Food

Christmas trees made of bread (Or: Breakfast time)

Posted on December 28, 2020 by Niki

On the second day of Christmas (December 26), Marco and I had a Christmas tree for breakfast:

A Christmas tree made of bread, that is! Marco found it at Albert Heijn, one of the local grocery stores. We ate it with the usual hagelslag (chocolate sprinkles) and speculoos paste.

In other news: you can legally turn in fireworks today and tomorrow in The Hague (omroepwest.nl, article in Dutch). Today 207 kilos (457 pounds) was turned in. You can turn in up to 25 kilos of fireworks, even fireworks that are usually in the ‘illegal category’, without being fined.

The reason the city is organizing this is because it is illegal to possess fireworks outside of the few days around the New Year’s Eve holiday (those are also the only days you can legally possess fireworks). This year The Hague said that setting off fireworks would be illegal to keep hospital visits low.

You don’t legally have a reason to have them in your house and you can’t legally set them off, so unless you want to illegally store them for a year, turning them in now is your best option.

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Lost chances (Or: Coupon for Restaurant SET in The Hague)

Posted on December 21, 2020 by Niki

Back when the first wave started in the spring, Marco, Roger and I ordered bento box take out from Restaurant SET here in The Hague. It was yummmmmy. We received two €10 coupons for use later in 2020:

It was an unexpected surprise! The coupons are valid for dine-in (everything except High Tea) through 31 December 2020.

Hmph. 31 December 2020? Opps. I guess we waited a bit too long there, since restaurants aren’t allowed to be open for dine-in at the moment. Regardless, the branches in The Hague and Rotterdam are completely closed anyway, with a potential date of reopening set for 19 January, if the lockdown ends on that date as scheduled.

Here is a look at the ice cream I ordered last year for my birthday:

Tell me you don’t think that is the cutest thing ever.

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Christmas menus (Or: Delivery and take out are all the rage)

Posted on December 10, 2020 by Niki

The good thing about the Netherlands in comparison to America is that you get two days of Christmas (25th and 26th) instead of just one. That means two days of Christmas meals. For one of the days we are planning on ordering from FOAM here in The Hague again. On the other day we will probably make something ourselves.

I did see an advertisement on indebuurt.nl that Food Hall MingleMush is offering their own Christmas menu (meat or vegetarian, 60 euros for two persons). They label it as a “around-the-world trip” of food since they have so many different restaurants adding food into that one box. The two menus are available at this link in English (getalacarte.com). It is tempting, and now I’m wondering if we can order it for the 22nd so that we aren’t completely stuffed anymore by the time Christmas rolls around. Hmmm. We haven’t been to MingleMush since before the corona crisis started, so it would be nice to see it again.

In other news: Non-EU citizens must present negative Covid tests at Dutch borders from Tuesday from nltimes.nl. I wasn’t aware that this rule was coming, although it doesn’t affect me personally. Most of the articles I have seen talk about the effect this will have on UK citizens, since they will no longer be EU citizens from January 1st.

And because we can always use a 1 minute video of lion cubs:

These two female lion cubs were born a few weeks ago at the zoo in Amersfoort. Cute.

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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:

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