Tag: food

Unicorn Party

Published on by Vanessa Gregoria7 Comments

This week O turned into a big four year old girl. So of course we have been celebrating since the anniversary of her birth until her birthday party over the weekend. She calls her self the unicorn keeper, so it was only fitting that she should have a unicorn themed party.

Here she is. She was so happy to celebrate her birthday with her friends, who she hand picked to invite. Usually we invite all our friends but this year it was just a couple of little girls that she wanted to invite with their families, as well her cousins. For me it was also nice to have time with a few guests so that we could talk in a group, rather then having 10 minutes with each person. The little ones also played really nicely and had a blast together.

For the last few years I have been buying O’s cakes, but this year she asked her aunty to make her a unicorn cake. Didn’t she do such an amazing job! She always makes beautiful cakes for her kids, but I was blown away by this one. I believe it was buttercream on the outside with some fondont for the eats and eyes. The horn is actually an icecream cone with fondant wrapped around it. Inside it was a Serbian layered cake with layers of sponge, made of almond meal and plasma biscuits and custard made with Milka chocolate. What I loved about it was that it wasn’t too sweet, which is what I usually find with Serbian cakes.

I made two sweet treats, cupcakes and shortbread cookies with sprinkles. I forgot to photograph my cookies, but you may seem them in the background of one of the other photos. They were just a basic shortbread biscuit, made of butter, brown sugar, flour and vanilla and I stired through some coloured sprinkles. I used Hooper 100’s and 1000s, since I wanted something free of artifical colours, flavours and preservatives.

As for the cupcakes I used Chloe Coscarelli’s recipe for Dark Chocolate Fudge Cake (vegan). I also added some vegan chocolate chips and blueberries. This recipe was a little naughty because it had coffee, but it was so lovely and fudgey. For the frosting, I made a basic butter cream recipe with butter, icing sugar and soy milk. This year I decided to use organic butter because I am sick of using Nutlex and having the oil separate from the frosting. I usually like to make everything dairy free but I think the butter tasted better, looked better and lasted better.For the colours I used Queen Rainbow Natural Extracts and Hooper Pink Sprinkles. I made a couple of batches of the frosting so that I could pipe both colours at the same time. I am not really happy that I couldn’t manage to get purple or orange with the Queen’s food colouring. This orangy-flesh colour was not exactly what I was after but it was ok with the pink.

Now for the savoury food. My mum made this amazing grazing table. It had Proscuitto di Parma, nitrate-free hot salami, crackers, olives, brie, gerkins, sundried tomatoes, dates, nuts, grapes and pears. I served made my Fried Zucchini (see my recipe), which were a hit. I also made homemade pork sausage rolls with nitrate-free free-range pork sausages and I used both normal and gluten free puff pastry. I did have a little hitch with the Simply Wize gluten free pastry sheets.They initially cracked when I tried to wrap the sausages, so I did need to re-knead and roll out out the dough with some arrowroot flour. Once I did that they were perfect for pastry use. Since I had left mine in the over a little long to keep warm my normal puff pastry did split, but the gluten free remained perfect and there was little difference with the taste, it was just a little less flakey. The last thing I served was a homemade lasenge; cherry tomatoes for the kids and salad of Rocket, cherry tomatoes and avocado. The Lasanga turned out great, except that I left it on warm in the over and it blackened the top a little. Everyone said it still tasted great and thank goodness it didn’t taste burned.

I also organised a little Dress-up Station for the girls. That wasn’t really used, but everyone. They did enjoy the games that I organised. We played Pass-the-Parcel and Musical Chairs. My daughter knew what the prizes were and was very competitive. She actually won both games. I let her keep the prize from Pass-the-Parcel, but for the Musical Chairs the second winner got the prize. I also made the girls some little gift bags, that had fairy wands, sparkely unicorn stickers, unicorn animal erasers and some of my Shortbread cookies.

Oh the last thing I will show you is the picture I coloured for O’s birthday. This is from Dromenvanger by Tomislav Tomic. I intend doing my next review on this book, as I am currently working in it. She was pretty happy with it, since it featured one of her favourite creatures.

I hope you liked O’s unicorn party. If you are wanting to find the same decorations you can find the Unicorn themed banner, table cloth and candles from Big W’s party section. The rest of the unicorns come from the collection of my little unicorn keeper.

If you want to see what I did for O’s parties in the past few years see these posts below:

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star Party
Troll party
Frozen Party

Fried Zucchini

Published on by Vanessa Gregoria3 Comments

I’ve been trialling recipes for O’s big party day this weekend and Fried Zucchini is on the menu. I was inspired by my fellow Calabrese friends that post a lot of delicious photos of traditional fried dishes in our group. This recipe is pretty easy and very quick to prepare. I hope my friends and family liked it as much as my little family did.

Fried Zucchini (vegetarian, nut free, soy free)

Ingredients:

  • 3 medium zucchini, sliced in thin rounds
  • 1/2 cup or more flour
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1 cup finely grated Pecorino Romano
  • 1 cup Italian breadcrumbs
  • 2 large pinches of sea salt, more to serve
  • Olive oil for frying

Method:

  1. First organise your three bowls of flour, beaten eggs and a combined mixture of bread crumbs, grated cheese and sea salt.
  2. Dust the zucchini with flour, this will help them accept the batter. Dip them into the egg and lastly coat with bread crumb mixture. Set aside on a plate or baking tray, until all the zucchini are battered.
  3. Now heat the olive oil in a fry pan, it should be about 1.5-2 cm high. To test if the oil is hot enough put a little breadcrumb in and see if it sizzles. Now you can start putting your battered zucchini rounds into the pan. Be careful not to overcrowd the pan and cook each for about a minute on each side or until golden brown. Place the zucchini on paper towel on a plate or tray to drain the oil.
  4. Once all the zucchini has been fried, place on a serving tray with a pinch of good sea salt to serve.

Stockholm: Scandi perfection (day 2)

Published on by Vanessa Gregoria8 Comments

Hello everyone and thanks for checking back in with me. It’s been a while since I wrote about my Nordic adventure and today we continue in Stockholm, Sweden. Most of this post is dedicated to delicious foods we consumed and shopping our way through Gamla Stan,
Norrmalm and Östermalm. However, we did spend a good portion of the day visiting the Royal Palace and the Swedish History Museum, but I will write a separate post to share with you some of the marvels we found.


Södermalm: Breakfast

Its always great to start you day with a big healthy breakfast, especially if your up early. I found the perfect cafe in Södermalm that offers a wholesome breakfast and some great coffee. Pom & Flora is trendy little cafe, which offers wholesome breakfast bowls, fancy toast, fresh baked breads ith eggs and more, gluten free breads and a selection of coffees, juices and smoothies. They have two locations, so if your not in
Södermalm, you can also visit their other location in Vasastan.

For Octavia and I, we ordered the Seasonal fruit with whipped coconut cream and Steel cut oats cooked with oat milk and cardamom, stewed rubhard, nuts and cottage cheese. Marco had the Grilled Croissant with cheese & ham. We also ordered some cappuccino with oats milk. Everything was really fresh and delicious and the service was relatively quick.

Gamla Stan: sites and lunch

Next we headed to the Gamla Stan, which is the old town of Stockholm and one of the best-preserved medieval cities in Europe. Here you can find the Royal Palace, some of the best restaurants and cafes, museums and little bouquets between the narrow streets.

First we headed to the Royal Palace (Kungliga slotten), which is one of the largest palaces in Europe and is still the offical residence of the King of Sweden. It contains five splendid museums that you could easily spend all day exploring. Since I took so many photos I will write a special post just for the palace and the museums that we visited. The photots below are just of the Palace exterior, views from within and the Parade Square (Outer Courtyard). It was here that we caught the end of the changing of the guards.

Afterwards we wondered through the streets of Gamla Stan and did some window shopping before stopping for lunch. I just loved the hussle and bussle of the streets. The main streets are Västerlånggatan and Österlånggatan. Perhaps one of the most famous symbols of the city is the building in Stortorget, a small public square. Some other interesting stops are the momument to St George and the Dragon and the extremely narrow Prästgatan (The Priest Street). Unfortunately I got to this narrow street just as a whole lot of tourist arrived to gawk and walk down it. We decided we were too hungry to go down that rabbit hole.

There are so many amazing place to lunch in Gamla Stan. I was considering Resturang Tradition, which offers high quality classic Swedish food and some of the best meatballs in the city (also lactose free!). However, since we were on a budget we went for another exciting but less expensive option. Strömmingsvagnen is a food truck offering traditional Swedish fried herring. This sounded delicious to me, but Marco wasn’t convinced until he tried it. Octavia and I shared the Nystekt Strömming med Hemlegat Potatismos (Fried herring with mash potatoes) with the choice of pickled cucumber, creme fraiche salad and lingonberry. Marco went for the safest option, the Herring Burger. It was all so delicious! The herring wasn’t greasy at all and tasted fresh, without the fishy flavour. The mash potato was creamy to perfection and the salads and jam fresh. The burger was also amazing, as the fillings really brought the best out of the herring. For a cheap lunch, I can’t recommend it enough, even if your not a fish lover. Afterwards Marco and Octavia got some Icecream from the Hell Dog Food Truck and which they both highly recommend.

Norrmalm to Östermalm

After lunch we had to go back through Gamla Stan to make our way to the Swedish Historical Museum to see the Viking exhibition. So we walked from the south west of Gamla Stan across the bridge into Norrmalm and along the Lilla Värtan river towards the museum. It was a long walk on a really hot day. You may be wondering why we didn’t take public transport. Well, the day before we did get a day pass and we barely used. So today we decided to walk, which we did. It only took about 30 minutes, but it felt longer because of the heat. It was still nice to walk along the Nybroviken, which is a small bay, which separates Norrmalm and Östermalm.
Östermalm is a beautiful beautiful and afflutent part of Stockhom, where you can find plenty of shopping, beauitiful architecture and museums.

After visiting the museum, Marco and Octavia went back to the apartment to have a rest before dinner. I didn’t want to sit around the appartment, so instead I went shopping. I walked back from Östermalm to Norrmalm. I window shopped my way from Nybrogatan to Birger Jarlsgatan to Biblioteksgatan. I even found an Eataly, which I didn’t know about in Stockholm. The one and only Eataly that I’ve been to was in New York, which I loved. If I had more time I would have loved to come back to dine there.

It was so hot out and I was getting really thirsty, so I stopped into Joe and the Juice. This is a Danish juice bar, that has since spread across Europe, America, Asia and Australia. This is my first time visiting one of their bars, but I do remember trying to find one in Sentosa, Singapore. They offer fresh juices, smoothies, coffee, as well as plenty of savoury and sweet options for lunch or afternoon tea. I ordered the Prince of Green fresh juice, which was sweet, earthy and very refreshing. I would have got something else, but I had to have dinner soon. Not long after this I had to make the dreaded walk back through Gamla Stan to meet my family back at the apartment for dinner.

Södermalm: Dinner

For dinner I already had a place in mind, which was near the apartment in Södermalm. Krogen Soldaten Svejk is an Eastern European Restaurant which offers hearty dishes at an affordable price. They have good reviews and we saw plenty of customers on arrival, which is aways a good sign.

I ordered Vepřová du chef Jurajda (roasted loin of pork with sauerkraut and dumplings). Marco ordered the Schnitzel Feldkurat Katz filled with ham and cheese, with fried potatoes. For Octavia we orderer the Cheese and Sausage Plate. The food was exactly what we were hoping for, it was well cooked, hearty and so delicious. The only disappointment was the Cheese and Sausage plate, since we didn’t know that it would be processed cold meat. However, we probably should of asked a few more questions. It was still good, but nice exactly a kids meal. Octavia didn’t mind tucking in to our dishes anyway and we had an extra side dish.

To finish the night off we head to a local grocery store and bought some Swedish Icecreams. Their grocery stores full of interesting foods and plenty of dairy free and other healthy alternatives. You can probably guess which ones was mine.

Since this post has mainly been able food I will share with you some of the other places I would have loved to have tried. Unforunately this was our last full day in Stockholm, so I wasn’t able to try them this time.

Stockholm: Scandi perfection (day 1)

Published on by Vanessa Gregoria1 Comment

Our next stop on our Nordic Adventure was Stockholm, Sweden. We have been to Sweden a couple of times, but this was our first time visiting the capital city. Stockholm is the most populous city of the Nordic countries and the centre for cultural and economic centre of Sweden. We allocated two and a half days for Stockholm and if we had more time we would have loved to stay longer. The food, the shopping, the architecture and the sites, make it an amazing destination that you don’t want to leave.

Our first day in Stockholm was relatively lay back by my  travelling standards. We experiences amazing Swedish pastries, had family fun at Skansen open air museum, did fika with our cousin, window shopped in the old town and finished the evening with a plate of Swedish meatballs.

 

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Norwegian Road Trip Day 1: Viking Village (part 2)

Published on by Vanessa Gregoria25 Comments

Last I left you we had just seen some amazing Norwegian Waterfalls on the way to Gudvangen. Why were we headed to this small village in Aurland, Sogn og Fjordane? To visit the Viking Village of course!

The Viking Village is nestled between the  Kjelfossen (one of the tallest waterfalls in Norway, 755 metres) and the spectacular Nærøyfjord. During the Viking period, Gudvangen was an important place for trade and it’s name translates to a ‘place of the gods’. So this is a fitting location to step back in time and experience the Viking way of life.

Before we visited the Viking Village,  we took some photos on the Nærøyfjord. It is the most majestic fjord. The water is so clear and catches the shades of green from the mountains that dominate the landscape.

 

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Norwegian Road Trip Day 1: Waterfalls (part 1)

Published on by Vanessa Gregoria5 Comments

Today I will bring you along on our road trip in Norway. If you have been following along you know that last we were last in Bergen. We only had three days to fit in as many stops as we could and make it back to Bergen to fly out. Most guides from Bergen recommend driving out to Flåm and driving same direction back. I thought it would be better to do a round trip, so that we would see more. I couldn’t find a guide that recommend a round route, so we kinda made our own and booked our accommodations to correspond with our stops.

The map below shows the general direction with some of the major stops. This route is totally doable in 3 days, even with a screaming toddler in the car. Some of these stretches are a bit long, which is because the mountainous terrain and the fjords that take longer to navigate. Many of the water crossings require a river ferry, which can take time and do require a fee. However this gave us unforgettable scenic views and made the drive definitely more interesting as the landscape was constantly changing. FIY, we paid about $80 AUD in toll for these 3 days and there aren’t many signs for speed limits, despite the speeding camera.

Roadtrip Norway.jpg

 

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Bergen: historic trader town (part 2)

Published on by Vanessa Gregoria6 Comments

The second half our of time in Bergen was spent visiting some of the sites outside of the city centre. By the time we eventually received our hire car it was the afternoon, but it was just as well, as it would have taken longer to get to the first two designations on foot or by public transport. So the highlights of our afternoon in Bergen include the Old Bergen Museum, Fantoft Stave Church, Fløyen and a delicious dinner at Pingvinen. We did return to Bergen a few days later before flying out so I included the lunch we had from a great little Norwegian burger joint, Søstrene Hagelin at the end of this post.

 

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Oslo: botanic gardens & the Bergensbanen rail (day 3)

Published on by Vanessa Gregoria32 Comments

Our last day in Oslo was just really a half day since we had to travel to Bergen in the afternoon. I hate travelling during the day since it feels like such a waste, but with a kid it does make it easier. I tried to fit in a some shopping in Bogstadveien and a visit to the University Botanic Gardens before our epic train ride to Bergen on the Bergensbanen rail! If you would like to see the amazing landscapes I captured on our journey, scroll down towards the end of this post.

 

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Oslo: Cultural and heritage sites (day 2)

Published on by Vanessa Gregoria6 Comments

On our second day in Oslo we had a big day jam packed full of free cultural and heritage sites. There’s actually quite a lot you can do for free in Oslo, which you can enjoy all year round. Some of the highlights of day two include the Royal Palace and tranquil Slottsparken, the amazing art work at the City Hall, the historic Akershus Fortress, and the marvellous Opera House. I originally planned to also fit in the Free East Side Walking Tour (currently not on offer) in the afternoon, but I don’t think we could have possibly done it. My legs were still swollen from the flight and Octavia made it clear she was not going to be content to sit and be quiet. All in all I think we did pretty well and we also ate pretty well too.

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6# Life Update: home again, birthday and transit eats

Published on by Vanessa Gregoria6 Comments

I officially returned to Australia at the end of June after three weeks of travelling in Nordic Europe. It’s taken me a little bit to get over the jet lag since I was living in the lands of the midnight sun, with an 8 hour difference to my home timezone. I was only averaging about 4-5 hours sleep which is normal for me when I travel, since I am always on such a high. However, after having a child, my sleep isn’t as important as someone else, so I am not able to bounce back as quickly and get cankles from the aeroplane. The joys of age and responsibility. So anyway I am finally feeling like myself again the past couple of days.

 

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Harbour Front: Vivo City

Published on by Vanessa Gregoria5 Comments

On our Singapore Trip we booked a couple of hotels. The first was in Little India and the second was at the Harbour front, within the Bukit Merah district.  This is a convenient location if you want to visit Sentosa Island, but want to save on the accommodation. Our hotel was located across the road from the VivoCity shopping centre. Since it was my favourite shopping centre and we spent so much time there thought I would dedicate a post for it.

VivoCity is the largest shopping centre in Singapore and is both a shopping, entertainment and dining destination. No matter your budget you will be able to shop, eat and enjoy yourself in this centre since it caters for just about everyone. The centre houses Singapore’s largest cinema, biggest toy store, an amphitheatre, wade pool and four food courts. They are open from 10am until 10pm, giving you plenty of time to get all your minute shopping in or a place to hang out to get out of the heat. The Sentosa monorail and Broadwalk  leave from VivoCity, so its a convenient place to stop in at between attractions.

I found the selections of brands really great at this centre. There are international and Singaporean brands and a variety of high fashion, casual wear and quirky stores. I think the only thing that was really missing was a good bookstore. My only advice when navigating the centre is stay away from the stores leading out to the exits. This is where the beauty services are and they will try anything to get you in their shop and try to manipulate you to spend an obscene amount of money of their beauty products. I made this mistake twice, since I’m so polite. I didn’t buy from them but I did try to not return to these areas for another time wasting exercise.

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