Happy Thanksgiving!

We celebrated Thanksgiving last night with the husband's family. I thought it would be fun to invite them over for a Thanksgiving dinner as this holiday isn't celebrated in Denmark. As we were only 5 people and I really did not feel like hunting down and cooking a turkey, we had a chicken Thanksgiving dinner!

It was so nice getting to share this Canadian tradition with them. And cooking all of our own food was fun as well! Especially since everyone enjoyed everything! For dinner we roasted two chickens from this recipe, I made this apple and herb stuffing, we had a side of green beans as well as one of our favorite cauliflower recipes (browned butter and panko bread crumbs!!!). And to finish it all off, I made this lovely sweet potato buttermilk pie. Three Smitten Kitchen recipes in one day, I clearly love Deb and her food!

Now it is Monday and I am off to work but Happy Thanksgiving to all of you who are celebrating today! I hope you're enjoying this long weekend with family and friends!

Honeymoon in Sitges

Early Monday morning after our wedding on July 19th we took off for our honeymoon in Sitges. Originally, the husband and I had wanted to go to Santorini in Greece. We did not book things early enough so the flight and hotel prices had really gone up. I met with Tina for coffee in May and she suggested a few places we could look into and Sitges was one of them. I am so happy we took her advice because we absolutely loved Sitges.

Sitges is a beach town just a 45 minute or so train ride from Barcelona. We were there for 6 days and spent two days in Barcelona. We booked our flights and hotel through Expedia and stayed at Hotel Avenida Sofia & Spa just across the street from the beach. Although there are many hotels in Sitges, the town did not feel overly touristy. There were tourists, but there were also many Spanish tourists so it felt like a place Spaniards go as well.

The beaches went on and on. If one was too crowded we would just walk down to the next one. Our hotel had a rooftop pool so we spent the mornings there before making our way to the beach after lunch.

The food there was amazing. There were tapas and pintxos and there was seafood. So. Much. Seafood. Basically my dream come true. We had mussels, razor clams, calamari, and of course paella, which I ate 3 nights out of 6. Crazy? Maybe. But I say it eat while you can! For our restaurant recommendations we turned to Trip Advisor. And we were really impressed at how accurate the ratings were. The best meals (and paella!) we had on the trip was at La Marinada and at Restaurant Sitges Bon Estar (plus they had really wonderful service). If you are thinking of going to La Marinada or Bon Estar later in the week, definitely make a reservation. We tried to just walk into Bon Estar on Friday evening and they didn't have any open tables and made a reservation for the next night. While we were eating at Bon Estar, we noticed that all the tables had a reserved sign on it, the food and staff were really wonderful so I can understand why!

Sunshine, the beach, and amazing food. What more could we have asked for? It was so nice to just relax and spend time on our own after having guests and running around the week leading up to the wedding. After being in Spain for almost a week, we came back to Copenhagen to see my family again before they flew home and then spent the rest of the week/weekend at my in-laws' summerhouse.

Did you go on a honeymoon right after your wedding? And where did you go?

Six Tasty Brownie Recipes for the Holidays

A few weeks ago, Tina from Traveling Mama and I baked a few different types of brownies to feature on her blog as the holidays are approaching. Read the post here! I make the same brownies all the time and they're delicious, but sometimes you just want to try something new.

On her post you'll find my Almond Flour Brownies (which I also turned dairy free by replacing the butter with coconut oil), my White Chocolate Cranberry Blondies, and my favorite Dark Chocolate Brownies topped with some Peppermint Buttercream.

But let me tell you about Tina's Mississippi Mud Brownies. They were a m a z i n g. The spongy later of marshmallow icing on top was the best thing ever. Marshmallows are now on my grocery list so I can make those brownies asap! If you have a dairy allergy or are lactose intolerant, try Tina's Dark Chocolate Oat Brownies and replace the butter and milk in the Fudgy Cake Brownies with oil and almond milk. Yum!

If you're looking for recipes this holiday, try some of these brownies! I tasted everything and enjoyed them all. What can I say, I'm a sweets and dessert person!

*All the photos in this post are taken by Tina Fussell

What We Ate in Cinque Terre

It is no secret that I love ice cream. The days leading up to our trip to Cinque Terre, I told the fiance that we had to have gelato every single day (not that many since we were only there for 3 days really). Since we got to Vernazza in the evening on Friday, we had no gelato. That meant that we had to eat two on Saturday and of course we ate one on Sunday as well. We tried a gelato place in Monterosso, in Vernazza, and in Corniglia. They were all good, but the best gelato we had came from Gelateria da Stalin. Not the best name for a shop but their pistachio gelato was amazing. So creamy and so nutty. Delicious! We also had the richest chocolate gelato at Un Mare di Yogurt in Corniglia and they had a cute little back patio where you could sit and rest for a bit after hiking to get there!

But even better than the gelato we had in Cinque Terre was the seafood. Oh. My. Goodness. Mussels galore! I had seafood pasta twice, I had calamari twice, and they were all delicious (which is why I had to eat the same things again and again) but the best thing I ate by far were the stuffed mussels. We had dinner at Trattoria de Sandro in Vernazza on Saturday evening. It is a cozy little restaurant on the main street really close to the train station. Like I said, I had stuffed mussels and they were amazing. The boyfriend also had a really nice fish dish but you will have to ask him about that! The mussels were stuffed with a breadcrumb filling and the mussels were baked in a delicious and simple tomato sauce. We asked one of the servers how they made the mussels and she said that they open up the mussels while they are alive, put the breadcrumb filling in and close them back up. Amazing! I mean, how do you even pry open a live mussel? That was my most memorable, and the most delicious dish I had while we were in Cinque Terre. The seafood pasta that I just had to eat twice was from Antica Osteria il Baretto, also in Vernazza. The mussels, clams and shrimps were fresh and it was cooked simply so that the seafood and the salty sea flavor really shone in the pasta. I loved it. Antica Osteria il Baretto is not a fancy place, instead it felt like a really homey restaurant where the chefs were cooking in the same way they would at home. Simple, fresh, and delicious.

Eating in Cinque Terre was a lot of fun. I thoroughly enjoyed everything that we had. Italy is just full of so much good food that I can't wait to visit another part of the country! Maybe Tuscany next time?

Hiking through Cinque Terre

When I go on holidays, I don't think of going hiking. I always think of myself as a city person who wants to check out the local shops, visit different cafes, and visit some art museums or watch a play or something. But then we went to Cinque Terre. And we went hiking for two days. And you know what, I really liked it and would love to go on more active holidays!

We arrived in Vernazza on Friday evening and we got up bright and early on Saturday to start our day. Cinque Terre is a national park and there are many different trails and paths that connect the five towns. You can find all the different routes and paths that you can take here and they differentiate the paths based on hiking experience. Some of the main trails in Cinque Terre are closed though because of recent landslides so we did not get to hike between Corniglia and Manarola and between Manarola and Riomaggiore on the famous Via dell Amore. 

On Saturday morning we started on the path from Vernazza to Monterosso. It took the fiance and I almost 2 hours to complete the hike. I am glad we started from the Vernazza side because as we got closer to Monterosso there were hundreds and hundreds of stairs to walk down. If we had started the hike from Monterosso, I might have given up! After having lunch and walking around Monterosso, we took the train back to Vernazza for a little break before tackling our second hike for the day. This time we took the route from Vernazza to Corniglia. The trails are absolutely beautiful. You are constantly surrounded by the amazing landscape of this part of Italy. Olive trees line the trails as well as huge interesting looking cacti. The ocean is a stunning blue. And it is so fun seeing the towns from afar. It blows my mind how people built these villages by the ocean hundreds of years ago and what amazes me even more is that people still live there! 

On our way back to Vernazza from Corniglia we saw a poster advertising some free guided walks through different parts of Cinque Terre. So the fiance and I got up on Sunday morning and took the train to Manarola where the guided walk would begin. The hike was led by a friendly Italian woman who works at the national park and has lived her whole life there. Along with 15 other people, mostly Italians, we started this three hour hike. We walked through olive groves and vineyards through the hills of Cinque Terre between Manarola and Corniglia. All of the land there is still owned by local families and they harvest their own olives to produce olive oil. Because they do not have huge olive groves, they mainly produce oil for their own families and friends. It was a really lovely hike and we got to see some of the back trails which the fiance and I might not have taken if we weren't with the group. We did see some hikers along the way, but only a handful compared to the line ups we encountered on the main paths between the towns. 

Honestly, the towns are really charming in Cinque Terre but there is really not much to do in them. Part of experiencing Cinque Terre is going on some of the hikes and soaking in its landscape and scenery through walking the trails. Plus hiking helped us burn off the two gelatos we ate on Saturday! 

Staying in Picturesque Vernazza

The fiance and I stayed in Vernazza during our time in Cinque Terre. I may be biased because that was our base last weekend, but it is the coziest, charming and the most picturesque town in Cinque Terre. Vernazza may be the smallest town in Cinque Terre and although there were still many tourists walking around during the day, it felt less touristy than the other villages. Vernazza is located right on the water and like all of the other towns, the apartments and buildings are built on the incline of the hills and cliffs in that part of the Italian riviera.

I was so happy to find out that the fiance had booked a place for us to stay in Vernazza after reading that it was the prettiest town in Cinque Terre. The fiance told me he had booked a place on Airbnb so I thought we would be staying in someone's apartment. We have used Airbnb several times so I was expecting to stay in someone's apartment or a place people rented out to tourists. But then we got to Vernazza and we found out that our Airbnb was actually a hotel room (they advertise/list their rooms on Airbnb)! We stayed in a room at Hotel Gianni Franzi and it was wonderful for the price that we paid. Hotel Gianni Franzi is located just off the main square in the village and we stayed on the top floor of one of their three buildings. From our window we had a great view of the other side of Vernazza (see the first photo in this post). 

Hotel Gianna Franzi had some perks. There was free wifi in one of the lounge areas so it was nice to be able to plug in for a few minutes a day. It was actually really nice not having constant access to the internet plus we didn't really have much time to use the web in between our hiking and gelato eating! Best of all was that the hotel offers a breakfast buffet on their rooftop terrace overlooking the riviera. The view from this terrace was so beautiful. I loved listening to the sound of the waves crashing below us while we enjoyed mini croissants, yogurt, and cappuccinos. I wish I could have breakfast there every day! 

Next up, the hikes that we went on in Cinque Terre! 

It's Always Sunny in Vancouver

Well, it's not always sunny. Actually it rains a lot. But during our time there (a little over two weeks), we had nothing but sunshine and warm weather! That's pretty rare for Vancouver and it was absolutely wonderful! The two weeks was spent hanging out with my family, eating out everyday, and enjoying all the best things in Vancouver.

We did the Grouse Grind, the boyfriend had his first poutine, and we managed to sneak in a short trip to Seattle. Some days were spent at the beach with friends, others were spent criss-crossing the city with my family, and there was a lot of scheduling dinners and meet ups with family and friends.

Although we thought we would do a lot of shopping, we actually didn't really buy anything. Instead, we tried new things like stand up paddle boarding, watched my youngest sister perform in her improv show, and took a kundalini yoga class.

My parents took us out to a ton of Chinese restaurants for everything from dim sum to peking duck, we had a variety of Japanese food from ramen to hotdogs with teriyaki mayo and seaweed on top of them, and I got myself some doughnuts after being deprived of them over here in Scandinavia for three years.

Vancouver is such a gorgeous city. The view from Jericho beach of the city with the mountains in the background is amazing. When I'm in Copenhagen, I forget how much of the landscape and nature is visible all the time in Vancouver so when I am in the city again, I'm just totally blown away by the beauty of it all. I don't compare Vancouver to Copenhagen and vice versa much, they're both different but they're both great.

It is nice to have two places to call home.

Be Right Back

I haven't been blogging very much this past week because the boyfriend and I flew to Vancouver on Tuesday! We're here to visit my family and friends for a little while so my blogging has been almost non-existent. I hope you're having the most wonderful summer! Be back real soon!