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Showing posts from 2022

Happy New Year - Bom Ano Novo

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Visit  A Portuguese Love Store  for more gifts inspired by Portuguese pop culture and traditions. Thank you!  

Portuguese Christmas Rabanadas with Port wine syrupe made in the oven

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  Deep-fried food doesn't have a reputation for being healthy. This cooking method promotes a healthy lifestyle and helps in managing weight compared to frying! A baguette (french word) or "cacete" is usually 500g. (Don't cut it all at once in slices as it may be a lot for this list of ingredients. I used a 250g Baguette) Cut a loaf of bread (250 gr.) into oblique slices as thick as your index finger, more or less, discard the ends. Place them on a board. These slices will be watered with milk.  Choose another tray to place the slices in the oven and line it with buttered paper. Place 500 ml of milk, 50 g of sugar, 2 cinnamon sticks, and 2 lemon peels in a saucepan. Mix it up. Stir occasionally. When it boils, turn off the heat and set it aside.  You can prepare the syrup while the milk cools down a bit. In another pan put 200 ml of water, 100 ml of port wine, 100 g of sugar, 2 lemon peels, and 1 cinnamon stick. Mix everything and bring it to a boil. Wait for it to bo

New Year's Eve in Porto with Santa and the Rooster!

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  The Portuguese rooster and Santa Claus got together in Porto , the capital of Porto Wine, to celebrate the arrival of the New Year. It's just before midnight on the ClĂ©rigos Tower clock. Ho! Ho! Ho!, the new year is coming! They are in a hurry as they have already opened the bottle of Port Wine and are making a toast near the most famous tower in the city... Everyone who knows me knows that my favorite Portuguese city is Porto. It's where I go to celebrate SĂ£o JoĂ£o, in June, one of the biggest street festivals in Portugal and maybe in Europe. One of the most memorable moments of the festivities is the fireworks display on the D. Luiz Bridge over the Douro River. The fireworks return to the skies of the city on New Year's Eve. It's an amazing spectacle with light effects and live music. It's quite a show also because everybody goes to the street and nobody actually cares about the cold. Thousands of locals and tourists also gather in front of Porto City Hall on Ave

New Year’s Eve in Lisbon with Santa and the Rooster!

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The Portuguese rooster and Santa Claus got together in Lisbon , the capital of Portugal, to celebrate the arrival of the New Year. It's just before midnight on the Augusta Street Arch clock. The new year is coming. They are in a hurry as they have already opened the bottle of champagne and are making toast on the famous Rua Augusta. If you are fond of the famous Portuguese Rooster these Christmas gifts are for you. But you can offer it to a Portuguese relative or friend, a friendly neighbor, or work colleague, or any special Portuguese What is there to do in Lisbon on New Year's Eve? Many use the french Le RĂ©veillon , but fewer people will say that it's the night of SĂ£o Silvestre . It's the last night of the year. According to Portuguese folklore, this celebration is linked to a popular legend that gave this night the name of SĂ£o Silvestre Night. You may have read about Atlantida, an island that stood where the Mediterranean ended and the Atlantic began, among other

My Top 5 Christmas desserts with recipes

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There are a lot of Portuguese Christmas Sweets and most recipes are super easy to make and so tasty that I invite you to try them. I am sharing with you my favorite desserts and recipes:  Aletria  and  Mexidos or Formigos,  3.  Rabanadas  (Portugal's version of French toast),  4.  Sonhos de Natal (Portuguese Christmas Doughnuts), 5.  FilhĂ³s (delicate fried dough coated with sugar and cinnamon). From traditional sweets to fried dough pastries, here are the best Portuguese Christmas desserts you need to try. This is probably the sweetest post you will find on this blog. Enjoy!  These recipes are the ones we make at home, me, my sister, and mother, sometimes with small variations. You can trust it. Bom apetite! 1. Aletria is a Portuguese Christmas dessert that uses a special kind of noodles, called Aletria. "Aletria" was probably brought to the Iberian Peninsula by the Moors in the 8th or 9th century. In Portuguese cuisine, it designates a kind of dough of very fine thread

Join me for a New Year's Eve in Portugal!

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Hello! Join me and I will tell you how I spend the final hours of the last day of the year and the first hours of the first day of the New Year! I don't promise an extraordinary program, but you'll get to know me better as I tell you about some of the traditions, superstitions, and beliefs that guide Portuguese crowds when the clock strikes 12 in Portugal. You may want to know what green drink is that I'm holding. It's one I like to drink in the last year of the year: Licor de poejo. Green color, they say, it's the color of hope. This liquor has a beautiful color and an enchanting flavor. Pennyroyal ( Mentha pulegium ) is one of the most well-known species of the genus Mentha, quite common in Portugal of the Lamiaceae (lipped) family, It is a perennial cespitosa of rhizomatous roots that grow well in moist places or next to river courses, where it can be found wild among grasses and other plants. This liqueur can be green or yellow depending on how the plant is use

The way I prepare Bacalhau for the Consoada ( Portuguese Christmas Eve)

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Food is a serious matter in Portugal! Everyone will tell you that in Portugal, when a family or friends reunion happens, people spend hours at the table, talking, laughing, and enjoying the starters, the main courses, the desserts, the coffee, the digestives, the drinks, red wine, champagne, Port Wine, Ginginha, and more! For Christmas Eve, many Portuguese have a light dinner called Consoada . Portugal is still a very Catholic country and being so it's natural that many abstain from eating meat, opting instead for fish - mainly codfish - or seafood dishes. In some regions, people eat octopus instead of cod, either roasted with potatoes or mixed with rice. Christmas sometimes falls on a Friday, the traditional day of abstinence to the Catholic Church. But it's more than that. Most European cultures developed Christmas Eve customs that included meatless meals before the family went off to Midnight Mass. In ancient times a day of fasting and abstinence was designed to heighten the

ÓBIDOS VILA NATAL is great fun for children and families

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Visit the official site for more infor mation It was the first country theme park alluding to Christmas, promoted by the Municipality of Ă“bidos and a well-known bank in December 2006. I visited one of the subsequent editions and the success of the initiative was clear. Lots of families and children having fun, thrilled local merchants serving us the famous ginjinha de Ă“bidos in a chocolate cup! I never went back but Ă“bidos Natal went on. For this 2022 edition, the theme chosen was "Glow". The event will run from November 30th to December 31st. There are several attractions for the whole family combined with music and street lighting. Ă“bidos acquired its own low-intensity LED lighting a few years ago, made up of adaptable modules, allowing for different light designs, depending on needs. It's also an example of sustainability that should inspire many more cities. These are the activities that can be experienced at Ă“BIDOS VILA NATAL • Santa's Chalet ◦ Santa Claus and h

The Portuguese Rooster and the Christmas pine tree

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When I was a child and lived in Braga, a city just a few kilometers from Barcelos, the city where the Barcelos rooster was bred, my father used to go to the forest to get a pine tree to be our Christmas tree. My mother had Christmas ornaments made of glass, which were very resistant. Today they no longer exist. In addition to pine cones and balls and such, there were also ribbons and cotton balls. When we received holiday cards I would try to balance them on the pine needles and it would sting my hands all over! When I drew the pine tree in this illustration, I remembered that and the churches I saw in Barcelos... This festive and colorful Rooster(=Galo) who follows behind the wheel of his blue car is the national non-official symbol of Portugal and stands for honesty, faith, justice, and luck. To understand why you must know the legend of the Rooster of Barcelos. There are several versions of the legend of the Rooster of Barcelos but they are all more or less the same. It goes like t