Food

Beef stew (Or: A blast from the past)

Posted on December 7, 2020 by Niki

Marco and I make beef stew in our slow cooker about once a year. The beef stew recipe we used this time was from Allrecipes. I like any recipe that only has two steps, don’t you? This time we did it on high setting (4-6 hours) because I had zero interest in stepping out of my nice warm bed before 09:00. In the end it cooked about 5 hours, with the last 30-45 minutes on medium instead of high.

The beef was so tender you could easily pull it apart with a fork. And as you can tell I think potatoes are the second hero of the dish, so I definitely made sure I had a lot of those. Finally, the bread in the background is from Albert Heijn and is their Liefde & Passie spelt brood (Love & Passion spelt bread – a bit hardier to help with the dipping).

The nostalgia is high with this dish. I loved eating this in the winter as a kid. This and chili are Marco and I’s favorite slow cooker dishes. Third place for me is probably pulled chicken.

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Portbello burger (Or: Another treat from FOAM)

Posted on November 30, 2020 by Niki

Have a look at what Marco and I had on Friday evening (the fries were self supplied):

Doesn’t that look delicious? That was one of the FOAM @ home options last Friday (Facebook link). The best part? The burger was actually a giant portbello mushroom. The rest of the ingredients were Asian inspired (an Asian guacamole, shredded carrots, and a coleslaw).

The bread rolls were from Lekkerbrood (Facebook link again) which translates to “Tasty bread”. And that it was.

Mysterie: Daarom staan er geen prullenbakken op het Binnenhof from indebuurt.nl. Mystery: Why are there no trash containers at the Binnenhof? Okay, I’ll admit I knew the answer before even clicking on the link – Binnenhof is s a complex of parliamentary buildings. There are no trash containers there for safety reasons; who knows what someone would stuff in them. (For the record, I’ve almost never seen the Binnenhof that dirty.)

Mauritshuis becomes first gigapixel museum in the world at dutchnews.nl. The Mauritshuis, a museum in The Hague which houses Vermeer’s Girl with a pearl earring (and many, many other treasures), now offers its entire collection in Gigapixel sized images so that you can zoom in to impossible depth. Read more about the Second Canvas app which makes this possible over on the official website of Mauritshuis. With that being said, the reviews are a bit mixed over on Apple’s app store, so have a look and decide for yourself if it is worth the (small) price. Hopefully it will receive many updates with additional content.

Categories: Culture, Food | Tags: , , | 2 Comments

Crazy flavors (Or: Red velvet kruidnoten, anyone?)

Posted on November 22, 2020 by Niki

Did you notice flavors are getting crazier every year? Marco recently took a photo of some red velvet kruidnoten (English Wikipedia) at Albert Heijn:

Apparently this flavor was the winner of the ‘kruidnoten thuisverkiezing’ or ‘kruidnoten home vote’. I can believe that.

Still, it doesn’t beat the Lay’s potato chip flavor “Baguette with garlic butter”. That was memorable!

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Anyone up for cookies? (Or: Spotted at Albert Heijn)

Posted on November 19, 2020 by Niki

While shopping at Albert Heijn I noticed they had gingerbread men baking mixes:

The box is in the upper right. Of course I’m not sure if it is actually gingerbread, since the box calls them “Winter holiday cookies”, translated.

And even though you can’t really see it in my photo above, if you go to AH’s website you will see that the box says (in the bottom left): “Good for Halloween, Sinterklaas and Christmas!”

I’m trying to imagine making gingerbread men for Halloween, but I can’t.

Categories: Everyday purchases, Food, Holidays | Tags: , | 2 Comments

Aww, so cute (Or: Mini oliebollen!)

Posted on November 12, 2020 by Niki

Marco found a bag of mini oliebollen by the local Albert Heijn today:

They are about half the size of normal oliebollen, and not yet sprinkled with the usual powdered sugar goodness (or in my case these days, cinnamon). We haven’t tasted them yet, so it is too early to tell if they were a good deal or not. Traditionally it is better to buy them on the street or make your own, so we will see.

Here’s a very random blast from the past from The Guardian’s archives:

Netherlands introduces car-free Sundays – archive, 1973. This initiative lasted three months and was due to the oil shortage during the Opec energy crisis. It is worth a look just to see the “four horsemen riding through the streets of Amsterdam”.

And here is a funny article (in Dutch) from nu.nl: Politie vindt 5.000 kilo vuurwerk in busje dat met pech langs de weg staat. Police find 5,000 kilos (11,000 lbs) of fireworks in a small bus that was stranded on the side of the road. Let’s see… tiny bus, 5,000 kilo inside. It had a flat tire. A passing road inspector spotted the bus and tried to help out, but it was too heavy to fix the tire. They called a tow truck, but the tow truck wasn’t able to help either. At that point they were pretty sure what was inside wasn’t legal; the police were able to confirm that once they arrived.

5,000 kilos of fireworks… sheesh.

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Take out bags (Or: A drawing from Momiji Sushi)

Posted on November 11, 2020 by Niki

Check out this cute take out bag drawing:

That’s from Momiji Sushi in The Hague. Nice drawing talent! (In case you don’t eat much sushi, I’ll say the guy is supposed to represent a piece of sushi wrapped in black nori or dried seaweed. You can see a smaller version in the speech bubble.)

Coronavirus infections rise back towards 5,500; Still down 29% from last week from nltimes.nl. It’s probably for the best that the number of infections didn’t drop yet again. Why, you ask? People were definitely starting to think we could start lifting restrictions and go back to normal (as it were), so it is good to have a reminder that we still have a very long road ahead of us.

The government has said they will likely let the “extra restrictions” of closing libraries, theaters, cinemas, zoos and theme parks automatically lapse next week, however. We will see.

Until then – enjoy your sushi! (Or, at least, “Support local!”)

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FOAM at home (Or: Mezze mania)

Posted on November 6, 2020 by Niki

Today Marco and I feasted on Middle Eastern mezze (a selection of small dishes) from FOAM here in The Hague. Check it out:

And a photo from above:

Yum yum yum. The meal included:

Continue reading →
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Vegan food by FOAM (Or: A delicious brunch)

Posted on October 31, 2020 by Niki

Today Marco, Roger and I ordered brunch from the FOAM restaurant in The Hague (over on Frederikstraat). It was a special brunch offer which you could pick up between 10:00 and 14:00 today. Roger was kind enough to bike there to pick it up before biking over to our place.

Check out the color on those wraps! Here is a list of what we received for this brunch box deal (two portions per box):

  • 1 They don’t carrot about us juice⁠
  • 1 fresh orange juice⁠
  • 2 small soups (“cheesey” vegetable)
  • 2 small wraps with curried quinoa and veggies⁠
  • 2 small BLTA’s⁠ (tempeh bacon, lettuce, tomato, avocado)
  • 2 small oatmeal pancakes⁠ with maple syrup
  • 2 chocolate-coffee desserts
  • 2 peanut butter blondies⁠

My favorite was (again) the BLTA’s on flatbread. My second favorite was the chocolate-coffee dessert although it was quite rich. But deliiiiicious.

We split the leftovers; I’m looking forward to trying the peanut butter blondie tonight. Yummmm. Give it a try if you are in the area!

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Lazy weekend (Or: Games and books)

Posted on October 18, 2020 by Niki

I’m all in favor of a lazy weekend myself. Even if the reason it is so lazy is because we are trying to stay inside more often. Breakfast for Marco and I was brioche bread (a type of sweet bread). I toasted mine and added peanut butter, and Marco had one with the more traditional Dutch butter and hagelslag. That’s chocolate sprinkles for any American readers.

I finished a few of the books I was reading: The Institute by Stephen King. It was pretty good – just the right amount of horror for an October read. Although it reminded me a lot of his other book The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon. Both main characters are kids, and both suffer a lot of mental and physical pain. (I admitted to Marco that I was skipping ahead a bit at times just to get a broad sense of where the storyline was before heading back to where I was.)

I also finished the other perfect-for-October horror read The Graveyard Apartment by Japanese author Mariko Koike. It was much slower pace and there were a few elements or character actions that took me out of the story. But I think the characters will stick with me for awhile.

Gaming wise – I’m wrapping up an Xbox game called Coffee Talk. It’s a visual novel by an Indonesian gaming studio. It is about exactly what it sounds like – you’re a barista who listens to others’ problems and makes coffee for them while you do. I feel like this game has taught me a lot of coffee recipes… Cinnamon ginger coffee, anyone?

Oh, and the resuable face masks I got from Uniqlo yesterday are great. They fit much better than the ones I had before and the fabric does indeed feel much more breathable.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

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Anyone up for gourmetten? (Or: Fun times in October)

Posted on October 11, 2020 by Niki

Another “Wow. Is it that time already?” type posts. Next week’s Albert Heijn discount flyer includes discounts on meat for gourmetten. In October. Does anyone remember if that is actually normal?

Like my post about the Christmas display at the CASA store, I am not against this. However, gourmetten is a social activity so you’re more likely to invite people over to your house. Which doesn’t sound that good in corona times.

New Year’s Eve 2013

But, one step back: there’s no good translation of gourmetten in English, but it is sort of like an indoors barbecue. You have a special grill or baking plate which you place in the centre of the table. You can grill almost anything you want (meat, fish, veggie meat, bell peppers, mushrooms, pineapples…). Generally the meat goes on the top. There are also 6 to 8 slots underneath with ‘little pans’ where you put the more fragile stuff like veggies and mushrooms, or even pancake batter to make pancakes. Add some baguette bread with butter and other toppings and you are set for the evening. But generally gourmetten is very popular at Easter, Christmas and New Year’s Eve, not in October. (Or sometimes you can request it for your birthday. I think I did that one year!)

Christmas 2012 (check out the mini pans underneath)

Hmmm. Gourmetten, anyone?

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