Food

A reader of my blog could say that my blog is mostly about random food and snacks.

And they would be right.

Yesterday Marco and I had cheese and crackers, with tea.

The cheese (not pictured) was a cheddar easily purchased at Albert Heijn, the local grocery store. Tophat 48+. The crackers, well, those came from Kelly’s expat store. Ritz crackers from America. Deliciously buttery with perhaps a bit too much salt (tastes good to me). Of course this particular box came from the UK, so a bit easier to transport.

The tea holder is a Christmas gift from Roger, from the Dutch version of Amazon: bol.com. The cups are from my brother and sister-in-law (thanks!). They say “We go together like” and “peanut butter and jelly” with our names personalized on them.

And the little hat – that is from a promotion; this time of year they can be found on Innocent juice bottles. See more at The Big Knit project. Cute! And useful, since the top is hot when we need to remove the tea holder.

Marco surprised me a few days ago with a box, stating that it was from Sinterklaas (the corner of it was even in my shoe, as Dutch tradition dictates!). It turned out to be a slow cooker, a device commonly used to cook food slowly while you’re at work or otherwise not around. It needs to cook for at least six hours, ideally 8 or more.

Here was our first meal using the cooker:

Beef stew with bread (grilled on a paini press). Not any bread – sweetened bread. That is the closest to Hawaiian rolls that I can find around here, with those being what I used to eat with my family for Thanksgiving and Christmas. The recipe we used can be found at allrecipes.com.

Oh – and it must be winter. My blog is snowing! (an effect that automatically happens during December each year).