Spruitjesschotel met ham en kaas/Brussels sprout w ham and cheese

The temperature finally went up a bit and the last few days of snow created a nice crunchy layer on top of the ice so I decided to walk to the grocery store the long way. Week two and R was at school, I had unpacked and done as much as I could errand wise so this second Monday in Rotterdam I could finally spend a good few hours getting to know my local grocery store. Yes, this is what I do, I am food obsessed so I like to sight-see grocery stores around the world.

My local grocery store is one of the Albert Heijn chain, the Netherlands' biggest grocery chain. I had been a few times already (okay, almost everyday) but hadn't taken the time to really browse yet. It's about seven blocks from my house and I do my grocery shopping nearly every day 1. to make sure I get out of the house and do at least a little bit of walking each day and 2. I hate to fill the fridge w food only to forget and let it rot away, I try to plan my meals each day which works great as my cravings change constantly. But mostly because 3. try carrying home a weeks worth of groceries w/out car or bike and no muscles.

The first thing that caught my eye was one of those recipe stands. You know, the marketing-trick free recipe cards that list all the store brand ingredients? Totally fell for it. So tonight I made my first Dutch-ish dish (not a traditional Dutch food but the recipe was in Dutch). Thanks to Dutch being so similar to German I only had to look up a few words. Google translate has become my new best friend.

I picked this recipe because I had already had Brussels sprouts at home. And here I'm going to stop for a little shout out to my in-laws. Until I met R I had never had Brussels sprouts but thanks to his parents (it's something you can always count on finding at their house) I've been hard at work making up for my 25 years without them.

This recipe was quick (thanks to getting suckered into buying all my ingredients prepared). I don't like button mushrooms so I substituted mini bellas but the rest was the same. I read the directions to R out loud in my best attempt at Dutch. Horrible for R who was trying to study. My spit from overdoing the guttural pronunciations kept hitting him in the back of the head. Free shower! The meal, we loved and being so hungry didn't get a photo of it so you'll have to enjoy the one I stole from the AH website.

This meal we dedicated to our parents. With the much loved T family vegetable paired w a bottle of white my parents had given us for Christmas, how could we not enjoy our first home-cooked meal without thinking of them? And without whom we'd have had a hard time getting here (my parents, who literally got us up to Rotterdam and R's parents for housing all our junk in their garage for the year we are gone.) Thanks guys!

So, enough schmalz, back to that grocery store. Things to notice: 1. the Dutch love prepared ingredients. And this is nothing like those jars of pre-minced garlic you find in US groceries. Here you have packages including all the ingredients for various meals (local and ethnic) or each ingredient separately packaged: from rationed cashews to sauces to marinated already cut meats and julienned vegetables to already boiled rice and pre-peeled potatoes)see Brussels sprouts recipe. 2. The cheese section is heaven. The wall is covered with big fat golden yellow wheels of cheese. I dare you leave without buying a chunk. (more on cheese later) 3. The meat and fish sections are just okay, for this and baked goods the advice is to go to the specialty stores where quality and value are better and the meats are cut to your liking. I have yet to find a good butcher around here but there is a fishmonger next door to our Albert H. 4. the eggs can be found on shelves (not in your refrigerated section).

But the best part will be looking forward to the open air market tomorrow!