Icelandic Blueberry Skyr Smoothie

Blueberry, Mango, Banana and Skyr Smoothie inspired by a visit to Iceland's Blue Lagoon Geothermal Spa.

I'm somewhat sad to say that is is the final in my series of four posts about our fantastic trip to Iceland. I'll just have to start saving up so we can return at some point - best buy that lottery ticket. One of the traditional Icelandic foods I did know about before we went to Iceland was Skyr, although I hadn't actually tasted it. Pronounced skee-er, it is officially a sour cheese but is yogurt like in texture with a really creamy flavour and texture. However the rather exciting part is that it has zero fat yet high in protein. Not quite sure how they manage that! We saw it most often served at breakfast natural, flavoured or layered with fruit. A local delicacy since the 11th century it's pretty widely available in UK supermarkets and we've been buying it since we came home and enjoying it for breakfast, as a desert and in smoothies like the one I'm sharing today.

Our first full day in Iceland took us from our accommodation at Keflavik on a journey round the Reykjanes Peninsula finishing up at the famous Blue Lagoon Geothermal Spa. As we arrived a gorgeous rainbow appeared as if on cue to confirm the sheer magic of the place. Fear not, there are no photos of us luxuriating in the Lagoon with our face masks. We opted for the comfort package which provides you with a towel, algae mask and a drink. Whilst I quaffed my Prosecco Foodie Boy was raving about his Blueberry Skyr Smoothie and demanding a second. Time to memorise the ingredients so we could attempt to recreate at home. Blue Lagoon is an absolute must visit on any trip to Iceland but be sure to book well in advance as it is so popular. As it's close to the airport it works well do visit on your first or last day in Iceland.

First stop of our first full day had been the Bridge Between Continents. A foot bridge spans a black sand filled gulf between the North American and European plates. Lots of fab photo opportunities including 'holding up the bridge'. From there we headed to Gunnuhver. This was a perfect introduction to mud pools and steam vents. It's name comes from the witch ghost Gunna who was trapped by magic and lured into the boiling water to her death. Best stick to the safety of the Blue Lagoon methinks!

Icelandic Blueberry Skyr Smoothie

1 Banana

1/2 Mango

200g Skyr

150g Frozen Blueberries

Put the ingredients in a blender and blitz until smooth.

Pour into a glass and enjoy!

(The version served at The Blue Lagoon also included Elderberry Juice in its list of ingreedients so feel free to add some for full authenticity - I need to try and track some down)

Iceland. The land of shoehorns, naked showering at swimming pools, two single duvets on a double bed and a constant smell of sulphur. I do sincerely hope I can return and explore further. Seeing the Northern Lights remains on my bucket list.

Be sure to catch up with my other three posts about our Iceland Adventures

• What we ate and where we stayed in Reykjavik and Iceland
• Icelandic Breakfast and Geothermal Eggs
• Icelandic Lamb Soup and a trip round The Golden Circle

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Icelandic Lamb Soup and a trip round The Golden Circle

Food and travel are inextricably linked. Every time I go on holiday one of the highlights (OK I admit it, reasons for going in the first place) is the food. I wasn't entirely sure if this would be the case with Iceland but I was blown away by the food. Yes it was super expensive but it was also amazing. I've already blogged about Where we stayed in Iceland and what we ate in Reykjavik, now I'm going to take you for a trip round The Golden Circle, the island's main tourist route and share my recreation of the Lamb Soup we ate at Gulfoss. 

Kerio Crater Lake

We were completely blown way by the first stop on our Golden Circle journey. Just 5k from our apartment at Hotel Grimsborgir, Kerio is a 6500 year old explosion crater lake. The vivid red rock, colourful vegetation and greenish water make it a spectacular sight. Iceland's favourite pop star Bjork once performed a gig on a pontoon in the middle.

Fridheimar

Geothermal energy is used to heat thousands of Greenhouses across the whole of Iceland, at night they glow spookily red like a horticultural version of the Northern Lights. Fridheimar is a truly unique food experience located within a tomato greenhouse. It's a restaurant with a small shop and I'd mistakenly thought we could just drop in and look around but you really need to be part of a pre-booked tour group or be dining. The smell of tomatoes as soon as you stepped in was mesmerising and took me straight back to my Granda Monearn's small greenhouse when I was a child. We'd not long eaten breakfast so lunch wasn't really an option, instead, despite the sun not being over the yardarm, I opted for a Bloody Mary and Foodie Boy had Tomato Ice Cream. Both were absolutely delicious and a return visit for their famous soup would be top of my list for any future trips to Iceland.

Geysir

Geysir is the geysir after which all other geysers are named. Alas the Great Geysir itself hasn't really been active since 1916. Luckily its neighbour Strokkur is happy to regularly oblige to the delight of hundreds of tourists waiting poised with cameras to capture the moment. 

Gullfoss

The furthest point on the Golden Circle is Iceland's most famous waterfall, Gulfoss, The Golden Falls. Its a spectacular two tier plummet of 32m. Alas no sunshine when we visited but it is known for producing spectacular rainbows. Our guidebook told us that the Cafe was famous for its traditional Lamb soup and it didn't disappoint. Made using local organic lamb and vegetables it comes with unlimited bread and butter and a free refill - best bargain of the whole trip! We each managed two bowls. I knew from the first spoonful that I wanted to try and recreate my own version. 

Efstidalur

Girl had a sandwich whilst we feasted on Lamb Soup but I'd promised her that the next stop would be right up her street. Efstidalus is a dairy farm with a Restaurant and Ice Cream Cafe. You can watch the ice cream and cones being made and from the cafe windows you look right into the cows and calves in the cowshed whilst enjoying an ice cream. Another one I'd love to revisit to try out their restaurant. 

Snorkelling Silfra Fissure at Pingvellir National Park 

This was an absolute must do on our trip and didn't disappoint. We went snorkeling between the American and European tectonic plates with Iceland Adventure Tours. Getting in and out of the dry suits was an adventure in itself! The water is freezing cold - no geothermal springs here. The snorkeling trip itself takes about 30-40 minutes exploring the big crack, hall, cathedral and lagoon. The water is fantastically clear and the colours are brilliant. Visibility is around 100-150 meters. The water is probably the purest drinking water you'll find in Iceland so we all drank some - whether on purpose or accidentally! The hot chocolate, coffee and cookies afterwards were almost as welcome as tea and toast after childbirth. 

Now to try and recreate the Lamb Soup. Icelandic lamb is renowned for its flavour and quality - as is Scotch Lamb. Kjotsupa is a favourite throughout Iceland and apparently every household has their own recipe. The broth was wonderfully flavourful and I suspect that a Sheep Head was used to make it. We saw these on sale in the freezers of all the supermarkets. The vegetables in the broth were really chunky and rustic so I chopped mine likewise. I think it could also work really well with the addition of barley, rice or rolled oats to make a thicker stew. I was really pleased with my version but I'm sure it could be improved with using a freshly made lamb stock (with or without sheep head!) I stirred in some English Mustard to my second bowl which added a nice kick. It's the perfect dish to warm the cockles of your heart. To make my Kjotsupa I used some delicious Organic Scotch Lamb from Wark Farm in Aberdeenshire.

Icelandic Lamb Soup - Kjotsupa 

Serves 8 

4 x Lamb Leg Steaks (approx 800g) 

2 Onions 

1 large leek 

2 litres lamb stock (I used 2 stock cubes) 

3 sprigs Thyme 

3 sprigs Rosemary 

4 Carrots 

4 Potatoes 

1/2 Neep (Swede) 

1/4 White Cabbage 

Salt & Pepper 

Cut the lamb into bite -sized cubes and place it in a large soup pan along with the stock, and the roughly chopped onions and leeks. Bring to the boil then turn down the heat and simmer with the lid on for 1 hour. 

Add the sprigs of thyme and rosemary and the roughly chopped carrots, potato and swede and cook for a further 20 minutes. Finally add the chopped cabbage, season well with salt and pepper and cook for a further 10 minutes. 

Remove the thyme and rosemary sprigs before serving with unlimited bread and butter and free refills. 

Linking up to CookBlogShare, Simply Seasonal and Recipe Of The Week

Be sure to catch up with my other posts about our Iceland Adventures

• What we ate and where we stayed in Reykjavik and Iceland
• Icelandic Breakfast and Geothermal Eggs

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What we ate and where we stayed in Reykjavik and Iceland

I have so much that I want to share about our amazing five day trip to Iceland that I really don't know where to start. My head is buzzing with recipe development ideas (mostly involving Lamb and Skyr) but I'm going to kick off by sharing a selection of what we ate in Reykjavik, the island's capital and where we stayed on our trip. Suffice to say we had an absolutely amazing holiday and totally fell in love with Iceland. The price of everything is eye-wateringly expensive (£15 for a cheese and ham sandwich!) but the food throughout our entire stay was absolutely wonderful no matter where we ate. Cafes at motorway service stations and tourist attractions in the UK could learn a lot from those in Iceland. 

We spent the first night in Keflavik which is where the airport is situated. Our accommodation was at Hotel Keflavik and was absolutely ideal for a one night stay. Breakfast there was particularly good and we soon learned to eat as much as we could to fill us up for the day ahead! For our first Icelandic meal we headed to Kaffi Duss at the opposite end of the town where I had the most amazing Grilled Icelandic Lambchops with red cabbage, rhubarb jam, baked potato, and brown sauce (thankfully not of the HP variety!) Boy had Lobster Soup with Whipped Cream, Foodie Loon had Bacon wrapped monkfish with glazed vegetables, potatoes and house specialty lobster sauce. Girl had Pizza. You can bring a horse to (Icelandic) water but you can't make it drink. 

For the following four nights of our stay we were in a luxury 2 bedroom apartment at the Grimsborgir Hotel. This was absolutely perfect for us with terrace, bbq and a private hot tub plus a buffet breakfast served in the main hotel itself. It is located just off the 'Golden Circle' route close to Pingvellir National Park. We had optimistically hoped to spot the northern lights from our hot tub but unfortunately cloud throughout our stay put paid to that. Our travel agent Kate at Travel Counsellors had organised wine and mini deserts for our arrival which was much appreciated. So glad we chose to stay outwith Reykjavik and hire a car, it was definitely the best option for us and provided much more freedom than being tied to tour buses. 

I had a checklist of both sights and food to tick off in Reyjjavik. First stop was Harpa, the capital's twinkling concert hall with seemingly ever changing glass panels overlooking the harbour. Much fun was had by both little and big people building towers on the beach with black volcanic rocks before heading along the waterfront to Jon Arnason's ship like Sun Voyager sculpture. Hot Dogs are a huge thing in Iceland and the place to go in Reykjavik is Bæjarins Beztu Pylsur which translates to 'the best hot dog in town'. We ordered one with the works - ketchup, sweet mustard, fried onion, raw onion and remolaði, a mayonnaise-based sauce with sweet relish. If truth be told I was rather underwhelmed although I did like the raw and crispy onion combo. Bitafiskur - pieces of dried fish - were an absolute must try. These are best served with lashings of Icelandic butter. Perhaps not for everyone but I got a real taste for them. The perfect snack with a tipple, much like pork scratchings. Reykjavik Chips was recommended to me by a number of people and most definitely did not disappoint. We went for a family box to share which unfortunately meant that we didn't have a cone to insert into the holes in the table. The chips themselves were amazing, skin on, twice cooked served with your sauce of a dozen different sauces. A Gull beer on the side finished them off perfectly.

Probably the most iconic building in Reykjavic is Hallgrimskirkja (as also cleverly seen in the the Reykjavic Chips logo - go back and look!) The silhouette of this immense white concrete church is stunning whilst the interior is very simple bar a huge pipe organ. We took the opportunity to light a candle in the church in memory of my cousin Valerie. She had traveled to Iceland and had hoped to do so again but sadly passed away last year. We used the money she bequeathed to fund our holiday. Well worth taking the elevator trip to the top of the 73m high tower for fantastic views. The sun came out at this point and we had a fantastic vantage point over the multicoloured houses of the capital. Time for a wander around the Old Harbour in search of further sustenance. Saegreiffin - The Seabarron was our destination located in a turquoise harbourside shed. The interior is far from salubrious with communal benches and plastic barrel seats. We tried their famous lobster soup and a grilled fish kebab. The kebab was fantastic but I found the soup rather wishy washy.

Whilst in the vicinity of Hallgrimskirkja I'd been told to look out for Braud & Co Bakery. The smell of their warm cinnamon buns baking was amazing and the taste more than lived up to the enticing aroma. Eaten so quickly I never even got a photo but well worth following your nose to their highly graffitied building. Lunch on our final day in Iceland was at Kaffivagninn. A slightly confusing self service system of ordering but we got there. Main meals come with a portion of their soup of the day and a coffee. A selection of traditional scandanavian and Icelandic dishes were on the menu and the cold Danish Smørrebrød looked tempting but we all opted for hot fish dishes quirkily served in frying pans. Fishpan Cod Loin au gratin with shrimp and bernaise for me, Panfried Fish Balls with onion butter and remoulade for boy and Fish Stew with rye bread and butter for Foodie Loon. Girl went to Subway for her lunch but joined us for desert of apple cake. Baby steps. 

Lamb and Fish are most definitely the most prevalent items on menus in Iceland although there was also chicken, pork, pizza, pasta and vegetarian options available. We really didn't see much at all in the way of beef. We did see both Puffin & Whale on menus but chose to avoid both for ecological reasons. Even without that concern I think fermented whale would be a step too far for my palate and no way would girl have let me eat Puffin as they are just too cute. My only souvenir from Reykjavik? Yup you've guessed it. Gin.

For further Icelandic inspiration Helen has blogged about travel and gastronomy at Fuss Free Flavours and Kavey Eats has sent a fascinating series of Postcards from Iceland. More Iceland travel and recipe posts to follow from me too. I've got a pan of Icelandic Lamb Soup bubbling away at the moment just waiting to be blogged about...


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Be sure to catch up with my other posts about our Iceland Adventures

• Icelandic Lamb Soup and a trip round The Golden Circle
• Icelandic Breakfast and Geothermal Eggs