Happy Austrian Bank Holiday

Its Bank Holiday today in Austria, So I thought some facts about my home country out of Wikipedia would be interesting:

Capital and largest city		Vienna 48°12′N 16°21′E
Official languages		German
Regional languages[1]		Croatian Hungarian Slovene
Ethnic groups(2011)		81.1% Austrians[2] 7.0% ex-Yugoslavs(including autochthonous Slovenes/Croats) 4.0% Turks 7.9% other / unspecified[3]
Demonym		Austrian
Government		Federal semi-presidentialrepublic
-	President	Heinz Fischer
-	Chancellor	Werner Faymann (SPÖ)
-	President of the National Council	Barbara Prammer (SPÖ)
Legislature		Parliament
-	Upper house	Federal Council
-	Lower house	National Council
Independence
-	Duchy	1156
-	Archduchy	1453
-	Empire	1804
-	First Republic	1918–1934
-	Federal State	1934–1938
-	Anschluss	1938–1945
-	Second Republic	since 1945
-	State Treaty in effect	27 July 1955

Holiday Greetings !

The next week or so you wont hear from me, no recipes, no reviews. Look at the picture, I am back home, hiking in the mountains, swimming in the lakes, but most important tasting Austrian Food !

Do not worry, I will bring some souvenirs back from you. And I will continue at this place end of June !

(Ps.: If someone thinks now, great, lets rob his place, good luck. Got a house sitter, my neighbour is a Gard (Policemen), and the farmer across the road is retired and got plenty of time how to shoot with his riffle. But first and foremost, there is nothing to gain, I got my treasures with me !

Holidays - Guest Blogger wanted !

I have camping holidays coming up, and I wonder if someone would like to write some guest posts while I am gone ?

If you are interested to share 2-3 recipes or DIY/fishing Tips while I am gone on holiday please drop me a email.

Happy Easter

Happy Easter out there,
do you know the tradition of coloring Easter eggs and bumping them against each other ?

Here a funny Youtube Video for you to watch to learn more about it.

Recipe: Easter Nest

Easter is approaching, and what is better than a bit of baking for Easter, so here a simple recipe for you to make a lovely Easter Nest. (tastes like brioche)
Ingredients:
500ml milk
100gr sugar
150gr butter
40gr yeast
2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs + 1 egg to add later to keep the dough moist

first add the yeast to the lukewarm milk, make sure you don't use to hot milk, that would kill the yeast. than add the butter and the rest of the ingredients. using a kitchen machine make sure the dough is well mixed than let it rest for at least 2 hours, the dough should double in size.

After make 3 strings out of the dough, take a cooked egg, it can be also a coloured one, and make a string around that egg, as shown in the picture.

Its a bit tricky to get it to look nice, but you have enough dough to make at least 2 of this nests.

Let it after the forming rest about 30 minutes, preheat your oven to 180 C and bake it for 45 minutes. Use a toothpick to test if the nest is fully bake.

enjoy,

Happy Easter !

Happy St. Patricks Day

Happy Valentines

Happy Valentines,

I love this romantic days but what I do not like is to be forced to buy flowers on specific days, my wife would expect anyway to do so.

So all you men out there, why not cooking something sweet for your Sweetheart today,
its so simple !
Love goes through the stomach we say in Austria.

Prosit Neujahr: Enjoy the blue danube walz !

Xmas Swimm

Its amazing, all around Ireland there have been Xmas swimmers for Charity on the morning of the 25th of December.

In West Cork at the Inchidony beach more than 250 turned up to run together in the water for a swim.

All of this is of course for different charities and lots of money has been raised for them

On stands hot tea and soup was provided for guests and swimmers.

Next year I will make it myself into the floods !

Merry Xmas

Ho Ho Ho, Merry Xmas !

You thought i would work today ?

Nope i am celebrating and scheduled this post ahead,
to wish you all a Merry Xmas !

Well i actually might take a few pictures or so,
of my Xmas Dinner, and how i used the rest of the Turkey,
and blog about that "Next Year" :-)

I will make a small break, and will be shortly back with new stories, recipes, etc.

Yours,
Clonlin

I hope you liked my blog so far,
if you have any tips for me what to try next, leave them in the comments !

Review: Real French Cuisine

Last Holiday I could for the first time discover what is real French cuisine. Where is the best place to have the real thing, of course in the country side of France. I went o the "Post Restaurant" (Restaurant de la poste) in Montréjeau, France.

The owner was very nice, they didn't had a English menu but i didn't care, thats the way it should be. If I would want a English menu in a French restaurant, I should go to McDonald's.


So I had simple food the owner could explain me with is basic English. Some "Quark Quark" / frog legs as a starter, and a Muh Muh / veal as a main.

It was gorgeous, I still don't understand why its so hard to find veal at a butcher in Ireland,
but hey, C'est la vie !


Thanks again to the nice staff of the Restaurant de la poste, you earned a 5 Star rating from me !

Holiday Checklist

I have previous published a camping checklist
which i was told from friends was useful for them.

Now, well might be a bit late for some people, but if you are just going on holiday, here a great checklist.

I also use that list for business travel since the main things to check are the same.




Also noteworthy are import rules:

Alcohol and tobacco allowances for travellers to Ireland from EU	Maximum quantity allowed
Cigarettes Cigarillos Cigars Smoking tobacco Spirits (whiskey, vodka, gin, etc.) Intermediate Products (e.g. sherry, port, etc., excluding sparkling wine) Wine (only 60 litres of sparkling wine allowed) Beer	800 400 200 1 kg 10 litres 20 litres 90 litres 110 litres

You are not entitled to alcohol or tobacco allowances if you are aged under 17 years.
You should keep any receipts as proof that you have paid duty and VAT.

Little trick ?

A great trick I use when i park somewhere, either in a big parking garage in the city,
or at the airport, is at each level to find the parking space B4 and park there, or close to it.

That way its very easy to remember, where I parked B4 (before) I went on holiday, since i am terrible with numbers, and after 1-2 weeks holidays, who wouldn't forget the number of the parking place ?