Gypsy's muse!

Travelholics anonymous! Come join.....

In the world kitchen!

In fnq we have an abundance of tropical fruits growing in the backyard.  Locals are always sharing their crops with friends and neighbours. We arrived home to a banana bushel ready for the taking and decided to combine that with leftover frozen mango to do some baking.

Banana and mango bread.

Ingredients 

1 tab butter,

1 egg,

1 cup brown sugar,

1 1/2 cups sr flour,

1 tab milk,

3 mashed bananas,

1 cup mango pulp.

Method

Mix ingredients together and bake in greased loaf tin on 200 C for 50 minutes.

Serve hot or cold with yoghourt.

Word of the week!

Peregrination 

To travel from one place to another especially on foot.
A course of travel, a journey.

Travel tip 16!

Money options when traveling is an important issue to get organised before heading away . It pays to do your homework by researching options and the bank fees associated. Whether you use credit, debit or travel cash cards, you should be aiming for cards that give you the least amount hassle combined with the lowest fees and charges. Use a combination of methods to be on the safe side. Nothing worse than an atm swallowing up your card and having no other choices.
We chose a master and visa credit card as well as debit cards. It goes without saying , memorise you pin number and don't tell anyone! Looked into cash card but fees were much the same  as credit/ debit cards and you need internet access to top card. Great idea for European travel but not so for Central and Sth America. Cash cards only have EURO, GBP, USD, AUD, NZD, THB, CAD HKD and YEN currencies  so that meant we would have had to pay cross currency fees in many places.

In some countries, the visa would work not the master or vica versa and sometimes only debit card. Smart idea is to take some universal USD with you as it can be exchanged at all international airports. Ensure USD currency is not older than 2008 as a lot of countries will not accept older notes.

We registered with secure sentinel to protect all our cards, passports etc. That way if something is lost or stolen you only have to contact one person to organise cancellation and renewal of missing items. www.securesentinel.com.au  or phone 1800022043

Miscellaneous safety  travel tips.

Keep cards and cash in a separate place,  we always worked out how much cash we would use for the day and kept that in a small wallet to carry around . Always sort money in private and lock valuables in  a safe when available.

Use a money belt, pacsafe handbag and RFID wallet.

Set up global roaming for emergency purposes.

Make sure the ATM you are using is an actual bank ATM, and when you enter your pin, be sure that there is nobody who can observe.
Skimmers; they are out  to steal your identity – they've gone as far as putting little webcams at the ATM's focused on the keys so that they can gain your PIN and card number.
Cover keys when entering information, and don't use the ATM if you see someone close by, or notice anything unusual.

Being safe is much better tha being sorry!

Money money money; life is sunny in a rich man's world!

Blogger's books!

Who loves " The hunger games"  series ? The marketing angle, " the new twilight" nearly made us miss out on this brilliant series. Biting the bullet, we did read the 3 books in quick succession. After eagerly waiting to watch "Catching fire" , the day finally arrived, again this film was fanastic. Book adaptations have certainly made an improvement these days, but you can still come out wanting more details portrayed in the film version. This brings up the question of whether it is better to read the book first or watch the movie? A bit of a chicken or egg dilemma!

Gypsy's muse!

In the world kitchen!

Borcht is a famous Russian beetroot soup. We were lucky enough to try some traditional homemade borcht during our adventure in St Petersberg and it certainly was delicious as well as warming after a busy sightseeing morning. The preparation of this national dish is very time consuming and takes several hours to cook. A little research came up with a recipe more suited to today's busy lifestyle.

Ingredients. Serves 4

4 beetroots, 1 mashed sweet potato, 1/4 shredded red cabbage, 1 chopped brown onion, 1 tab olive oil, 1 tab minced garlic,1 teas cumin, 1 dried bay leaf, 2 cups vegetable stock, 2 cups hot water, ground black pepper.

Garnish with a dollop of greek yoghurt and dill.

Method.

Heat oven to 400 c , wrap beets in tin foil and roast until tender (approx 30-40 mins). When cool; peel and julienne beets. Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium heat; add beets, potato, onion, garlic, cumin, bayleaf and cook for 5 minutes (stir regularly). Add stock and 2 cups of water and bring to boil. Reduce heat to simmer covered for 20 mins then stir in cabbage and simmer a further 10 mins. Season with pepper. Allow to cool slightly then blend soup until smooth . ( I like it more textured)
Serve hot or cold.

Naslazhdat'sya!