How to Make Corned Beef and Cabbage

This really should read how to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, at home. We don’t need to tell you how to find a local Irish pub to down some Guinness and eat some traditional fare… that’s pretty easy, depending on where you live. It is, however, very fun to celebrate at home with your family. Growing up, my mother made a big deal out of this holiday. She was one of nine kids, in a family that was raised in a very Catholic Irish-American household, even though they had lots of other ethnicities in them as well. They didn’t grow up with a whole lot of money, and like them, many other large Irish American families that came over to the New York City area were large and suffering, so they decided to make this very cheap and relatively easy meal as the base for the celebration.

Jun022018

The Best Food in Ireland

Wow, what a way to highlight the seafood available in Ireland. It is an island, after all.

Americans have a less than favorable perception of food from Northern and Eastern Europe. That includes Ireland, England, Germany, Poland, Sweden, Norway and every other nation in between. Greece, France, Spain and Italy are given much more love when it comes to highlighting their cuisine in the US, but is that a fair assumption for us to make.

During our recent trip to Iceland, Ireland and Northern Ireland (the UK, technically) we finally had the opportunity to more fairly judge the quality of their food. As a whole, it wasn’t anywhere near as flavorful as Chinese or Mexican food, but it wasn’t terribly bland and it certainly wasn’t lacking in freshness.

May312018

Moy River Bed & Breakfast

We recently went on a grand adventure to and through Ireland. We went all about the country and stayed at all different kind of places: hotel chains, B&Bs, fancy hotels, and hostels. We got a great taste of it all, but one place that we stayed at stood out above and beyond: Moy River Bed & Breakfast. It’s in County Sligo, nestled up against the Ox Mountains and Moy River. We would recommend this Bed & Breakfast to any person traveling Ireland (except perhaps a big family with lots of little ones). It was definitely one of the highlights of our trip.

It’s charming, beautiful, and very Irish, but most importantly, it has the best hosts. Pat McCarrick and Rita Normanly own this lovely bed & breakfast and I say it’s lovely because they are lovely. We arrived quite late to the B&B due to some car issues, but both of them were awake to greet us and show us our room. More than that, they insisted on giving us tea and some treats after a long drive despite how late it was. We sat around their fireplace and got to know each other. We learned more about Ireland, about the local area, and about them. It was such a nice time and it still stands out in my mind.

May242018

We Flew WOW Air and Here’s What Happened

If you’ve been keeping up with our social media and the blog, you’ll know that we just returned from our honeymoon in Ireland. We’re not rich and we needed to save some money on the trip. I had set a watch for cheap flights on the app called Hopper and lo and behold, cheap flights appeared. The only thing was…it was WOW Air. We had heard horror stories about WOW Air so we were a little apprehensive, but the price was too good to beat. After scouring over a million different reviews of the budget airline, I made a decision and bought the tickets.

I was able to put it out of my mind for a little, but as the trip neared closer and closer, my worry grew again. Would we be cramped up like cattle, starving and parched? Would it be the worst flight of our lives? Would it ruin our trip? All of these things passed through my mind, but I kept remembering how much money we had saved by going with them. I also asked around with my friends and got mixed reviews. Basically, the advice was to manage your expectations. So we did. We went into the flight expecting it to be the worst in our lives. We flew four flights with them: two at 9 hours and two at 2.5 hours. Let’s break it down.

May232018

Our Honeymoon in Ireland

You may have noticed that we have been absent for a good bit here on the blog. However, if you follow any of our social media accounts, you would know it was because we were honeymooning in Ireland! Yes, we got married two years ago, but a late honeymoon is better than a non-existent one, wouldn’t you say? We had a 16-hour layover in Iceland since we flew WOW Air (more to come on that airline later), so we got to explore Keflavik very briefly. Then we were back on the plane, sleep-deprived and body-confused, and arrived in Dublin in the morning. Look at our map below to see our exact route–starting in Dublin and going north then counter-clockwise the WHOLE island. We’ll share with you pictures for now based on each location (of course we can’t show every little place, we did lots of driving and saw lots of things!), we hope you enjoy!

Iceland

Apr042018

Our Top Travel Tips

We KNOW that you’ve seen a lot from us. Over the course of NEARLY 1200 posts/articles on the site, we’ve covered lots, but have stuck to our roots (food and fitness) for the most part. We’ve had guest posts from bloggers/writers all over the world and partnered with some really exciting companies (Silk; Optimum Nutrition) but there haven’t been many major changes.

While we only want to boost the quality of our content (more innovative workouts and recipes!), we’ve also been considering and working on other projects lately. There will be transitions, but Hungry & Fit will never be forgotten and we’ll make sure it is here for years to come. With that being said, there has been a trend over the years, where we’ve continued to receive tons of questions related to…

TRAVEL!