What's for dinner in Holland?

When you ask that question, there is a big chance it will be one of the following dishes or a variation to these dishes... 


The Dutch love potatoes very much. The average Dutch family eats potatoes at least 4 times a week. They eat them in quite some variations: Baked, deep-fried, boiled, mashed, they will put them in tinfoil and put them in the oven... Many variations to one simple piece of food: the potato. 
I do not eat potatoes that often, I am not a big fan. I prefer pasta or rice, but for this blogpost I cooked two typical dutch meals so I can show them to you. I think these two meals are by far the two most popular Dutch meals. 


Here we go, the first one is:
Boiled potatoes, boiled veggies and a piece of meat. 
I think a typical Dutch family will eat this meal about 4 times a week, really. There will be some variation in veggies and meat, but always: boiled potatoes. 

Cooked way too much potatoes, whoops!

Would you like to prepare a Dutch meal? Here's how you do it:
Get a big pan and fill it with water, put some peeled potatoes in it and some salt and wait for it to cook... When you can easily prick a fork in the potatoes (after about 20 minutes), they are done and ready to serve. 

Do the same thing with the veggies.
Finally: bake some meat, make a sauce to put on your veggies, and dinner can be served!

And here's Dutch meal number two: Stamppot!!
This will be the same as meal number one, but the difference is: you mash it all together. Wait, really? Yeah, really... 


I am not a big fan of 'stamppot', but I came up with a variation I actually like very much. 
Again, boiled potatoes:

But now: break some cashews into pieces and take a piece of French cheese and chop that into little pieces. 

Mix those two ingredients with a little milk, the boiled potatoes and some raw endive. Mash it all together!
It will end up looking like this:

This may not seem very appetizing, but it really is. 
I would say, give it a try! It's really simple, takes about 20 minutes and you can say you ate a typical Dutch meal. Enjoy!

Review: Emmi's Swiss fondue

Hi there!

Today a review on one of my favourite meals: cheese fondue.
In Dutch supermarkets you'll find about three brands of cheese fondue. The cheese fondue I have reviewed is one of them:

Emmi's Swiss Fondue 

This fondue comes in packages of 400 grams. The box says one package is enough for 2 persons, but I bought two for two persons, you can never have enough cheese!

To heat the cheese, I put it in a fondue pan and put it on the stove. In about 8-10 minutes your cheese fondue will be ready to be served. Be sure to stirr it well while heating it or a lot off the cheese will stick at the bottom of the pan.. waste of cheese, we do not want thant to happen, right? While you are heating your fondue, you can put some bread in the oven and chop some veggies in pieces, so you can dip them in the cheese later. 

Once you have finished heating your cheese, be sure to keep it warm while eating. 

I always put in one of these things:

This cheese fondue seems to have a really nice stucture, it isn't too soft, so all the cheese would dripp of your bread and not too thick. Looks good!

What I use to dip in the cheese is simply some bread and some raw cauliflower. 

Just as easy as that! You could also dip small tomatoes, carrots, broccoli, ham, salami, whatever you like! I always like to keep it simple, for me it is all about the cheese. 

Now, let's put a piece of bread on a fork and dip it... 

Looking good, right?

The taste of the cheese is delicious!! It's a perfect mixture of cheese and wine, neither of them is dominant. The cheese still has a nice structure, it's fluid with no chunks in it. If there is something I really hate... cheese fondue with chunks, yikes!

Be sure so stir the cheese about every 4-5 minutes, so it won't stick to the bottom of your pan too much and  to avoid a crust on the cheese. 

After about half an our, we were done eating. We had eaten about three quarters off the cheese, so I would recommend byuing two packages, instead of one.

The price of one package of Emmi's cheese fondue is about 4 euro's. So a simple meal of cheese fondue for 2-3 persons will cost you about 10 euro's. Maybe not a student-friendly price, but it is so good, I love to pay the 10 euro's!

I really really liked this Emmi cheese fondue! I have tasted some other brands in the past, but this one really stands out. The taste is delicious and well balanced, the structure is good (no chunks!), it's just yummie!

I would really recommend this easy meal if you do have a lot of time to cook, but still want a delicious meal with a real Swiss taste. 

Love it!

I hope you found this review useful and I really to hope to see you next time!

Recipe in a video: Oreo Bonbons

Finally, there it is!
Watch the video below to see how you can make some lovely oreo bonbons.

A little warning, this picture below really applies to me ;)

That being said, enjoy the video!

I hope you liked te video!
If you have any questions or requests for other video's, recipe's or reviews, please leave a comment.

See you next time :)

Strawberry Mascarpone Trifle

A recipe for a lovely strawberry dessert!



What do you need

• 50 grams of powdered sugar
• 1 cup of whipped cream, 250ml
• 1 container mascarpone (250 ml)
• 4 spoons strawberryjelly
• 500 grams of strawberries
• 100 grams of ladyfingers
• 1 box of meringues (100 grams)

• low bowl ca. 24 x 24 cm

Preparation


Whip the cream and sugar stiff in a bowl. Add the Mascarpona and mix it with the strawberry jelly and the cream. Do not stir it smoothly. Wash the strawberries, clean them and cut half of them in slices and divide the other half into halves. Place the ladyfingers on the bottom of the bowl. Cover them with 1/3 of the cream mixture. Divide the strawberry slices on top of it and add half of the left over cream mixture. Crumble the meringues on top of that and cover them with the rest of the cream mixture. Garnish it off with the strawberry halves and sprinkle powdered sugar over it. Place in the fridge for two hours and then your strawberry mascarpone trifle is ready to be served!

Enjoy!