Pasteis de Nata
Prepared puff pasty – defrosted but kept cold
1 ¾ cups whole milk
¼ cup cream
4 egg yolks
3 Tbsp white sugar
Pinch salt
2 Tbsp Plain flour
½ cinnamon stick
2 strips lemon peel
½ tsp vanilla extract

Pastry Cream Instructions
1. In a sauce pan add milk, cream, egg yolks, sugar, salt, flour mix well with a whisk to ensure all the ingredients are well combined, do not turn heat on yet.
2. Once all ingredients are combined and there are no lumps of sugar or flour add cinnamon stick, lemon peel and vanilla.
3. Turn heat on to low stirring continuously and gently with whisk. *Note it’s very important to heat the milk slowly, if the milk is heated too quickly, egg yolks could coagulate like scrambled eggs and ruin the consistency of the custard.
4. Continue stirring until it cream becomes quite thick and resembles a rich pudding. Watch for thickening around the edges of the pan, you want a really smooth cream so make certain to get in the sides and bottom edges of the pan.
5. Let cool completely. When cooled, remove cinnamon stick and lemon peel.
6. To avoid milk skin from forming on custard you can place parchment paper on top of warm custard and it will lift out easily when you go to use it to fill puff pasty shells.

Preparing Pastry Shells
1. Preheat oven to 300 F (148C)]
2. Roll out cold puff pastry dough with pin on floured surface, until 1/4 cm thick.
3. Once rolled out thin, dusk off excess flour and begin rolling puff pastry like a long cigar. Roll pastry snugly but not tight, just enough to avoid a lot of space or air pockets in roll.
4. Place pastry roll length wise and cut in 4cm lengths
5. Then take each cut piece in hand and push down center of roll to meet center of opposite side, gently press pastry with fingers to spread out dough to create what will feel like half of a hallow pastry ball. Work in circular pattern and pastry will start to thin and from a cup shape. If dough gets sticky use a little flour to help it along. Finished shells should be about 1/4cm, thin but not enough to see your hand through. If you like puff pastry you can make the shells a little thicker, but a couple of tries of the finished version will let you know your preference.
6. Place pastry in muffin tray, and spread out to sides but don’t stretch dough upward, just gently press against side of muffin tin to ensure it won’t shrink too much when baking.
7. When all pastry shells are ready fill with pastry cream, do not fill to top. Fill to ¾ or a bit more but leaving 1- 1.5cm at top of pastry.
8. Place custards in oven and bake for 15min, but keep eye on custards as some ovens can burn top quite quickly, while others don’t cook the pastry quickly enough. If pastry around sides looks deep golden colour pastries are done.

Pasteis de Nata can be served warm or cold, but highly recommended with a good sprinkle of cinnamon on top. The Portuguese are very particular about their Pasteis de Nata, some people must have theirs more burnt on top, others like them just golden. Regardless of how you have them they are a wonderful addition to an afternoon tea or coffee and can also accompany a nice port or Madeira. They also make for a great breakfast treat or even on their own as dessert, enjoy!

Tourists leaving from Birmingham on a Wednesday in June 2010 on a bmi flight to Faro in Portugal pay a single fare of £27.04 each while those leaving on the following Saturday fork out £154.04.

A similar June mid-week flight from Gatwick to Malaga with easyJet is 138% cheaper than leaving the following Saturday, according to figures from travelsupermarket.com.

And a Ryanair Gatwick to Alicante flight in mid-July is 110% cheaper than travelling on the following weekend.

Daily Telegraph 3^rd May

We’d like to reassure you that we’ve been working continually behind the scenes with owners and suppliers and we are happy to report that if you are stranded or your flights have been cancelled  by the air space closure you  will be offered the opportunity to re-schedule you villa booking for later in the year.

The Adega produces the Vida Nova range from three surrounding Quintas, Quinta do Moinho, Quinta do Miradouro and Vale do Sobreiro. The aim of the winery is to produce the highest quality wines that the region can offer using a combination of traditional and innovative modern winemaking techniques.

The Cellar Door shop sells the full range of Vida Nova wines as well as a variety of wine merchandise and souvenirs.

Call for a reservation as bookings must be made in advance. There is a charge of €7.50 per person for the tour and wine tasting. There are several tour times throughout the day, depending on the time of the year and availability. Please contact Quinta do Miradouro on 00 351 968 776 971 or email adegadocantor@mail.telepac.pt.

The winery is open Monday to Friday, 10.00 to 13.00 hours and 14.00 – 17.00 hours.
Closed weekends and public holidays and December 24th to January 2nd.

Our Overseas Director, Kathleen O’Brien, said of her visit ‘Adega do Cantor was truly enjoyable and I will definitely return with friends – I spent a couple of hours touring, learning about wine, followed by some great tasting & purchasing, can’t get better than that. The only thing missing was the man himself! Growing up with Sir Cliff’s music has meant that I rather recklessly consider him an old friend and would have loved to congratulate him on turning a vision into such a great working success. There’s always next time, I guess.
I recommend you visit, I’ve visited lots of vineyards and perhaps Adega do Cantor’s combination of its status as ‘new kid on the block’, their success as wine producers (several prestigious accolades to their credit already) and the wonderful location, makes their enthusiasm, just that bit more special. So if you’re looking for some respite from the sun or its early season and the weather is not all you hoped, this is a really interesting way to spend a few hours’.

Now visitors to our site can be as specific or as vague as they like when looking for a villa or apartment.

Want to go to Portugal in August but not sure how big your group will be or the specific date – that’s fine. Simply fill out our search field on the left of the page and you’ll be presented with results which you can then sort by the number of reviews, the price, the size, the offers or our own recommendations!

Not even sure what month you want to travel in; just browsing for some inspiration…No problem. Just don’t specify any date in the search form, and the site will show you everything that we have with some availability left.

Searching couldn’t be easier…..or could it? Well…actually we think it still could be, so watch this space for more developments to come over the next few months, but in the meantime, Happy Browsing!

“Can too much choice be a bad thing?”, “Can having a massive selection of villas for rent actually hinder people from finding what they want?”

Well, we hope not, but we do understand that when you have a lot of things to consider it can be difficult to keep track of all your options. But instead of limiting your choice, we’ve recently added a shortlist section to our website where you can pop properties you like the look of as you browse. Then when you’ve had enough of searching, all your favourite’s will be in one place for you to look at or send as an email to yourself or someone else.

There’s no signing-up to be done. No forms to fill in. Anyone can use the shortlist functionality (as long as you have cookies enabled), and you can come back to the site at any time and your list will be preserved.

But that’s not the end of things. Keep an eye out for the other exciting changes we’ll be making to the site over the next few months – all to make your holiday research easier…

Every week from now and right through 2010 we’ll be searching through our portfolio of over 1000 villas and apartments for the very
best Late Deals – typically for travel in the next 4-8 weeks -  and loading a selection of them on our website! There will be savings of 25% +, perhaps as much as 40% in some cases, but with these kind of discounts, availability will sell-out fast! To ensure you don’t miss the boat and to keep up to date with all our latest offers as they go live, sign up to our newsletter and recieve all of our news straight to your inbox.

We know booking a villa holiday for the first time can be a bit daunting – getting something that suits all your groups needs and doesn’t disappoint can be challenging. That’s why at Villas to Go, we’re always just a phone call away to answer any questions you may have on any of our villas or apartments, or just on the whole process in general.

However, many of us nowerdays don’t just want assurances from the company we’re booking with; we crave real feedback from others that have used their services and can vouch for the good and the bad. That’s why we feel our customer feedback is so important in helping you make the right decision:

“It is so easy to book the holiday with Villas to Go – very good communication (even only via email)” Mrs Magdalena Nowinska, Villa Finoula – Algarve – Portugal

“Best ever cleaning service – cleaned at least twice a week compared to most villas where once a week is the norm. On arrival everything was just waiting for us smoothest unpack ever!” Mr Sean Coleman, Tall Pines 2 bedroomed apartment – North East Mallorca

“Everything worked out as per your websit and the instructions were very good. Standard of cleanliness was good and the maid service was excellent.” Mr Francis Beattie, Vivenda Barbara – Algarve – Portugal

“The villa was well maintained,had all the amenities and was cleaned daily in a beautiful area.” Mr Andrew Hamilton,Villa Cimeira – Algarve – Portugal

“It is the way to go – total privacy.” Mr Martin Garner, Quinta Do Moleiro – Algarve – Portugal

“It was very straight forward from start to finish from the booking to arriving at the villa. The caretaking staff at Southcrest were fantastic. The villa was beautiful, can’t wait to go again.” Mr Howard Jones, Southcrest – Algarve – Portugal

“From the initial booking, until we left the Villa we had excellent service from every-one we dealt with, from the girls on the telephone in the UK and the Rep in Portugal.” Mrs Deborah Heasman, Villa Aguia – Algarve – Portugal

“All the staff were very helpful in helping us to arrange my sons 21st birthday weekend in the Algarve for the family and friends. Everything went smoothly and was as expected. Everybody was very happy with the villa and the beach. We all had a very enjoyable time. The weather was just right. Comments were being made that we should do this again. A very satisfied customer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Mr I Khehra, Vivenda Luz – Algarve – Portugal

“Excellent idea to have the option to hire a Playstation or Wii , the children loved it.” Miss Cerys Punshon, Villa Flavia – Algarve – Portugal

“I have used villas to go villas now 4 times and all have been great . It is hard to go back to a hotel holiday after the quality of these villas . villa mestral was the best ever, after being there in april i was so good i booked it again in october and had a great holiday.” Mr Ian Lynn, Mestral – North East Mallorca – Mallorca

“We all had an amazing time at the villa it was more than our expectation, we had everything we needed and more. The people looking after the villa were brilliant, very helpful.” Mrs Farida Grimshaw, Southcrest – Algarve – Portugal

“You have your own privacy, your own space, you can holiday at your own pace. The choice of villas is superb. You will never go back to package holidays.” Mr Justin Gough, Villa Raposas – Algarve – Portugal

Travel companies are already reporting that their summer 2010 bookings are ’strong’ or ‘ahead of expectations’, with many holidaymakers choosing Turkey for its cheap prices and fabulous climate.

So what are you waiting for?  Take advantage of Villas to Go’s current ‘Book now, Pay 2010′ offer and secure your dream villa or apartment in the sun!

When it comes to pronouncing and spelling the names of foreign places long associated with Brits, The Times tends to opt for anglicised versions eg  Majorca for Mallorca and Minorca for Menorca, whereas The Sunday Times is far more politically correct and favours the local name.

However proud we may be of our language skills, we are all guilty of anglicising place names – think of all those foreign capitals  from Prague (Praha) to Vienna (Wien) and whilst we spell Paris the same we definitely don’t pronounce it like the French! But London’s always London surely……

Mallorca v Majorca:  which is correct?

The islanders are campaigning to stop people taking the ‘ll’ (pronounced ‘y’) out of Mallorca.

“It has always been double LL – it is only in Britain that it became Majorca. People say it with a hard ‘J’ and it conjures up images of drunks in Magaluf,” says one campaigner.

I tend to agree that ‘Mallorca’ is far more synonomous with the island’s more recently acquired reputation as an idyllic place to spend a relaxing villa holiday.   But because of the way internet search engines work, I’ll have to use both for now…….