AWOL

Just a quick note to explain my recent AWOL! I have been very busy these past months what with trips, job hunting, moving to a new flat and working at the new jobs that it hasn´t left me with much time for blogging. Plus, I still haven´t got Internet in my new flat yet....although we´ve been waiting for almost a month now! Things move very slowly in Spain! Although I´m hoping to have Internet by the end of the month and then will get back to blogging hopefully!! I have an account of my trip to New York pending and also some new recipes I´m dying to try out!

Taking a bite of the Big Apple

Let´s see if I can remember with it being so long ago!! When my boyfriend´s parents visited us, we also went to New York for four days. It was our first time there and everything was amazing. We did the usual tourist attractions, going up the Empire State building around dusk to see all the city lit up, the Rockefellar Centre, Times Square with all the neon lights flashing. It´s definitely an unforgettable sight. Unfortunately, we didn´t make it to a Broadway show (all the more reason to go again!) but for a slice of real Americana and the next best thing, is the Stardust Diner. It´s a typical diner from the 1950's, evoking memories of Grease and Happy Days. The food is all American comfort food and family favourites, from hamburgers, meatloaf, reubens to milkshakes, pies and ice cream sundaes and floats. I think my boyfriend and I had hamburgers and fries and shared a slice of cherry pie with ice cream (my new fav pie/dessert). The food is hearty and homemade and certainly fits the bill if you are looking for a real American experience. Throughout the meal, the waiting staff put on a good show, constantly bursting into popular songs, such as Man I Feel Like A Woman, in between serving, and creating a feel-good vibe.

We also took the ferry to the Statue of Liberty and walked the grounds of the Statue of Liberty, then boarded the ferry to Ellis Island and visited the Museum of Immigrants, which was very interesting. We then walked round the Financial District and Wall St, and paid our respects at Ground Zero. We also visited Chinatown and saw a strange-looking fruit, a Jack fruit, which I´ve never seen before (pictured below).

I didn´t get round to trying it though. Chinatown is also home to the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory and I couldn´t resist trying one. Among the many exotic flavours were green tea, black sesame and lychee and after a difficult decision, I finally settled on the lychee flavoured ice cream. It was delicious although I couldn´t really taste the lychees, it tasted just like vanilla ice cream to me! We also passed through Little Italy, apparently very reminiscent of scenes from the Godfather.

We had our evening meal in an Italian restaurant called Pasta Lovers or something similar, which was quite close to our hotel (We were very near Times Square, which was very handy!). I had pasta (of course) with Italian sausage and a tomato based sauce. I can´t remember what everyone else had but everything was pretty tasty.

In my opinion, the best meal of all was a little French-style bistro(I think it was called Balthazar ) in SoHo we came across. It was a very popular place as it was crowded and we had to wait to be seated. The worst thing about it was the noise, it was far too noisy. You could hardly hear yourself think. We had snails to start (well, I couldn´t quite bring myself to eat more than one, so I just mopped up the garlicy juices with the French style breads they brought to accompany it!), I had duck confit with potatoes and my boyfriend had halibut en papilotte (if I remember correctly!) We shared a tarte tatin between us. Everything was absolutely delicious and definitely has my thumbs up, just try to go on a less busy night!

Discovering Niagra

My boyfriend's parents came to visit us in Pittsburgh for about 10 days in July so we did plenty of eating out. The first day we showed them round the Cathedral of Learning, Oakland and Downtown and took them to Gullifty's (Murray Ave, Squirrel Hill),a restaurant famous for its award-winning desserts. Food here is the usual American fare of burgers,ribs etc and is tasty but the main reason to come here is for dessert and also the live jazz music and relaxed atmosphere. Unfortunately though the live music is only twice a week and we went on a night that there was no music. I had a veggie wild mushroom pasta dish served with garlic bread and my boyfriend's dad had the BBQ ribs. Although I was pretty full, I couldn't say no to a dessert especially as that is the whole point of coming!! I went for a Key Lime Pie, which had just the right amount of citrus tartness and sweetness to counteract it!

We then drove to Niagra Falls(the Canadian side) stopping en route at Volant to see the Amish (unfortunately we didn't see any!) Our hotel was the Hilton and we snuck a peek at the restaurant, which looked lovely and had a great view of the Falls and then went up to the bar, for a drink. I'd totally reccommend it as it also has great views of the Falls and is very tastefully decorated....it'd be very romantic at night! However, prices are fairly steep. The Falls are very impressive in themselves and we bought an adventure pass which includes the 4 main activities and is definitely worth the money: Thunder Behind the Mist(you go behind the waterfalls and can hear the thundering noise of the falls), Maid of the Mist (a boat ride which takes you up close to the Falls-an amazing experience), the White Water Rapids walk (the most dangerous rapids in the world) and the Fury(a multimedia interactive show). We also managed to squeeze in a couple of other sights such as the Spanish cable car which crosses the whirlpool rapids.

, We also got to witness two firework displays.We didn't know when we arrrived that it was Canada Day so they put on a firework display, then the following night we saw fireworks from the American side.I think they were having an early Independence Day celebration!

As we had already been to Niagra Falls before and knew some good restaurants, we ended up going back to many of the same restaurants. One of which was Coco's Steakhouse, Pizza bar & Lounge, which always has a wonderful aroma of a wood-burning stove and meat spit-roasting wafting through the air. We usually went there just for breakfast though as they do a great buffet style breakfast for only $14-$15! You can get toast, coffee and tea, cereal, fresh fruit, bagels, bacon, sausages, scrambled egg, pancakes and maple syrup and Eggs Benedict(which is delicious and is actually where I first tried it!). The only problem is that I tend to eat too much!!

The final night in Niagra we had dinner in the Skylon Tower,which has a revolving restaurant with great views of the Falls and the rest of the city. The food is delicious too and it's really romantic, great if you're just a couple! I had pork chop with veg and potatoes with a Peach cocktail. The cocktail comes in a special Skylon Tower glass which you get to keep as a souvenir. I can't remember what the others had and nobody had dessert as we were so full. Plus, due to the views it's pretty expensive but again worth it for that special moment!

Low-fat carrot cake cupcakes

I´m aware I haven´t posted for quite awhile and all will be explained soon but as I am waiting for some photos for my previous post and I´m pretty impatient, I thought I´d post this first so I´m sorry about the delay in posting. I´m trying to use up my baking ingredients without buying more stuff as soon I´ll be off back to Spain and when I saw this recipe I thought it was ideal as I conveniently had most of the ingredients in my cupboard. Plus, I liked the fact that it was "low fat" especially after the indulgence on the California road trip(all will be explained in the next post!)So, this is another cupcake recipe,slightly adapted from my Cupcake calendar that hopefully you can enjoy without feeling guilty!

Low-fat carrot cake cupcakes(Makes 12)

Ingredients:(measurements using American measures)

2 cups self-raising flour

1tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

1tsp ground cinnamon

3/4 cup soft light brown sugar

1/2 cup grated carrots(about 2-3)

1/4 cup chopped walnuts (I´m not a big nut fan so halved the amount of the original recipe so it was just the right amount of nuttiness for me but you can double the amount if you prefer!)

Grated rind of 1 orange

2 lightly beaten eggs

2/3 cup of sunflower oil (I ran out of sunflower oil so ended up being a mix of sunflower oil and mild olive oil!)

Cream cheese icing:

1 cup fat-free or light cream cheese

1 cup icing sugar, sifted

1 tsp vanilla extract

12 walnut halves, to decorate

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 350ºF(175ºC).

2. Mix all the cupcake ingredients in a large bowl and beat until combined(by hand or by an electric mixer)If using an electric mixer, set it to a low speed.

3. Place 12 paper cake cases in a muffin/fairy cake pan and spoon mixture into the cases.

4. Bake for 20 mins and then remove from oven and leave to cool for 5 mins.

5. Mix the icing sugar, vanilla extract and cream cheese together until combined and it is smooth and creamy.

6. Decorate cupcakes with the cream cheese icing and place a walnut half on the top.

Note: Next time, I´m thinking of adding some orange juice or plain yoghurt to the cake batter to make them moister as due to lack of kitchen equipment here, I didn´t have a cake tin to store them in and they dried out pretty quickly. Here´s the finished product, hope you like them!

Road Trippin´ California style- I am back!

I´m finally back and firstly, I have to apologise for my infrequent posting recently. One of the reasons being that I haven´t made anything worth posting recently and the other main reason being that, I was on a road trip in California for two weeks!

I had wanted to do a (gourmet) food trail suggesting various foodie places and restaurants, however as there was a big group of us,we were all on pretty tight budgets and often had to eat on the go, we sometimes ended up in cheap chain restaurants or roadside eateries. So foodwise the trip was a little disappointing, however we did find some great and affordable places. The scenery and places we visited more than made up for it though.

Our California road trip was more than a little ambitious. We started off in San Francisco for 3 days, where we visited the different neighbourhoods, toured Alcatraz by night and biked over the Golden Gate bridge. We did lots of walking and as San Francisco is very hilly, I think we must´ve ended up pretty fit after this holiday! We found a great seafood restaurant on a pier in Fisherman wharf, Pier Market with reasonable prices. My boyfriend had the clam chowder, an apparently typical dish in San Francisco, which came in a sourdough bread bowl, which according to him was very tasty. As I´m not too keen on fish and seafood, I had a pulled BBQ pork sandwich with fries, which was delicious. The pork was so tender,it melted in your mouth and had just the right amount of BBQ sauce. I tried a little clam chowder and found it to be quite nice,not too fishy, to my surprise! We shared an Apple Crisp for dessert which was also exquisite.

Our next stop was Yosemite National Park and more walking but worth it for the breathtaking and stunning scenery. I couldn´t believe the squirrels were so tame that they would take food right out of your hands(despite the signs saying Don´t feed wild animals, lots of tourists do!)Didn´t see any bears though, fortunately! We stayed in Santa Cruz and then travelled along Highway 1, which is a lovely drive following the coastline and making stops at Monterrey, Piedras Blancas to see the elephant seals and Santa Barbara.

We had lunch in Monterrey, again on the pier in a restaurant which had lovely views of the sea.Unfortunately, I can´t remember the name of the restaurant to reccommend it but the lunch menu was again very affordable. As it was another seafood restaurant and didn´t really cater for those who don´t really like fish or seafood, I had no choice but to eat fish. I went for the coconut encrusted Tilapia with veggies and rice. It was really nice and presented beautifully with a decorative flower on the top as you can see in the photo. My only complaint would be that the rice needed a sauce.

Dinner was in Santa Barbara and as it was late, it was difficult to find anything still serving food. We stumbled across this great bar/restaurant The Sandbar serving Mexican food, which had an outdoor terrace complete with a fire and with modern, trendy but at the same time comfortable decoration. Again, I didn´t take any photos of the food unfortunately. I shared a beef burrito and a meat taco which came with refried beans, guacamole and rice with my boyfriend and was really tasty.

We visited LA and the typical things, then spent the day at Newport Beach & Huntingdon Beach, visted Malibu, Santa Monica and Laguna Beach and San Diego for a day. We went to Las Vegas, we wanted to visit the Mojave dessert en route but got a puncture so ended up going straight to Vegas. With all the car trouble and by the time we had eaten, it was 11pm so we hit the casinos and went from casino to casino visiting them (not gambling!) Most of us didn´t know how to play blackjack,roulette etc! It was 3pm before we knew it so we tried to get into a club but no luck, they were all about to close. So much for Las Vegas all-night partying! So unfortunately we didn´t really"experience" Vegas to the max! We were all so exhausted from travelling by this point though and the following day we slept till qbout 1pm!We had lunch in the Stratasphere Tower which has a rotating restaurant with excellent views of Vegas. Perfect for a romantic meal for 2! The food is pretty good too, it´s slightly more expensive due to the views but good value. I had chicken with pasta and peppers and courgettes in a garlicy-oil sauce and my boyfriend had veal escalope stuffed with proscuitto ham, veg and roast potatoes.

We then made our way to Flagstaff, pausing to see the Hoover Dam on the way. The following day we went to the Grand Canyon, which was very impressive and stayed in the Grand Canyon Village. We had our evening meal in Yippee-ei-oh (pictured above)which takes you back to the Wild West as the decor is all cowboy-orientated, with saddles and all the waiters are wearing stetsons. I shared a Outlaw´s dinner (if I remember correctly!) with my boyfriend, which was a good job as it was huge. It consisted of 1/2 portion of BBQ ribs and BBQ chicken, corn on the cob, baked beans and a jacket potato. It was also supposed to be served with prickly pear jelly but I realised after that you were supposed to ask for that if you wanted it. Everything was delicious and for me it was one of the best meals of the trip although my curiousity wasn´t sated as I would´ve liked to try the prickly pear jelly. Oh well, maybe next time! For dessert, I had warm cherry pie with vanilla ice-cream which was the perfect ending to a wonderful meal and I think is one of the best cherry pies I´ve ever eaten!

Easy Cherry Cheesecake-my best cheesecake ever!

One of my favourite desserts is cheesecake and I really fancied one the other day plus I had some mascarpone that needed using up so decided to go ahead and make one. I remember when I first started making cheesecakes and having a few disasters with them not setting properly, probably due to not using the correct amount of gelatine or not following the instructions 100%. The presentation was awful, like a big gloopy mess but the taste was ok but I seem to have got the knack of making a perfect cheesecake now.

Cherry is one of my favourite toppings for cheesecakes and as there are no fresh cherries in the shops at the moment, I decided to use ready made cherry pie filling/topping, which is great if you don´t have time to make your own. I´ve never used mascarpone in my cheescakes before but as I had some left over, I thought why not and added it and believe me, it was definitely worth it but unfortunately I didn´t weigh it so I´ll have to make a rough guess. I´ll let you know next time I make it how much I use as I´ll definitely be including the mascarpone again. The cheesecake is just so light yet creamy....certainly the best cheesecake I´ve ever made. I guarantee if you make this for your partner/family/friends, it´s going to be a big hit and everyone will be left wanting more. The recipe is loosely based on this Raspberry Ripple Cheesecake recipe from the Cookery club but here is my version:


Cherry Cheesecake (Makes about 12 portions)
Ingredients:

340g cream cheese (such as Philidelphia)
100ml (just over 1/3 cup)double cream
90g (just over 1/3 cup) caster (superfine) sugar
leftover mascarpone *1/3 cup of mascarpone*
1/4 tsp vanilla extract (or 1/2 tsp vanilla essence, I´ve heard that vanilla extract is stronger so put less)
1 sachet of gelatine
90g/3oz butter
220g/8 oz digestive biscuits
Topping:
1 595g/21oz can of cherry pie filling/topping

Method:
1. Melt butter in a pan, taking care not to brown.
2. Crush biscuits into crumbs using food processor, blender or place in plastic bag and use rolling pin to bash or roll the biscuits (be careful with the latter method as bag may split and crumbs will go everywhere!)
3. Combine butter and biscuit crumbs and then spread evenly into a 9inch, 22.8cm cake tin and place in fridge.
4. Beat cream cheese in a medium sized bowl.
5. Beat in cream, sugar, mascarpone and vanilla extract till smooth.
6. Prepare gelatine according to instructions on packet (in this case add 1 cup boiling water to gelatine and stir till completely dissolved, about 5 mins)
7. Add gelatine to cheesecake mixture and slowly beat in, the mixture will appear very liquidy, like cream.
8. Spoon on top of the biscuit base and refrigerate for 2-3 hrs, until set.
9. Open can and spoon cherry topping over cheesecake, refrigerate until serving.
10. Enjoy!

A taste of Thailand, "Bangkok Balcony", Pittsburgh

I haven´t tried much Thai food believing it to be too spicy for me. I have fond memories of my parents making Thai Green Curry(a milder version especially for me) and ending up with my eyes tearing up, my nose running and a totally numbed mouth due to the spicy heat....I couldn´t even taste the food, my mouth was that numb! However, thanks to my recent discovery of Thai red curry and Anne´s Kitchen´s Creamy Prawn Curry, my interest and my appreciation of Thai food is growing! So much so, that I´ve been wanting to try this restaurant, Bangkok Balcony, for awhile unfortunately I forgot to take my camera so that´s why I´ve given you the link.


Bangkok Balcony doesn´t give the impression of being such a nice restaurant from the outside, in fact you might even walk past it without noticing it as it is just seems to be stuck on the end of some shops. However, when you get upstairs and enter the restaurant, it´s a pleasant surprise. The restaurant is medium sized with modern decor an artistic objects which reflect the Thai culture. You are greeted by friendly staff which lead you to your table.


Every Thursday and Sunday night you can also watch Thai dancing while you eat. We were lucky enough to catch this as we went on a Sunday.The girls were dressed in typical Thai costume and it was interesting to see the way they danced, there were a lot of hand movements. My only complaints is that it was quite difficult to see them properly due to the waiters taking orders as I don´t think the restaurant lent itself to such a purpose because of it´s size. Also, that the dancing was over so soon!

I heard a lot about the Thai samosas as I was checking out other reviews about the restaurant so we decided to share those as a starter, seeing as most people seemed to be raving about them. The Thai samosas consisted of crispy deep fried filo pastry triangles with a soft Thai sweet potato filling -a perfect contrast of textures. They were served with a fresh cucumber sauce or salsa. I thought they were delicious but found it a little disconcerting as it was so sweet. In fact, the filling reminded me a little of marzipan!. I wasn´t sure whether it should be a starter or a dessert. My boyfriend chose a Basil leaf dish, which was made up of your choice of meat(beef in his case), red and green peppers, and of course basil leaves in a spicy garlic sauce and I chose a pineapple curry, again with my choice of meat, which was also beef. The restaurant has a spiciness scale from 1-10, which is good if like me you can´t eat too hot a curry. My boyfriend chose 3 on the spiciness scale and I went for 2. My beef pineapple curry was lovely and creamy and hit just the right amount of spiciness for me, however I preferred my boyfriend´s choice as it was full of flavour. Both dishes were cooked to perfection and the meat was really tender. I would definitely go back there again and am now a fully-fledged convert to Thai food. We decided to skip dessert as nothing really appealed to us although I would have liked to try the green tea ice cream if it hadn´t been for having a cold and a sore throat!


The Bangkok Balcony is an average priced restaurant which is worth a visit to sample the delicious food and due to the friendly,quick service. It is also has won awards for being one of the top Thai restaurants in Pittsburgh so I would definitely reccomend it! It is located on Forbes Ave in Squirrel Hill.