Exploring Barcelona

Back in August, I spent a week soaking up in the incredibly hot sunshine in Barcelona. Coming just two two weeks after I was made redundant, it was the tonic I needed. I'd only ever been to the city for a day trip and spent most of that wandering around the magnificent Camp Nou during a guided tour. This time we opted for a week to ensure we had maximum relaxation.

Our amazing apartment was located in a little alley just off the beautiful Plaza Reial - the beautiful 19th Century square pictured above. It was the perfect location in Barri Gotic - just yards from La Rambla and a walkable distance from the beach. We sat outside a few times for dinner and soaked up the atmosphere. There's just something about sitting outside in a pretty square that scream European chic. In London, if you sat outside you'd have rain and pollution to contend with!

I won't go too much into too much detail about what we ate and what we saw as I've got a few more posts dedicated to that. But I will say I absolutely fell in love with Barcelona. I'd heard that it was an unsafe, dirty city riddled with pickpockets but I never felt unsafe for a minute - not even wandering around down roads trying to find a Lonely Planet recommended restaurant! It felt like a rebellious, bustling city that was constantly evolving. A very exciting place to be!

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Old El Paso Restaurante Range

I'm a sucker for Mexican food so when an invite popped in my inbox asking me to come along and try my hand at cooking the new Old El Paso Restaurante range, I bit their hand off. Pun intended. Especially when they mentioned we would be treated to a taco lesson by Pussycat Doll Kimberley Wyatt! Pretty snazzy eh?!

In order to offer you a true authentic experience, the Old El Paso Restaurante team actually travelled around Mexico and sought out the ingredients themselves. They wanted to see what secrets the locals had to make the food taste so delicious. Each taco kit is a speciality from across the country. You'll find Baja Fish Soft Tacos - my personal favourite -, Chicken Tinga, Pork El Pastor and Steak Carne Asada. I tried them all and they're all as mouth-watering as they sound!

We were very kindly given an incredible goodie bag which had all four taco kits for us to try at home. So far I've only been able to rustle up the tasty chicken tacos - the steak ones are for dinner tomorrow! I can confirm the bad boys are so simple to make - you don't all need a Pussycat Doll to help give you some guidance. We scoffed these between the three of us and there was more than plenty to go around. In fact we could have invited a fourth person but we didn't. Because we're greedy.

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Recipe: Carrot and Walnut Muffins

You can't beat a nice slab of carrot cake eh? Especially with some cream cheese icing. Cream cheese icing with orange? Even better! These delicious, addictive muffins were the second part of my Whitworths baking challenge. I loved the crunch of the walnuts paired with the soft sponge cake. While the sultanas helped to keep the sponge lovely and moist. Nothing like a bit of texture to help give a cake extra brownie points. I had to give these babies to my mother to take into worth before they disappeared in my belly!

Fancy making these beauties yourself? The recipe below couldn't be simpler! As always, tweet me if you decided to rustle them up. Not even your waistline will regret it!

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