Despite my understanding, I have managed to keep on loving cooking. Often, cooking for me is a way to unwind (even when it's not joined by a glass of wine). While the children are playing together, I chop vegetables, set things out to thaw, grate cheese, etc. It's all quite relaxing, believe it or not. On a similar note, I've had to learn to prepare things throughout the day instead of preparing everything at once in the couple of hours before dinner. On many days, I simply do not have the time to devote those hours solely to cooking. Between getting the kids from school at three different times throughout the day, feeding them, changing diapers, entertaining them, cleaning, doing laundry, grocery shopping, etc. during my working hours, I have to fit in food prep whenever I can throughout the day.
Now, when it comes down to it, the only meal I ever really cook for is dinner. In the Netherlands, all anyone eats for breakfast and lunch is bread. I am not exaggerating. The amount of bread they eat here is astonishing. For breakfast the children usually have either chocopasta (which is basically Nutella), or chocolate flakes or sprinkles on their bread. Weird, but lekker (means good/delicious in Dutch: I will use it a LOT), I guess. Good thing everyone bikes everywhere.
I've tried to cook different things every night so the family never tires of my cooking (though they already tell me that I can never leave because they enjoy it too much!). So far I've made several of my own family recipes, as well as a few Pinterest and Google search finds, usually all with my own spin. Some of the things I've made so far include:
- Meatloaf
- Homemade Chicken Pot Pie
- Potato Salad
- Banana Bread
- Chicken Quesadillas
- Steak Fajitas
- Pico de Gallo
- Beef Stew
- Chili
- Cheese and Vegetable Tart
- Chicken Cordon Bleu Casserole
- Tuna Pasta Bake
- Shepherd's Pie
- Macaroni and Cheese
- Parmesan Crusted Chicken
I hope to explore and experiment a lot more in the remaining 9 3/4 (just like the platform..) months I have left here in Holland. I also hope to post quite frequently, sharing my methods of cooking throughout the day, as well as my successes and failure with certain Pinterest and Googled recipes, and the children and host parents' preferences. Thankfully I take care of children who are willing to try new things, as opposed to a few of my au pair friends' children who refuse to eat anything but pasta and bread.
This blog will most likely end up including some rants and stories about my time in Europe that have nothing to do with the kitchen, starting today with a small backstory of my stressful past week; so, if you decide to follow my blog and are only interested in the cooking side of things, please bear with me, or don't, whatever floats your boat. It will also include all of the difficulties I have in finding substitutions for ingredients that cannot be easily found in Holland. That struggle hasn't been too difficult thus far, though I do miss cumin for my Mexican recipes and the lack of certain instant and pre-made products (like puff pastry and biscuits) has been a bit frustrating, though only leading to my exploration of from-scratch recipes. The 3-year-old especially loves to help when I am making dough from scratch.
After that particularly long introduction to my blog, I'll start with dinner tonight, after a brief overview of the events last week (completely relevant to this week and to tonight's dinner).
On Tuesday of last week, I probably jinxed myself and poor J (to respect their privacy, I will avoid using my host family and friends' names) along with me. I thought how wonderful the week had been going, with no hitches. The kids had been good, I hadn't had to do anything overtly exhausting, the weather was looking better than it had the last week... Things were going great! Until Wednesday morning. Before anyone was awake and watching them, poor little J fell off the top bunk while he and M were playing in their room. Well, he ended up breaking his leg and now has a cast up to his hip. Let me tell you, a 3-year-old with a broken leg is no fun. He certainly isn't loving it and neither are the parents or myself.
After last week, I will be at home everyday I work this week with J. He won't be going to school this week and the host mom, F, will be taking the other children to school and creche. This means I'll probably have more time to cook than usual, but since today both host mom and dad were working late and M was at a play date, I only had to make dinner for J and myself (and separate baby food for K). So tonight was pannenkoeken night!
Now, let me specify: it wasn't pancake night, it was pannenkoeken night. Dutch pancakes are completely different than American/Canadian pancakes (my friend A and I decided to refer to them as "North American pancakes," which we had for a lovely brunch on Saturday). Pannenkoeken are more of cross between pancakes and crepes. They're large and flat and opposed to their fluffy buttermilk North American counterparts.
Not only are the pancakes themselves different, but so are the toppings. In the Netherlands, they don't use butter and maple syrup like we do (though I assume some people do). Here, they put anything and everything on their pancakes. For example, tonight for dinner, J had butter and shredded cheese on his, as well as powdered sugar. I had fried cinnamon apples, honey, butter, and goat cheese on mine. Lekker! People put anything from pindakaas (Dutch peanut butter, also different: not as sweet) to bacon and cheese on their pannenkoeken. Though the gourmet toppings are to die for, I'm still not convinced anything will ever beat good ole maple syrup.
Now to cook the pannenkoeken themselves, I just used a store bought mix in a bottle, which I just had to add milk too (though we were out of milk so I substituted water, butter, and creamer, which seemed to work out well enough).
It's a pretty boring dinner post for this evening, but it IS one example of how things are different here in the Netherlands. And besides, I couldn't include a long post along with my super long introduction to the blog itself, now could I? I hope you enjoyed this first post and continue to follow me on my adventure here on the other side of the world!
