Cupcakes with Friends

Delicious chocolate cupcakes with raspberry jam filling and real raspberry icing. Made by my fabulous friend Kristin.

Collaboration with Mon Ami Food

Exciting news! I have started collaborating with Leni Reed Nazare who writes a wonderful blog called Mon Ami Food.

Leni writes a food blog from her background as a nutritionist and registered dietician and features "simple, healthy recipes to control weight and prevent diet-related chronic diseases." This post is all about collard greens and their benefits. Thanks Leni!  

 

 Also awesome: PhotoBotos.com, which specializes in "one AMAZING photo everyday," liked the post! Woohoo! Click the links to find out more about how to use and eat collard greens and just how nutritious they are (and why on earth I took photos of them among the milk cartons! ha.)

Dinner: Linguine with Spinach, Etc.

I've been trying to eat more healthy spinach lately. You can throw a whole bag in the pan and it will wilt down to hardly anything in a matter of minutes. The other day I cooked up some linguine and paired it with sauteed spinach and garlic in roasted red pepper bruschetta topping. It was delicious.

I made a slight variation of that dish for dinner last night: sauteed spinach with roasted red peppers, chopped onions, a bit of extra jarred spaghetti sauce, and some left over red wine. I like to throw the pasta in the skillet before serving it. That way it gets better coated with sauce and picks up and extra juices or flavors left in the pan.

Pair with parmesan cheese and a bit of lonely and delicious prosecco won from a work training the other night, and you have yourself a delicious dinner.

Croissants and Hot Chocolate

I could live off of croissants forever in their buttery, flaky deliciousness. Especially pain au chocolat!  I may or may not have eaten upwards of 3 of these one day...

Today I had one that was brushed with some sort of sugary coating on the outside. It was SO GOOD and even better than a plain croissant. The slight sugary coating sealed the deal.

Isn't this hot chocolate interesting? I've never quite had it served like this: hot milk with some chocolate bits in the bottom that were starting to melt. To make it drinkable you just stir it up. It was really good and creamy! Better than powder any day, but still not as chocolaty as straight melted chocolate, no milk, like some of the chocolate shops here do.

I didn't have the croissants with the hot chocolate, but that would have been vraiment delicious. (I have French words stuck in my head this week from working to understand all the French being spoken around me.)

Scenes from Brussels

Yes, I had to get the obligatory Belgian waffle (gaufre). Since it was only about 3 euro though, unfortunately it wasn't that great. Looking into the chocolate shop windows and smelling the deliciousness inside- that was great!

 

One thing the city is famous for is the Manneken-Pis- a statue of a little boy peeing. Supposedly he gets outfits from all around the world to wear! When I saw him he seemed to be in some sort of cleaner's outfit. Pretty sweet city mascot if you ask me!

 

One fascinating thing about Brussels/Bruxelles/Brussel is that it's a bilingual city. Belgium is split between the Dutch (Flemish) speaking north and the French speaking south. Though Brussels is in the Dutch part, the city's main language is French. Every sign has both French and Dutch, like this sign ("Sword Street"). I can understand way more French, but it did help me to translate words into Dutch. After 2 months in Amsterdam, the Dutch almost looked more familiar than the French!

 

Allors, no pictures, but I did score a box of delicious looking Belgian chocolates, each of which I picked out myself! Picking out weird truffles to try is one of my favorite things. Mmmmm...

Sweets

On my last days in Amsterdam I visited two chocolate shops, Jordino and Puccini Bomboni, in the Grachtengordel West neighborhood of Amsterdam. The shops were recommended by my Amsterdam Rough Guide (given to me by a certain travel-savvy professor).

At Jordino the atmosphere was very welcoming. The owners put out chocolates for everyone to try and the shop was packed with people. I had a chocolate-balsamic truffle and a raspberry-chocolate macaroon (for the first time!). I'm still not exactly sure what macaroons are, but the one I had was very good! Anyone know what macaroons are exactly? The chocolate truffle made with balsamic vinaigrette was a little too strong for me. I ate it after having dinner at an Italian deli. As I made a face at the interesting taste of the truffle I looked across the table and suspiciously eyed the bottle of balsamic vinaigrette innocently sitting there, thinking get out of my chocolate!!

I walked into Puccini from the pouring rain, glad to be somewhere warm, or at least dry. I was the only one in the shop most of the time, and he lone woman working was honestly a bit snobby. She seemed to get annoyed at all the questions I had about what the truffles were, but there were just so many interesting ones I had to ask! The shop seemed more high-end and less welcoming than Jordino. But honestly, the milk chocolate-honey bon bon I had was perhaps the best tasting chocolate I have ever had! The honey was not over-powering at all, but rather just lent its sweetness to the chocolate to make for a perfectly sweet and smoooooth chocolate. Delicious. I also had a dark chocolate one with cranberries on top, which was also excellent. The (dried) cranberries were a perfect taste combination with the dark chocolate- a little sweet, and little tangy. See pictures below.

 

Best taste: Puccini

Best environment for patrons: Jordino

Brussel Sprouts in Brussels

Last night we had a delicious brussel sprout soup made by a friend of the couple I'm staying with. I know many people don't like brussel sprouts, but I actually don't mind them and would much prefer to have brussels in Brussels than mussels in Brussels!

This was a sort of after-dinner small evening meal. After dinner the sprouts were picked right from the jardin (did I mention that I'm in French speaking territory now?) in the back. The wonderful chef prepared the soup to absolute perfection- really. On top was a bit of chopped up sprouts and smoked duck sauteed in butter (similar to bacon), which made for a perfect crunch and texture to balance the smoothness of the soup. It was salted and seasoned (from some Szechuan pepper spice) just right, creamy (from creme fraiche), hearty (from potatoes), and fresh (from the brussel sprouts). C'etait parfait!

P.S. I can understand the spoken French and write little phrases much more than I can speak it... :)

An Amsterdam Speakeasy

 

lemon + vodka

Per request of my dad, last night I made a visit with two friends to Door 74, a sort of modern speakeasy here in Amsterdam. Modern-day speakeasies are cocktail bars that have an air of mystery about them to recall the speakeasies that existed during the prohibition era in the U.S.

 

 To get in, you have to call a number and leave a message to make reservations the day of, and then someone calls you back later in the day to confirm. The outside of the bar is completely inconspicuous: a regular, black Amsterdam apartment facade with some graffiti splashed on. When we arrived, we rang the doorbell. Before letting us in, the bar man quickly opened a small window (I think a sort of speakeasy regular practice), secretly covered by a dingy "no bike parking" sign. We slipped inside the sleek black interior of the small bar, sat down in some comfy leather chairs and looked at the interesting cocktail menu. In the end, the choices were so varied that we each told the bar man flavors we liked and he mixed something up for each of us.

 
 My cocktail had gin, raspberry syrup, and lemon, among other things. Eren's was a gin and lemon mixture, and was a bit bitter. Arash asked for a drink reminiscent of an amazing lemon martini he had once had in Dubai. What the bar man made was excellent! Someone recently told me that good vodka tastes like water, which at the time I thought sounded kind of odd. But trying the lemon-vodka cocktail last night, I could very much see that. It tasted.... smooth or something, and almost watery- not the nasty "regular" vodka taste at all.

Eren's gin and lemon drink.

 Some of you may be surprised at the alcohol report, but besides enjoying the occasional tasty cocktail, I mainly wanted to check out Door 74 as a favor to my dad. As many of you know, one of his recent hobbies is cocktail mixing and finding out about interesting or unique bars. After we each had one cocktail and enjoyed some good conversation, we headed home. We all agreed that Door 74 was an interesting bar with a nice atmosphere.

My cocktail. Too frou-frou looking... but tasty nonetheless.

CHEESE.

Cheese. What a wonderful thing.

The shop's oldest cheese ("oude kaas")- aged 3 years. Great flavor.

 Today I stopped into a cheese shop- one thing Amsterdam/Holland is famous for. I sampled some delicious cheeses and had a cheese croissant. I could live off of croissants. But cheese is even better :) .

Buttery, flaky, CHEESY goodness.

This one tasted strongly of wine (had either wine or grapes in it).

The youngest cheese in the shop was aged 9 months ("jonge kaas"). The labels of "jonge" and "oude" kaas in the grocery stores finally make more sense.

Sage cheese... looks funky.

Is this not one of the most appetizing bread displays you have ever seen?!

Poffertjes

Poffertjes (translation = heaven) at the Uit Markt festival with butter, powdered sugar, Sophia, and Eli.