Not only is this a new post, but it’s a new post on my new tablet. New, new, new!

I made these cupcakes for Easter. Verdict? Not all that amazing. I must’ve overbeat the batter too much…they were a bit tough and not all that limey. The frosting was great, but I would use more icing sugar and add lime juice to make it a bit more tart.

The cupcake was buttery and slightly lime-flavoured, like a lime pie crust, and the frosting was rich and tart like a pie filling. I topped them with some sprinkles and a key lime marshmallow.

Key Lime Cupcakes with Lime Frosting
Adapted from Bon Appetit

CUPCAKES
1 cup all purpose flour
3/4 cup self-rising flour (I made my own with all-purpose and salt and baking powder)
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 1/4 cup sugar
2 large eggs
2 1/2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
1 tablespoon finely grated lime peel
1/4 teaspoon neon-green food coloring
3/4 cup buttermilk (I made my own with milk and vinegar)

FROSTING
1 8-ounce package cream cheese, room temperature
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 tablespoon finely grated lime peel
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

CUPCAKES
Preheat oven to 350°F. Line standard muffin pan with 12 paper liners. Whisk both flours in medium bowl. Beat butter in large bowl until smooth. Add sugar; beat to blend. Beat in eggs 1 at a time, then next 3 ingredients (batter may look curdled). Beat in flour mixture in 3 additions alternately with buttermilk in 2 additions. Spoon scant 1/3 cup batter into each liner.

Bake cupcakes until tester inserted into center comes out clean, 20 to 25 minutes. Cool 10 minutes. Remove from pan; cool.

FROSTING
Beat all ingredients in medium bowl until smooth. Spread over cupcakes.

One of the desserts I made at Christmas was a copy of Starbucks’ cranberry bliss bars. I’ve never actually had one of these bars, but I’ve always stared at them when I’ve seen them in the dessert case, and I don’t think you can go wrong when it comes to a dessert that has cranberries, white chocolate and cream cheese frosting.

While I’ve never had the original, I’m pretty sure this recipe must be almost spot-on. They are extremely sweet, so a tiny sliver is really all one needs (or wants). In fact, I found these two sweet, and would cut back on the sweetness by removing the white chocolate topping at the end and maybe mixing fresh cranberries and dried cranberries in the bars themselves.

The base is like a blondie – chewy and dense and sweet, with dried cranberries and white chocolate chips throughout. The frosting in an orange cream cheese one – goes well with the base. Top this with more cranberries, and we have a really beautiful dessert that will leave you diabetic. These are definitely not your everyday kinda dessert bars, but a good addition to a birthday or Christmas sweet table.

Cranberry Bliss Bars
from Recipe Girl

BLONDIES

3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) salted butter, cubed
1 1/2 cups packed light brown sugar
2 large eggs
3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 cup dried cranberries
6 ounces white baking chocolate, coarsely chopped (I used white chocolate chips)

FROSTING
1 package (8 ounces) cream cheese, softened
1 cup powdered sugar, sifted
1 tablespoon grated orange peel
6 ounces white baking chocolate, melted, divided
1/2 cup dried cranberries, chopped

BLONDIES
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Spray a 13×9-inch baking dish with nonstick
spray.

2. In a medium bowl, melt butter for one minute in the microwave; stir in brown sugar.

3. Scrape the butter & sugar into a large bowl and let cool to room temperature.

4. Use an electric mixer to beat in the eggs and vanilla.

5. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt and cinnamon; gradually add the dry mixture to the butter mixture.

6. Stir in the cranberries and chopped chocolate (the batter will be thick).

7. Spread the blondie batter into the prepared pan. Bake for 18-21 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean (do not overbake). Cool completely on a wire rack.

FROSTING
1. In a large bowl, use an electric mixer to beat the cream cheese and powdered sugar until well-blended. Add orange zest.

2. Gradually add half of the melted white chocolate; beat until blended.

3. Frost brownies. Sprinkle with cranberries.

(4. Drizzle with remaining melted white chocolate.) Next time, I would skip this step. Just too sweet and totally unnecessary.

Cut into bars- square or triangle-shaped. Store in the refrigerator until ready to serve. (I actually preferred them cold – straight out of the freezer even!)

Montreal’s first Poutine Week seemed to have been a big success. Over 30 restaurants took part, putting out poutines en masse for the public’s vote. I had big poutine-plans at the beginning of the week, but really, it’s hard to eat a lot of poutine! In the end, I made it to two restaurants to try their entries in the big poutine contest: Fabergé’s “breakfast poutine” and Blackstrap BBQ’s “burnt ends poutine.” Who won?

For our first poutine, we wandered out into the cold, windy Saturday morning (early afternoon) to try out Fabergé on Fairmount and their breakfast poutine. I have been wanting to try this poutine for a long long time now, ever since I had first seen a photo of it on Foodspotting. It seems like an almost natural dish – potatoes, topped with cheese, hollandaise sauce and an egg? Sounds ideal to me.

After a brief wait for a seat in the bustling, busy restaurant, we settled in and planned our meal. Three breakfast poutines and a plate of fried chicken and waffles, and plenty of coffee….The fried chicken and waffles was a pretty lackluster dish – the chicken, while crunchy and crisp, was bland and there were only three tiny chicken nuggets on the plate. The waffles were thick and nice, and the housemade BBQ sauce had a great tang, but overall, a pretty boring plate. It also came with a mound of potatoes, but given that each of us a bowl the size of our heads filled with potatoes, we didn’t even touch it.

But, our reason for even going – the breakfast poutine! A mound of seasoned and roasted breakfast potatoes, caramelized red peppers and onions, bacon ($2 extra), lots of cheese curds, a velvety hollandaise sauce, all topped with an egg, its yolk just waiting to be burst. I really liked the idea, and mostly enjoyed the poutine. However, it’s texture was unappealing after a little bit…everything was just soft and mushy. Something with a bit of crunch may have made it a little more interesting. However, cheese, hollandaise and eggs…how can there be anything really wrong in there?

Later in the week, we went to try out Blackstrap BBQ. I’ve been wanting to try this place ever since it opened and given they were taking part, I finally got out there.. It appeared as though the restaurant was often running out of the poutine, so we ran out right after work to get there in time. Our efforts were not wasted.

Blackstrap BBQ is a few blocks down from the de L’Eglise metro station in Verdun. It’s not a very big place, but it is warm and welcoming. For our meal here, we opted to share the burnt ends poutine, a ½ rack of ribs and the deep fried macaroni and cheese.

The poutine was a star! The fries were excellent – many of them still crispy, thanks to their triple fry, but the ones under all the deep dark gravy were soaking up just the right amount of moisture. The cheese curds were enormous, and some of the best curds I’ve had on poutine in this city. But the best part were the rib tips, some slightly charred, some actually perfectly cooked, swimming in the gravy. This was a champion poutine and my obvious winner in the is poutine battle of two.

The ribs, a dry-rubber version served with some pickles and onions and sweet and spicy sauces, were equally stellar. These are not those messy, juicy ribs that require eighteen napkins. Nope, these are tender, pull-off-the-bone, and only need about four napkins. Loved them, and I was more.

The deep fried macaroni was also right up there. Super-crispy outside, so creamy on the inside, and perfect with a squeeze of that sweet BBQ sauce. I am looking forward to making my way to Blackstrap BBQ again to sample the rest of the goods.

The obvious winner for me was the burnt ends poutine at Blackstrap BBQ, but I did appreciate the fight.

Fabergé
25 Avenue Fairmount Ouest, Montreal

Blackstrap BBQ
4436 Wellington, Verdun, Montreal

Here’s a tasty cake I made a few weeks ago for my mother’s birthday. The photos aren’t very good (my ISO was accidentally set to something insane like 1000), but trust me, the cake was very, very good. In fact, it may be in my list of top cakes. Although, I say that about a lot of cakes. I’m either really good at picking cake recipes, or I’m not a very discriminating cake-eater.

It’s a vanilla layer cake with a tart cranberry puree between two layers, and a sweet, rich cream cheese frosting layer that also smothers the top and side of the cake. A sprinkling of juicy-sweet-tart-sugared cranberries adorns the top, sparkling like little jewels and adding a much needed break from the sweetness of the frosting. These sparkling cranberries are amazing – soaking them overnight in a simple syrup that you’ve simmered them in makes them soft and they soak up a lot of the sweetness, I changed a few things from the original source recipe, and I can safely say there isn’t anything else I would change about this cake!

The cake itself was light and buttery, with a fluffly crumb. A perfect base cake, really. I added one quarter cup of the cranberry puree to the cake batter, but it didn’t make much of a difference to the cake itself, either visually or gustatory-ly. However, the puree between the layers and the cranberry jewels all over the top made the cake burst with cranberry, so no real complaints there!

Cranberry Layer Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting and Sparkling Cranberries
Adapted from Huffington Post
One 9-inch layer cake

CRANBERRY PUREE
2 cups (12 ounces) fresh or frozen cranberries
4 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 cup water

VANILLA-CRANBERRY CAKE
¼ cup cranberry puree
3/4 cup (6 ounces) evaporated milk
6 large egg whites, room temperature
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2-1/4 cups (9 ounces) cake flour (I made my own cake flour following this exactly)
1-3/4 cups (12-1/4 ounces) granulated sugar
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon fine sea salt
6 ounces (12 tablespoons/1-1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into 12 pieces and softened

CREAM CHEESE FROSTING
1 pound (two 8-ounce packages) cream cheese, softened and cut into small pieces.
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened and cut into small pieces
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
5 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar
(I added cooking cream at the end, to bring it to the consistency that I wanted)

SPARKLING CRANBERRIES
2 cups cranberries, picked over
2 cups water
2 cups sugar, brown or white (I used brown)

1. Place the cranberries in a medium glass bowl and set aside.

2. Make your simple syrup by bringing the sugar and the water to a simmer in a medium saucepan. Let the syrup cool for a couple minutes and then pour it over the cranberries. If the syrup is too hot the cranberries will burst, so be careful. Cover and refrigerate overnight.

3. The next day, drain the cranberries and toss them with larger grained sugar until they are well coated. Use a scoop of sugar at a time, and small batches of cranberries, so the sugar doesn’t get too damp. Place the coated cranberries on a baking sheet to dry for a few hours.

4. Do a second toss with the regular granulated sugar, this typically takes care of any sticky spots on the cranberries. Let dry another hour.

CRANBERRY PUREE:
1. Place cranberries, sugar and water in a saucepan. Cook over medium-high heat until cranberries have popped and become mushy, about 5 minutes. Blend the heated cranberries with a handblender until smooth. Set aside and cool for 10 minutes.

CAKE
1. In a 2-cup measuring cup, whisk together 1/4 cup of cranberry puree, milk, egg whites, and vanilla. Set aside.

2. Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 350℉. Grease two 9-inch round cake pans, line bottoms with parchment, grease parchment, and flour.

3. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment, add flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt; mix on low speed until combined. Add butter, 1 piece at a time, and mix until only pea-size pieces remain, about 1 minute.

4. Add half of milk mixture, increase speed to medium-high, and beat until light and fluffy, about 1 minute.

5. Reduce speed to medium-low, add remaining milk mixture, and beat until incorporated, about 30 seconds. Give batter final stir by hand.

6. Evenly divide batter into prepared pans and bake until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, 20 to 25 minutes, rotating pans halfway through baking. Cool cakes in pans on wire rack for 10 minutes. Remove cakes from pans, discarding parchment, and cool completely, about 2 hours. (Cooled cakes can be wrapped with plastic wrap and stored at room temperature for up to 2 days.)

CREAM CHEESE FROSTING
1. Mix cream cheese and butter together until light.
2. Add vanilla.
3. Add icing sugar, 1 cup at a time, until the consistency is what you’re looking for

CAKE ASSEMBLY
1. Cut each cake in half horizontally. (I used the dental floss method)
2. Place one cake layer on the bottom of cake stand or serving platter, spread a generous layer of cranberry puree over cake layer and top with another layer of cake.
3. Spread about 1 cup of frosting on top and spread evenly.
4. Repeat with the remaining 2 layers.
5. Spread or pipe frosting on top and side of cake. Garnish with sparkling cranberries. Refrigerate cake for 30 minutes.

One word of caution – the longer the sparkling cranberries sit on top of the cake, the more the sugar on them dissolves into the frosting, so only garnish with cranberries when you’re ready to serve!

It had been three years since our last McAuslan brunch, prepared by Martin Picard and his team at Au Pied de Cochon. Sure, we had managed to get in to the last three sugarshack meals at their cabane a sucre, as well as the first meal ever at the cabane a pommes, so we haven`t been starving or necessarily deprived of foie gras…but the McAuslan brunch has a whole other flavour and feel to it. While the two previous brunches we had gone to had been held at the AU Pied de Cochon restaurant, this one, held on January 27th, 2013, was at his cabane a sucre. I did like the atmosphere a bit better at the restaurant, but there’s no doubt that the cabane is a more logical locale.

When we walked in for our 11am seating, our tablemates weren’t there yet (our group of four had been combined with another group of four), so we settled in and started in on the complimentary pitcher of Caesar deliciousness, while ordering a pitcher of McAuslan blonde and rousse. The beer was all-you-can-drink, though I always leave these places feeling like I should’ve drank more. However, we were almost immediately informed that there was to be 14 dishes served to us today, so it’s better I didn’t fill up on beer. I did a pretty good job with the Caesars already.

Pretty soon, the first dishes started getting carried out. Served on enormous planks of wood that needed two servers to carry, each table received a variety of plates to start the meal off with. Some of my favourite parts of the meal were served on this forest-platter!

There was horse “smoked meat,” served alongside a little squeeze bottle of mustard and apparently rye bread, but we never got the rye bread. We did have an entire baguette and a block of butter for the table, so I didn’t miss the rye bread, instead slathering butter on the bread, a dab of mustard and a slice or two of the horse. It wasn’t as fatty as smoked meat, but still really tender and salty. There was a package of housemade gravlax, which was actually right at the top of my favourite things – luscious, thick, pieces of salmon that were light and decadent all at the same time. Another one of my favs was the maple-almond croissant…this thing had pretty much been made out of butter, with a thick, sweet, sugary crust in the middle, having been bathed in maple syrup. There was a jar of housemade maple yogurt, and I ate my entire croissant half by dipping it in the silky, smooth, sweet yogurt. A high point of the meal for me!

There was also a fennel salad with a clementine vinaigrette that everyone at the table loved, but I found it a bit too acidic. I did love the baby dill pickles and the corn relish though.

My plate was filled after this one course…and I even started to slow down a little…

There was a soup served, and this was my least favourite dish of the meal. Absolutely tender and melting pieces of tendon with airy pieces of tripe in a broth of volailles, it was very mildly flavoured and little lack luster. However, the tendon was striking, melting in your mouth, coating your mouth. Apparently this soup had dumplings in it, but I didn’t get any. One of our servers came around with a little carton of quail eggs much later, telling us they were to break into the soup; however, the soup had been sitting at our table for quite some time by then, and wasn’t exactly hot anymore. Also, by that point, most of us had almost finished our soup anyway.

A fantastically interesting and beautiful dish came next: their infamous tourtiere stuffed with every possible meat. The APDC tourtiere, by itself, is a thing of beauty – pork, pork and more pork baked in a flaky, buttery crust. Add light, fluffy sweetbreads and salty Victor and Berthold cheese, and it rises to perfection!

The next dish seemed simple in comparison, but was even more flavourful: the egg, cheese and bacon omelet. This was so rich, so creamy, so smooth, so intense in its cheesy, bacony flavour….I ate my slice, then ate more, then maybe ate more. This is also where I hit my wall. I blame it on the thin strips of slightly crunchy bacon baked into the omelet.

I believe this is where we were given a short break. It’s difficult to remember anything clearly after this point.

A giant cannelloni stuffed foie gras and black truffles hit the table. Cut into eight slices for the table, I was sorry we didn’t have more to share – it was simple, refined, and another one of my favourites. As full as I was at that point, I easily managed to eat what was served to me.

Next up, a shining star in the meal – a deboned chicken that had not only been stuffed with chunks of lobster and foie gras, but actually injected with a lobster bisque. This chicken, its meat juicy, tender, its skin, crispy, salty, exuded lobster-flavour. Every bite was packed with buttery lobster. It didn’t need the gravy it was served with, but the gravy definitely didn’t hurt!

There was really no more eating possible for me at this point. I merely sampled the pompano and mussels that came to the table, but we did bring a lot of it home, including the heads, which one of our tablemates was about to throw out. Delicate and soft, Soli absolutely adored this fish. A salty salad with smashed potatoes at the bottom and crumby garlic pork sausage all over the top was also delivered – at the time I couldn’t even take a bit, but again, we took so much of it home that we ate it for two nights in a row.

Somewhere along the way, we were also served small milkshakes, sweet and rich, of which I ended up drinking two. I brought my dessert of maple and chocolate cream doughnuts and sugarpie poptarts home.

And so it ended. We walked out of there with a bag full of leftovers –fish, chicken, tourtiere, salad, omelet…This was the meal that just keeps giving.

Now we’re waiting for our callback for the cabane a sucre for this season…Give me another few weeks, and I’ll be ready to go for another round.

Last Christmas, I made nuts, which, while tasty, where sticky and hard to get apart. The end result of making these nuts was a giant mass of nuts that seemed almost cemented together. This year, when buying my combo of pecans, walnuts, almonds and cashews, I knew I didn’t want a repeat of last year. Sure, they tasted really good, but candied nuts are supposed to be fun to eat, not hard work!

I flipped through Dorie Greenspan’s Around My French Table, looking for a meal to make that evening, and happened upon her recipe for sweet and spicy cocktail nuts. While I haven’t made many recipes from this book, I am an enormous fan of her baking book, and know that I can trust any recipe she puts out. This recipe sounded promising – the spice mixture of salty, sweet and spicy was just what I was looking for, and the use of egg whites told me that these nuts would not stick together with that shellacked veneer of baked sugar.

As to be expected, these nuts did not disappoint! They stuck together after baking, but were easy to break apart, and they stayed separate after being put in their jars. The coating stayed on the nuts, was crunchy and perfectly sweet and salty (but more sweet than salty). I would probably add a but more heat to them next time, as I couldn’t really detect any spice. I mixed the nuts in the egg mixture and didn’t do a great job draining them after (I didn’t do it at all, actually), so I think it took longer for everything to bake up and added to them sticking together, but it also meant more coating on each nut, and as I said, they weren’t difficult to break apart after baking.

I loved this recipe and will be using this egg white method for all future spiced nuts. It makes them light, crunchy and each nut is packed with flavour. The recipe below is Dorie’s, but I put my changes in italics. I doubled the recipe. It’s easy to test the spice mixture as you go along and add more of anything you feel is missing. I think these measurements are great suggestions, but everything should be to taste.

Sweet and Spicy Cocktail Nuts
from Around My French Table
Makes 2 cups

1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt (I increased the salt)
1 1/2 teaspoons chili powder (I used Mexican chili powder)
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Pinch of cayenne (I increased this amount, and would increase it even more next time)
1 large egg white
2 cups nuts (whole or halves, but not small pieces), such as almonds, cashews, peanuts or pecans, or a mix (I doubled the recipe, and used almonds, pecans, walnuts and cashews. The cashews were actually my least favourite in the mix)

1. Center rack in oven and preheat oven to 300 degrees. Spray nonstick baking sheet with cooking spray or line baking sheet with silicone mat or parchment paper.

2. Mix sugar, salt, chili powder, cinnamon and cayenne together in small bowl. Beat egg white lightly with fork in larger bowl, just breaking up the white so that it’s runny. Toss in nuts and stir to coat them with egg white, then add sugar and spice mixture and continue to stir so that nuts are evenly coated.

3. Using fingers, lift nuts one by one from bowl, letting excess egg white drip back into bowl (you can run dipped nuts against side of bowl to get rid of last bit of egg white), and transfer to baking sheet, separating them as best you can. (I did not do this, but dumped everything onto my baking sheet)

4. Bake 30 to 35 minutes, or until nuts are browned and coating is dry. (Mine took much longer to bake than this, but I checked them every five minutes or so after the 30 minute mark. They seemed a little sticky still, but they crisped up as they cooled)

5. Cool 5 minutes then transfer to another baking sheet, a cutting board, or piece of parchment paper, breaking them apart as necessary and let cool completely.

Every Christmas, I try to make fudge or something similar and chocolately to give to my father. In the past, he has been the recipient of cherry polka dot fudge and Caramilk sugar fudge.

This year, I made a batch of dark chocolate and white chocolate peanut butter layered fudge. Quite a mouthful – the name and the fudge itself.

Perhaps I’m not the best person to judge this stuff. Having grown up being deathly allergic to peanuts has created a bit of an aversion to them. I have outgrown the allergy and can eat peanuts now, but don’t particularly like them or their by-products. I think if you do like the peanut butter and chocolate combo, then you would like this fudge. I enjoyed the sweetness all the white chocolate gives to it, the slight saltiness of the peanut butter and how the dark chocolate cuts through both the salty and the sweet. I tried a few bites, and did enjoy it, so anyone who loves peanut butter should love it. And it’s a pretty fudge too – perfect to give as a gift!

Dark and White Chocolate Peanut Butter Layered Fudge
From EagleBrand

1 can (300 mL) sweetened condensed milk, divided
8 squares (1 oz /28g each) semi-sweet or dark chocolate, chopped
6 squares (1 oz /28g each) white chocolate, chopped
1/2 tsp baking soda, divided
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup peanut butter

1. In a small saucepan, heat half a can of sweetened condensed milk with semi-sweet or dark chocolate and 1/4 tsp (1 mL) baking soda. Stir frequently until chocolate is melted. Stir in vanilla extract.

2. In another small saucepan, heat the remaining sweetened condensed milk with white chocolate, 1/4 tsp (1 mL) baking soda and peanut butter, stirring until melted.

3. Pour dark chocolate mixture in parchment paper-lined 8″ (20 cm) square pan. Spread peanut butter mixture on top. Cool. Chill 4 hours or until firm.

4. Remove from pan and cut into 1″ (2.5 cm) squares.

After two weeks off during the holidays, what do I have to show for it? Not too much, unless you count the three bags of recycling in our backroom that mainly consist of wine bottles. A few vodka bottles are also there, for good measure.

Christmas was filled with the usual good foods that only make their appearance during the holidays (and in excess!):

Pastrami rolls and bacon-wrapped dates stuffed with nuts and parmesan:

More dates, deviled eggs and a hot artichoke dip:

Meatballs, cheeses, little eggy tarts, baked beans:

And don’t forget the quintessential pork buns, and the spinach pies and the raisin bream-ham-cheese bake! There were also many, many desserts, and I will be posting some of those recipes over the course of January.

We also enjoyed various other foods…lots and lots of food.

We had an amazing and simple meal at L’Express. It was our second time going there in under a year, and three of us shared the bone marrow appetizer, but had it served with our hangar steaks and fries.

After a night of extensive wine-enjoyment, Soli went out for lunch to Pho Tay Ho, our favourite Viet resto in the city. He came home with a raw beef salad and an all-dressesd pho for me. So sweet, so needed.

And the mandatory pizza, necessary for any quality holiday:

Speaking of said pizza, this one took three hours to get to us, because we ordered it one the day of Montreal’s record-breaking snowstorm, which threw 43-cm of snow on us. Soli worked hard shovelling a pizza path for the poor delivery man.

And some quiet evenings and/or mornings with great scotch and great cats.

Before stepping into the new year, here’s a quick look back at some of the dishes we made in 2012 that I loved. Here’s my top 5 list, in no particular order:

1. Coconut Cheesecake with Honey-Roasted Pineapple

2. Chocolate Cinnamon Caramel Cookies

3. Banana Chocolate Chunk Toffee Muffins

4. Gazpacho with Roasted Peppers and Watermelon

5. Pasta Carbonara with Bacon and Peas

Also, as usual, I attempted the 50 Books in 1 Year Challenge, and as usual, I did not even come close. I did better than usual though! Below are the 37 books I did get through. The ones in bold are the ones I thoroughly enjoyed.

1. The Zombie Survival Guide – Max Brooks
2. On Chesil Beach – Ian McEwan
3. Dust to Dust: Stories – Timothy Findley
4. The Reader – Bernhard Schlink
5. Made Hope – Heather Birrell
6. A Certain Grace – Binnie Brennan
7. Our Daily Bread – Lauren B. Davis
8. Whirl Away – Russell Wangersky
9. Dance Dance Dance – Haruki Murakami
10. The Hunger Angel – Herta Muller
11. World War Z – Max Brooks
12. Story of O – Pauline Reage
13. Good to a Fault – Marina Endicott
14. Drought and Other Stories – Jan Thornhill
15. Fifty Shades of Grey – E.L. James
16. The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas – John Boyne
17. Forgive Me – Amanda Eyre Ward
18. Plainsong – Kent Haruf
19. Kafka on the Shore – Haruki Murakami
20. Submarine – Joe Dunthorne
21. After the Quake – Haruki Murakami
22. Talking It Over – Julian Barnes
23. The Sisters Brothers – Patrick deWitt
24. The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
25. Women Without Men: A Novel of Modern Iran – Shahrnush Parsipur
26. The Elephant Vanishes – Haruki Murakami
27. The Best of All Flesh: Zombie Anthology
28. Never Let Me go – Kazuo Ishiguro
29. Daybreak – Brian Ralph
30. Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Besiary
31. Norwegian Wood – Haruki Murakami
32. Room – Emma Donoghue
33. Runaway – Alice Munro
34. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle – Haruki Murakami
35. Mercy Among the Children – David Adams Richards
36. Alone in the Classroom – Elizabeth Hay
37. The Walking Dead, Compendium 1 – Robert Kirkman

Here’s the last installment of the Portugal series. After spending time in Lisbon and the Algarves, we spent our last day visiting Sintra and the Pena palace. Gorgeous place, and the perfect way to spend our the last moments in Portugal. I’ll let the photos do most of the talking.

We got up early in the morning and after some confusion, found the train station and got on the train to Sintra, which is about a 30 minute trip from Lisbon. After some major kerfuffles getting off the train (our tickets for the train are supposed to scan and let us leave the train – ours didn’t work and we had to pry open the turnstile door), we got on a bus that brings you waaaaay up the mountain to Pena palace. We took 10,000,000 photos of this fairytale castle:

We had a quick lunch at the palace after spending hours exploring and taking photos of the castle and the views it offered. I had a sausage roll, cod pie and coffee – perfect!

After leaving the castle, we went on a short hike out to a lookout that’s supposed to offer amazing views of Pena from afar. The hike itself had lots of pretty things along the way.

And the lookout was indeed an amazing view!

We took the bus back down, and bought a lot of queijadas, which is a Sintra-specific dessert. Awesome pastries, I brought a whole bunch home.

The rest of the time we spent exploring the village.

And had our last dinner in Portugal there, our last bites of the black pig pork that we had fallen in love with.

And thus concludes a trip to Portugal! Beautiful country with so so so much good food.

Here’s the other posts:

Portugal, Part 1 (Algarve)

Portugal, Part 2 (Algarve)

Portugal, Part 3 (Lisbon)