I've been away for a while for the Summer vacation. I'm still a student - not for long now because next year June I hope to complete my Master of Political Sciences - and the Summer is really the ONLY time of year I can get away for longer than a day. That is if you don't have to resit exams of course!
I went with two of my best friends, Johannes and Emily, to Ireland. We explored the West coast in the County Clare. Our aim was to hire a car, but unfortunately the car hire companies don't trust students with licences younger than two years ... We only found out about that a day before we had our flight to Dublin, so we improvised a bit and were able to catch a train to Ennis the same day our plane landed. After a few hours by train, we arrived and our trip could start for real.
Not having a car on hand, we decided to hire bicycles instead. At least we didn't need to prove our skills beforehand to the shopkeepers ;)
Taking your holiday in Ireland is a risk. With on average nearly 300 days of rain a year, it's a miracle to not get wet, especially on bikes. But the near impossible happened: we had the best week of the year yet with blue skies, a lot of sun and 20°C! (that couldn't be compared with the much higher temperatures of +30°C in my home Belgium at the same moment, but who cares?)
Ireland is a wondrous destination. I can recommend it to you all. I'm a nature lover and the nature is everywhere. There are also numerous ruins of monasteries, castles, churches, high crosses ... so that people interested in history and culture have everything they need.
We stayed at a cottage we rented for the holiday. A super nice woman called Brenda Reilly took the greatest care of us, with even a delicious welcome pack on the first day.
Anyway, after such a holiday, I'm totally re-energated and ready for another year.
Today it was the first day of me cooking at home since Ireland. I had this strange craving for pizza for a while, so I made my healthy home made version of it again.
I made a mainly vegetable with a little ham one for me (round) and a partly meat-partly fish one for both of my parents (the elongated ones due to not enough space on the tray).
The dough and the tomato sauce is the same as for the other pizza I once made.
Toppings round pizza:
- 1/2 roasted yellow bell pepper
- 50 grams ham
- diced mozzarella cheese (as much as you like)
- grated gruyère cheese (again, as much as you like)
- fresh basil leaves
- chilli flakes
Toppings for one of the elongated pizza's:
- 1/2 roasted yellow bell pepper
- 25 grams ham
- 25 grams salami
- 1/2 tin crab meat
- 6 anchovies
- 2 or more olives, halved
- fresh basil
- mozzarella cheese
- grated gruyère cheese
- chilli flakes
On the pizza's for my parents, I divided each pizza in half approximately and topped each half with either meat or fish. the other ingredients were put on both parts.
They really liked theirs, and I liked my - slightly lighter - version also greatly!
