at the entrance of the city (on your left coming from the direction of Portoroz). From there you can walk to the city or you can take the bus. By foot is almost 30 minutes away, but the view is wonderful.

Trip to Portoroz, Slovenia

noreply@blogger.com (Elena and Marius) — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 08:15:00 +0000

There's really nothing special about it. It's only a seaside resort...a very expensive one. It's strange why all the German tour operators include it in their catalogues.

Hotel review - Hotel Roma, Trieste, Italy

noreply@blogger.com (Elena and Marius) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 11:43:00 +0000

The room was clean, but the breakfast was awful.
Free Wi-Fi in the room.
It is forbidden to stop the car on the street in front of the hotel. Thus, it is rather uncomfortable when arriving and departing from the hotel.

Trip to Izola, Slovenia

noreply@blogger.com (Elena and Marius) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 08:46:00 +0000

Nice little seaside town, close to Trieste.

Tortellini with cheese and bacon sauce - recipe (including photos)

noreply@blogger.com (Elena and Marius) — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 13:03:00 +0000

Ingredients:

250 grams of wheat flour
100 grams of cheese (either fresh or salted)
100 grams of bacon
80 ml of warm water
3 eggs
5 spoons of fresh cream
2 spoons of olive oil
salt
sage

Mix the flour with 1 entire egg and 1 egg white, the olive oil, salt and the water.
Let the dough rest for 30 minutes in the fridge.

Spread the dough on the table.

Prepare the tortellini filling: mix the cheese with 2 spoons of cream.

Add the cheese on the dough spread on the table and cut it.

Brush the edge of the tortellini with 1 egg yolk.

Fold the dough like in the photo.

Turn the edges of the tortellini against each other and stick them.

When the water is boiling, add the tortellini and let them boil for almost 2 minutes. They are ready when they start floating at the surface.

For the sauce: mix 3 spoons of fresh cream with the third egg and few leaves of sage.

Fry the bacon and add the cheese composition above and let it cook for 1 minute.
Add the boiled tortellini and let it cook for another 2 minutes at slow fire.

Bon Appetit!