Book Review: Hungry Girl Happy Hour by Lisa Lillien

posted by Katie 

Last week I received a review copy of Lisa Lilien's latest book of recipes Hungry Girl Happy Hour.

If you're not familiar with the Hungry Girl brand, you can learn more about the series' author, Lisa Lillien, here.

Hungry Girl Happy Hour, with its promise of "75 recipes for amazingly fantastic guilt-free cocktails & party foods" sounded almost too good to be true...and it sort of was.

Lisa and her team were very creative when it came to thinking up ways to reduce the calorie count in the drinks featured in the book. The problem was, when I read the ingredients for drinks like the Peach Melba Daiquiri Slushie (rum, frozen unsweetened peach slices, sugar-free calorie-free raspberry-flavored syrup, no-calorie sweeter packets, ice cubes), I tend to think Oh, that sounds kind of refreshing. But what if I swapped the frozen peaches for fresh peaches, and pureed raspberries instead of buying syrup, and then threw a little simple syrup in instead of those gross sweeter packets...now that would be really good. And that kind of thinking really just negates the whole point of the book.

So I guess what it comes down to is if you're okay with using powdered mixes and sweetener packets instead of fresh, natural ingredients, then you're going to really love this book.

But if you're like me, and don't like the idea of artificial sweeteners, especially in drinks, this is not the book for you.

As far as the food portion of the book, Lisa basically just takes your favorite party recipes and tells you to use low-calorie, non-fat ingredients anywhere you can. Not that groundbreaking, but again, good for those who are into that sort of thing.

So yeah, I probably will not use any recipes from this book, but I will at least say, it sure looks cute sitting on my shelf!

Europe 2010: Dublin

posted by Katie

Dublin was the last stop on our trip and therefore our time there was bittersweet. We arrived in Dublin from Venice around 2pm and our first order of business after dropping our bags off at the hotel was lunch.

Nick thought that fish and chips would be an appropriate lunch, and I agreed, so we wandered around Temple Bar until we came across Quays Irish Restaurant, which offers 10 euro lunch specials.

Nick really liked the fish but I thought it had kind of a funky taste. The chips were very good though, nice and meaty.

I also got to have my beloved Magners Irish Cider, called by its original name Blumers in Ireland, and Nick had a Carlsberg.

For dinner, I convinced Nick that we had to go to Gallagher's Boxty House since the boxties (I guess that's the plural) there were so good when Lauren, Kerry and I ate there a few years ago.

However, by the time our reservation rolled around at 10:30pm, Nick and I were sill pretty full from our late lunch. There was no way I was not going to have a boxty though, so Nick and I decided to share a boxty and a salad.

A boxty is a thin potato pancake folded over some sort of filling. Nick and I went with the Corned Beef and Cabbage Boxty which was served with a rich parsley cream sauce. So tasty!

The rest of our time in Dublin was spent exploring the city, shopping at Pennys (aka Primark) and Top Shop (yay!) and watching the cutest swan family ever in St. Stephen's Green :

So that's it...Not really sure how to wrap up all these Europe posts other than to say that I'm so grateful that I got to go on such an amazing trip and I hope you've enjoyed reading about all our dining adventures abroad!

Europe 2010: Venice

Posted by Katie

Since Venice was our second to last city to visit on the trip, and our last stop in Italy, we wanted to dine well. The library on the ship had Rick Steves' Venice book, so I spent a good amount of time copying down his recommendations into my journal so we would know where to go.

And then I left my journal on the ship. Oops. More on that later...

Our day in Venice started out with an excursion to two neighboring islands: Murano and Burano. If you've been to Venice, you probably recognize the name Murano from the glass that is sold throughout the city. Our stop in Murano revolved around a visit to a glass factory where we watched a master glass blower form a horse from molten glass in about 2 minutes...and then light his cigarette on it because it was so hot. Classy.

While the part of Murano we saw was nothing special, Burano was actually very pleasant.

Every house on Burano is painted its own bright color. Local legend says that wives started painting their houses different colors so that their husbands wouldn't "accidentally" go into the wrong house and climb into the wrong bed after a long day of fishing. I feel like I heard a similar story when I was in Dublin learning about the painted doors there...But whatever the reason for the colorful houses, they certainly make the island quite enjoyable to walk to around even though there's really not much else to see.

After our visits to Murano and Burano, we finally got to Venice proper. We spent some time wondering around, working up an appetite before stopping for gelato. Since we had already had some gelato on Burano (yeah, forgot to mention that) we shared a double scoop of stracciatella and frutti di bosco. Yum.

We walked around a bit more and then decided we needed a bit more sustenance, so we stopped at a small pizza place near The Rialto Bridge.

We shared the biggest slice of sausage and pepper pizza ever. And we started a bit of a trend. A bunch of people saw us eating our slice on the stairs of some random building and decided to join us after purchasing their own slices. The more the merrier...

As we explored more, I kept noticing that lots of people were drinking the same bright orange aperitif. I decided that the drinks had to be good, since everyone had them and I immediately wanted one. Now, after some research, I can tell you that they were drinking Spritz, which is typically made from carbonated water, white wine, and either Campari, Cynar or Aperol. In other words, it's very bitter...as Nick found out when he ordered it with our dinnner. I think he had about two sips before he gave up on it. We won't be ordering that again anytime soon.

So yeah, about our big Venetian dinner. It was horrible. And that was probably my fault. First of all, I was the one who forgot to bring my journal with the recommendations, and second of all, that thing happened again where I got really hungry and tired and grumpy and unreasonable and therefore forced Nick to eat at a super touristy place along The Rialto Bridge. I know, embarrassing. And it really was soooo bad.

The waiter promised us the "best seat in the house" right next to the canal with a great view of The Rialto. What he didn't mention was that every time a boat would go by, nasty canal water would splash up through the cracks in the floor, covering our legs. 

And the bread was stale, never a good sign. Although things weren't looking good, we forged ahead. I ordered gnocchi and Nick got Spaghetti di Mar.

Nick proclaimed his dish "Olive Garden good" (not a compliment in our book) and I agreed that my meal could be placed under the same description. So disappointing.

So to make up for our lousy dinner, we had to have some gelato. You know, to make sure we left Italy with a good taste in our mouths. Nick had stracciatella and I got stracciatella AND caffe (coffee). It's the most delicious combination ever and I would have gotten it more often, but coffee in any form, including ice cream, sometimes makes me sick. I was feeling reckless though...and it was worth it.

We also had some pretty amazing scenery to help console us: 

And from earlier in the day:

Coming up next: Our final stop, Dublin.

Europe 2010: Athens

Posted by Katie

Athens was strictly a tourist day. We were on the bus for most of our time in the city which meant that we didn't get to sample much of the local cuisine aside from the hour or so of free time for that we had for lunch in the Plaka, the oldest part of Athens. Our tour guide recommended a restaurant called Hermion, so we decided we might as well try it out.

We had been told that we had to have greek salad while in Greece, so we ordered it as our appetizer.

The veggies were super fresh and the feta was nice and tangy. Yum.

Since I liked my moussaka so much in Mykonos, I decided I wanted to try it again in Athens.

Sadly, this time my moussaka was only lukewarm and the cheese on top was not nearly as creamy and delicious. Kind of disappointing.

Nick ordered the pork kebabs, which were much more tasty (and warmer) than my meal.

Isn't it weird how big french fries are in Greece and Turkey? I think we had them with every meal we had in those two countries. Not something I would have expected, but not something I can really argue against either...

 And now some touristy pictures:

Coming up next: We spend the day in Italy's "floating city" and say goodbye to the Ruby Princess.