Day Trip to Sintra, Portugal

An easy train ride from Portugal’s capital city of Lisbon, the town of Sintra feels like something out of a Portugeuese fairy tale.

Sintra is definitely worth a trip from Lisbon if you have a day to spare, although you really can’t see all its magic in a single day. Still, we spent the better part of a day exploring the town and its surrounding castles, starting with the colorful Pena palace and its expansive park grounds.

Sintra, with its higher elevations and cooler temperatures, served as a popular summer retreat for the Portuguese nobility and elite, which explains the prevalence of the lavish castles and palaces there.

The most popular of the town’s castles is the Pena Palace, whose colorful walls draw tourists like moths to a lightbulb. The 19th-century palace was built on the foundation of an old monastery, designed as a lavish summer residence for the Portuguese royal family. The bold colors, intricate stonework and stunning tile facades were built in an eclectic mix of styles and influences, giving it a unique architectural style all its own.

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from Love and Olive Oil http://bit.ly/2JU4WGd

BBQ Soy Curls

No-Bowl Applesauce Cake

Tortellini Soup with Basil

Strawberry Hibiscus Swirl Bundt Cake

You’ll love this classic vanilla pound cake with a swirl of strawberry hibiscus sugar and a brilliant pink glaze.

Boring bundt no more: this modern take on a classic recipe is as bold in flavor as it is beautiful. With a ribbon of strawberry-hibiscus sugar throughout, and a gorgeous fuchsia glaze, this cake is sure to turn heads (and delight tastebuds) wherever it goes!

I was recently gifted a beautiful bundt pan, dare I say the most beautiful bundt pan I’ve ever seen (my jaw dropped when I saw someone post a cake made with this pan in our facebook group, and I expressed as much in the comments. My lovely friend and neighbor was clearly paying attention as he got me one for my birthday a few days later).

I knew I had to do this gorgeous pan justice. Being the indecisive soul I am, I put it to the group to help me decide what kind of bundt cake I should make first. Strawberry won, hands down (with marzipan coming in a close second, so that will probably be my next endeavor!)

The group had spoken. Strawberry bundt cake it is!

I tried and I tried (really, I tried so hard) to get a strawberry pound cake to work. But whatever tweaks I made to the recipe, the texture just wasn’t quite right. From very very not right (think dense, gummy mochi cake) to close but still slightly off-putting. Something about adding strawberries in any form (fresh and/or freeze dried) to a cake does weird things to the texture. Flavor-wise it was spot on, but I just couldn’t get the texture right. I guess there is good reason most of the strawberry cake recipes you see these days use strawberry Jello.

Despite my failures, I still couldn’t shake the idea of a strawberry bundt cake in my beautiful new bundt pan, so rather than drive myself crazy trying to fit a square peg in a round hole, I changed my perspective. Instead of making the cake itself strawberry flavored, I stuck with a tried and true classic pound cake and then added swirl of strawberry-hibiscus sugar. It’s still got an intense strawberry flavor (especially once you add the glaze), but it preserves the perfect crumb of the vanilla pound cake.

And speaking of that glaze… it’s as bold in flavor as it is in color. Made from the same strawberry hibiscus sugar as the swirl inside the cake, the stunning fuchsia color is thanks to a concentrated hibiscus tea (when I did the same thing with plain milk the results were a slightly pinkish mauve).

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from Love and Olive Oil http://bit.ly/2wlmi5W

Favorite Potato Salad

Strawberry Margarita Jam

This Strawberry Margarita jam recipe is summer in a jar: all bright fruit and tart lime and a hint of booze that can only mean good times ahead.

It’s your favorite summertime cocktail-turned-jam, made with fresh ripe strawberries, tangy lime, organic agave, and a splash of silver tequila and Grand Marnier to finish it off.

This recipe was created in partnership with Agave In The Raw®, our go-to brand for all-natural and organic sweeteners.

When Agave In The Raw® first reached out to me about working together, it should come as no surprise that my mind immediately went to jam.

I’ve made a number of jams in the past with honey and maple syrup, but I had never used agave nectar, so I was excited at the prospect of something a little bit different.

Agave nectar is made from the blue agave plant, the same magical succulent from which tequila is made.

Strawberry. Agave. Tequila.

You see where I’m going with this?

I’ve known for a while that jam makes great cocktails (I’ve got a recipe for a Jam Rickey in the bonus edition of my jam ebook series that’s to die for).

But this recipe is further proof that cocktails also make great jam. In this case, a strawberry margarita, heavy on the strawberry with a hint of lime and liquor.

The resulting jam is not overly boozy; most of the alcohol evaporates in the cooking process, leaving behind just a hint of flavor. This is first and foremost a strawberry jam, with a pop of lime and a hint of tequila that teases at the essence of a margarita rather than forcing itself upon your palate.

(And if you like my jars, be sure to click through/scroll to the bottom to download these free printable labels for yourself!)

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from Love and Olive Oil http://bit.ly/2W0Q1R1