A Nether Ending Story

These aren’t your typical farm markets as most stalls sell all sorts of fruits and veggies from near and far. A few sell more exotic items to cater to various populations in the country (cactus fig, anyone?), but all are like the best produce section of your favorite grocery store. But even fresher. 

I have a soft spot in my heart for the market in Breda because it was a comfortable place to visit in my new country where I was feeling decidedly uncomfortable, especially in the early months. Even as a foreigner I could walk into the market and see things I knew even if they had names like wortel (carrot) or aardbeien (strawberries). I beefed up my vocabulary and could get lost among the swarms of people. I was afraid to communicate at that point because I didn’t know the language at all, but the wonderful thing about the market is it has its own universal gestures and bits of body language and in the end all you have to do is pass the stall worker a few euros and you’re on your way. No awkward moments at a cash register with a line of people behind you waiting for your bumbling, immigrant self to get out of the way. Here you could disappear. 

I quickly learned to go where the old Turkish ladies are congregating and that’s where I found my favorite stall. I rarely buy from any stall other than this one (unless I’m visiting my beloved mushroom man) because the food is so damn cheap. I don’t care that you practically have to climb over people to get your order to the workers. It’s worth it. For example, a bag of six or seven paprikas (bell peppers) is one euro. One euro! I was sold from that moment on. It’s hard to beat that, especially when you come from a country where stores try to charge $1.50 a pound for one pepper. Other gems? Lemons and limes, five for a euro. Three kilos of delicious, Spanish oranges (this was over 10 oranges) - 3 euro. I could go on, but the lesson here is if you have food markets you should be shopping at them. And if you live somewhere with markets that focus only on local produce, even better. The markets in Breda aren’t strictly local, but when produce can come from Holland it does. For example, strawberries in the summer were from a patch right near my apartment. And the potatoes I’ve been cooking lately came from Friesland. Our markets also have stalls selling nuts and dried fruit, bread, and mushrooms. 

Some tips for visiting open-air and farm markets:

1. Bring your own bags. This may be a no-brainer, but in Breda I practically have to force my chico bags on the stall workers when they weigh my produce. They refuse to weigh it in the chico bag and will only weigh it in a plastic bag. I’ve yet to come home from the market without a plastic bag, but I have been reusing them to wrap around things like green onions, parsley, and mint. 

2. If it’s your first time to a market and you’re not sure of the selection, take some time to walk around and gauge the prices. My first time to one of the markets I went to the first stall, which had the premium spot on the corner. I realized after venturing deeper into the market that they also carried the premium prices. Lesson learned. 

3. If you’re on a tight budget, try to stick to a list (preferably one you culled from your meal planning). I know the joy of hitting the market is going without a plan and just picking up what inspires you, but sometimes this can end up with you spending too much money on an item you know nothing about. If you still want to experiment without breaking the bank and your budget allows it, try going into the market with your list and giving yourself a set amount of cash to spend on something new. And only try a little bit of it. The worst is ending up with a whole kilo of something you just don’t like. If it changes your life, you can go back next week and get a bunch more. Saving money, even at the market, is an exercise in restraint.

4. If you do go to the market without a plan, at the very least come home and make a plan for the foods you bought on a whim. The worst thing is letting food go bad, so make a plan for it and don’t waste anything. 

5. Keep an eye out for market-gouging. Mostly all of the produce I’ve found at my favorite stall is cheaper than in the supermarkets, but not always. I’ve been wanting to do a price book, but haven’t really gotten around to it. One thing I have noticed though is that as charming as the stall that sells dried fruit and nuts is, they’re selling that stuff for nearly double the amount I would pay at the Turkish grocery I visit. You can’t trick me, dry goods man!

6. Keep an eye out for adorable market people you want to visit every week - the market is full of characters! Our mushroom man is a complete curmudgeon with a few teeth that barely grunts when we ask for our oyster mushrooms or creminis, but we love him all the same. 

This post is part of VeganMoFo - the Vegan Month of Food. Learn more about it by checking out VeganMoFo Headquarters where you can subscribe to a bunch of vegan blogs and drool over delicious and cruelty-free food.

Not just any kale, but pre-washed, chopped, and bagged kale. Yeah, you heard me. No longer will I slave over a sink full of kale that I’ve ripped from its stems, waiting for the dust and dirt to settle before having to shake it of its water. It wasn’t all that hard to do, really, but I’m not complaining. If the Dutch want to chop my kale for me, who am I to say no?

Only downside of this, of course, is that it goes bad much faster than kale on the leaf. But so what? Eat your kale sooner.  

I’m just doing a quick blog post today because I need to hunker down and study my Dutch. I realized in going to my class last night that missing one week has really left me feeling like I’m swimming in this new language. If you have any tips on how you study to learn a new language, I would greatly appreciate it!

This post is part of VeganMoFo - the Vegan Month of Food. Learn more about it by checking out VeganMoFo Headquarters where you can subscribe to a bunch of vegan blogs and drool over delicious and cruelty-free food.

Food is one of the biggest household costs outside the usual bills like rent and utilities, so it’s worth it to find ways to save money while still eating well. So often people ask me if being vegan is expensive and maybe in the beginning of my veganism I might have said yes, but now I’m proud to say I’m spending the less on food than I ever have in my adult life. I’ve driven our food bill down by planning our meals, plain and simple.

I’ve changed the way I cook a little bit since I’m cooking for two people and I have the time on my hands to spend cooking almost every day, but I still aim for a bit of leftovers on purpose because they come in handy for lunches and busy weeknights. My partner and I try to have a leftover night at least once a week. We build that into our weekly meal plan. I know it seems like a pain to sit down and plan recipes for a week, but I find a lot of fun in it and, even better, it saves us a lot of money in the long run. I make sure I have a list of recipes to cook for the week down on paper along with what I need to use up in those recipes (for example, produce that might be going bad) and what I need to pick up at the market. I also write down a few cold lunch recipes that my partner and I can have for the week (his office doesn’t have a microwave). I take the “need” column and turn it into my shopping list and Thomas and I head out on Saturday morning to the market and grocery store and ethnic markets if we need to. A couple hours spent and a ton of money saved…and we’re eating very healthy food. We spend, on average, less than 50 euro a week on food. Most times it’s less than 40 unless we need to pick up bulk/pantry items, which tend to cost a little more. 

Here’s an example from last week’s menu. I’ve included links to recipes when possible. I don’t plan to the day - only a list of recipes I could make on a given day. This gives me a little more flexibility.

• Pineapple rice with marinated-then-fried tempeh and veggies. We found a discount bin packet of pineapple rice sauce paste. It was okay, but not as flavorful as we’d hoped. This made a lot and we ate it for two nights. 
• Mac ‘n cheese with kale mixed in and a side salad (check out the VegNews recipe!). A few servings of delicious leftovers. This recipe is a winner.
• Indian night: chana masala (from scratch) and eggplant bhartha (from a boil-in-bag pack) served over brown rice. I made some cucumbers in vinegar as a salad and some cheater naan, which is basically just pita bread brushed with garlic butter and sent through the oven. No leftovers here aside from some brown rice, which is headed for a rice pudding dish.  
• Veggie loaf with mushroom gravy, roasted potatoes, and steamed broccoli. This made lots of leftovers for open-faced sandwiches I had for lunch.
• Broccoli potato soup with greens mixed in (probably kale or spinach) served with side salad and baguette. We didn’t end up making this last week, so it’s Monday’s dinner.
• Carrot bisque and side salad. Didn’t make this either, but it’s still a possibility for the coming week if we can find more coconut milk. Our grocery store was out of the cheap cans we usually buy. This is why it’s good to have a few meals on your list in case the grocery store or market is out of what you need. 
• Peanutty noodles with broccoli. This is the emergency meal when we have no time. We didn’t need to use it this week.

For lunch early in the week I made a big batch of Provencal taboulleh from The Mediterranean Vegan because we had a bunch of cous cous to use. I also had ingredients for a marinated lentil salad and cold peanut noodles with veggies in case we needed it, but we didn’t. Breakfasts are usually muesli with yogurt, coffee, fruit, toast, etc. Nothing serious unless it’s the weekend. 

The money you spend on food should be treated like just another bill and you should know who much you’re spending on it. Meal planning will help you do this and if you’re on a tight, fixed income it’s a necessary thing to put into practice. Plus it’s a fun way to try out new recipes. 

This post is part of VeganMoFo - the Vegan Month of Food. Learn more about it by checking out VeganMoFo Headquarters where you can subscribe to a bunch of vegan blogs and drool over delicious and cruelty-free food. 

My dad loves family chain restaurants and we would often get together for lunch when I was in college. The default for us during my freshman year was often Olive Garden. And given the title of this post, I don’t think I have to tell you my usual order. The fettucini alfredo at Olive Garden is one of the most disturbing nutritional monstrosities I’ve ever encountered (47 grams of saturated fat, 1350 mg of sodium, 1220 calories). But damn, it was good. Don’t get me wrong - I’ve had some delicious and authentic alfredo sauces in my time that beat the hell out of Olive Garden, but for a crappy chain restaurant it was fatteningly delicious. 

I like to think of alfredo sauce like some sort of holy grail of vegan cooking. So many recipes, so many opinions, will we ever find IT? Along with things like macaroons and macaroni and cheese, it remains one of those dishes that vegans often make and are sometimes satisfied with but, if you’re like me, you’re often left empty and feeling like you settled for something less than. I tend to avoid veganizing dishes like this because the originals were so vivid that I’d rather not even try, but I’m feeling spry in my cooking these days and I’ve been aiming high for the dishes of my past. 

I had some recipes planned for the week, like the good little meal planner I am, but out of nowhere, from which cravings are wont to come, I got an incredible hankering for fettucini alfredo with barely tender steamed broccoli and sauteed mushrooms. I had to have it. My partner and I were driving his car back from Rotterdam (where it had been broken into and subsequently towed by the police) and I had some time to think since I was crammed in the back behind the driver’s seat - the only location not covered in shattered glass. I had a plan for this alfredo and I was determined to make it happen. 

We hit the market and I found my little mushroom man for a box of kastanje mushrooms. Kastanje is the Dutch word for chestnut, but as far as I can tell these were creminis. I went for a nice bag of fettucini at the grocery store (this was a splurge as we tend to go for the cheaper cuts of pasta - macaroni and spaghetti) and picked up a few boxes of soya cream. 

This meal turned out so incredible that I tried to remember what I did and scribbled down the recipe before I even sat down to my bowl. I’m not a chef or a cookbook author, so I’m not sure how they do it, but all I can say is trying to remember the steps you’ve made and write them down while cooking is an incredible pain in the ass. My partner and I had two hefty servings of pasta with this sauce and we still have enough leftover for two more. This is one of those dishes where I’m so incredibly happy to have leftovers and I don’t even care how messy the kitchen is. Here’s my recipe with some notes. I’ve tried to be as detailed as possible here, but it’s still a bit of a free-form recipe. This is just for the sauce since you can figure out broccoli, mushrooms and pasta, but I will have some notes about them. 

Vegan Alfredo

Ingredients

• 1 package fettucini - We went for the quality stuff, white pasta and all. This is no time for whole wheat. We used half of it for our dinner since it was only two of us. 
• 5 cloves of garlic
• 1 shallot
• About 1/4 cup of vegan butter (it was probably a little less)
• About 2 generous tablespoons of flour
• 1/2 cup raw cashews - Get these out ahead of time and set them to soak in a bowl with some water. This helps soften them for their trip through the food processor. 
• 1.5 cups soya cream
• 1/2 cup soya milk
• 1/4 cup nutritional yeast
• juice from 1/2 a lemon
• 1 tsp. salt
• fresh grated nutmeg (just a bit)
• fresh cracked black pepper
• a little pasta water (you may not even need this)

Directions

1. As I said above, get your cashews soaking. While that’s happening chop your garlic and shallots pretty fine. It doesn’t have to be perfect since this will be taking a trip through the food processor. This is also the time to start your pasta water boiling and get your veggies chopped. 
2. In a saucepan on medium heat, melt your margarine. Once it begins to sizzle, toss in the shallot and garlic. Allow this to saute for a bit, but don’t let it burn. 
3. Once the butter is fragrant from the aromatics and they’ve had a few minutes to cook, sprinkle in some flour. It’s important to sprinkle the flour over the butter and start mixing it in quickly. You’re making a thin roux here and you don’t want lumps. 
4. Once you have the flour incorporated you’ll start to see a paste forming. Cook this for a few seconds - maybe a minute - then get ready for the cream. 
5. Slowly pour in the soya cream and take pauses in between pouring to get everything incorporated. 
6. Pour in your soya milk as well, making sure to incorporate everything into the sauce. Scrape the bottom since flour globs like to hang out there instead of mixing into your sauce like they should. You could even use a whisk, but I just used a wooden spoon.
7. Toss in your nutritional yeast, salt, pepper, and grate some nutmeg over the mixture. Turn the heat down to very low and allow it to barely simmer. 
8. While the sauce is staying warm and thickening slightly, turn your attention to the cashews. Toss these into a food processor with the lemon juice. Pulse your food processor for a while, adding a bit of pasta water if necessary to get a good cashew cream going. Pause periodically to scrape down the sides. We want this thing creamy!
9. Once you have a good cashew cream, go for the stove sauce. Carefully add this to the food processor (you could also use a blender) and give it a good bit of pulsing. 
10. Once it was as creamy as it could get, I sent it back to the pot on the stove to stay warm for cooking. If it’s too thick, add a tiny bit of pasta water at a time. If it’s too thin, go for a bit more nutritional yeast. You should err on the side of too thick, I think, because you can always toss a bit of pasta water into the dish when mixing everything together.

Notes

* Make sure when cooking your pasta you add a bit of salt to the water and maybe some oil. I don’t know if that helps the pasta not stick together, but I’ve found fettucini to be notoriously sticky so often I try it even if it’s doing nothing. 

* A trick for well-timed and tender-but-not-mushy broccoli is to toss it into your cooking pasta right as the pasta is done. It takes about a minute or two for the broccoli to get ever so tender and you’ve one less bowl to clean. 

* My only change to this recipe might be to add a touch more lemon juice, but the sauce may be piquant enough for you. The lemon gives it that tangy burst of flavor hidden in the parmesan of nonvegan alfredos. 

* Make sure your soya cream and soya milk are unsweetened. Most soya cream has a bit of sweetener in it, but it’s usually not overpowering. Basically I’m warning you about reaching for vegan coffee creamer - don’t do that here. I use Alpro cooking cream here in The Netherlands, but I’ve tried the soya cream from Trader Joe’s in the states for savory dishes and thought it was a decent substitute. 

* After sending the cashews through the food processor, if you don’t want to transfer the sauce to the processor you could probably just move the cashews to the pot and hit it with an immersion blender. I just wanted this to be as creamy as possible and knew my Cuisinart would do the trick. 

* The mushrooms were awesome in this. I just sauteed them in a separate pan and added them to the final dish. Serve the pasta with a little more nutritional yeast and black pepper on top. And if you have it, fresh parsley is great mixed into the final dish. 

This post is part of VeganMoFo - the Vegan Month of Food. Learn more about it by checking out VeganMoFo Headquarters where you can subscribe to a bunch of vegan blogs and drool over delicious and cruelty-free food. 

My mama often made big pots of chicken and dumplings for my brother and I to eat, reheat, and eat again for a few days at a time. The dumplings are really chunks of biscuit dough dropped into the hot broth that only get better after some time in the fridge. There’s no reason that one should see veganism as a life choice that separates one from the comforting recipes of our parents and grandparents. I’ve welcomed the challenge of veganizing some of my favorites and luckily this one is an easy fix. 

It’s as easy as making your favorite vegetable soup or broth, adding in some seitan or reconstituted TVP, and dropping some biscuits into the broth to make this recipe. Here’s a rough recipe, but feel free to make it your own. My only recommendation is to not crowd the pot too much with veggies, because this is a show for the dumplings. 

Vegan Chicken and Dumplings

Ingredients

1 onion, diced

few cloves of garlic, chopped

1-2 ribs of celery, diced

1-2 carrots, diced

1 potato, peeled and diced (leave the peel on if you have little red ones!)

4 cups of veggie broth (you can always add more if you think you need it)

1/2-1 tsp dried herbs (I’ve used thyme and bay leaves…sometimes I use nothing)

salt and pepper to taste

TVP chunks (I just let them reconstitute themselves in the soup broth - you could also use seitan)

Your favorite vegan biscuit recipe

Optional add-ins: Greens! I had some escarole that needed to be used and it was wonderful in this recipe. Depending on the green, you may want to add it in about half-way through so it doesn’t get too mushy. Peas toward the end of cooking could be nice. And if it’s fresh green bean time, those would be nice as well. Fresh chopped parsley is a nice, refreshing garnish. Oh, and I’m mega vegan, which means I like to put nutritional yeast in everything. Go for it - I’ve done it and it was tasty. 

Directions (like you even need them!)

1. Melt some oil or margarine or both in the bottom of a soup pot. When it’s ready, add in your chopped onions, celery, carrots, and garlic and let it get fragrant.

2. Toss in your potatoes and then pour in the broth. My favorite vegan broth is Better than Bouillon. They make vegan vegetable, no chicken, and no beef broths that are great and dissolve quickly (unlike those pesky cubes). 

3. Put in your dried herbs, pop the top on, and let the mix come up to a simmer. In the meantime, make your biscuits. You want to let the potatoes get a little bit soft before you drop the biscuits.

4. When the pot comes to a simmer and your veggies are starting to soften, scoop up spoonfuls of biscuit dough and drop them into the pot. You don’t want big spoonfuls, but you also don’t want tiny ones (maybe about two tablespoons of dough). I used two soup spoons to do this - passing the bit of dough back and forth between the spoons to get a somewhat uniform shape. There’s probably a French name for this, but you don’t have to get as serious. What I’m saying is just get the blobs of dough in the pot. Stir them around just a bit so they don’t stick together and put a lid on the pot. 

5. How long? I don’t really know. Depends on your biscuits and the size of those biscuits. Just check now and again to see if the biscuits are done. It will be doughy on the outside, but baked a bit on the inside. 

6. Toss in any of those optional add-ins like greens or frozen peas - stuff that would get mushy with long cooking. Put in a healthy bit of fresh ground black pepper and check the broth for salt. I wait until the end to do this since the veggie broth can be pretty salty on its own. 

7. Serve it up! Make sure everyone gets a lot of dumplings, because those are the best part. I recommend chopping each dumpling into one or two pieces with your spoon to make even more dumplings in your bowl. These leftovers are amazing, so don’t be afraid to make a big pot just for yourself. 

This post is part of VeganMoFo - the Vegan Month of Food. Learn more about it by checking out VeganMoFo Headquarters where you can subscribe to a bunch of vegan blogs and drool over delicious and cruelty-free food. 

I was having one of those days and dinner time was fast-approaching, so I just threw something together and ended up with a dish so delicious it has gone into heavy rotation at our apartment. I’m not sure what to call it. Some days I refer to it only as “THE sauce” and other days a more explicit “spinachy-beany pasta sauce,” but whatever you call it I guarantee it’s delicious. 

I rarely write down recipes because I’ve become sort of an off-the-cuff cook at home (I’m very proud of this fact), but I’ve copied down a vague recipe here to share with you. Adjust it to your liking and don’t hate me because I don’t have precise measurements. 

Ingredients:

1 onion (medium-ish) - Split it in half and thinly slice into half-moon shapes

3-4 cloves of garlic, chopped

5-6 sundried tomatoes in oil, chopped

2-3 roasted red peppers, chopped

1 can (around 2 cups) kidney beans, drained and rinsed (or any other bean)

spinach (You can use fresh or frozen-chopped. I go with half a box frozen-chopped or a bag of baby spinach.)

1/4 cup nutritional yeast (or more if you like nooch)

Tomato sauce (The amount varies. I tend to use around a cup or more. Homemade or storebought - whatever.)

Soy cream (You could substitute any vegan milk or even cashew cream.)

Salt, pepper, and any other dried herbs you like. I always toss in a bit of marjoram or oregano.

Pasta of your choice. I really like using small shells because the kidney beans fall into the shells perfectly. I’ve also cooked this with gnocchi and farfalle. Anything works. 

Directions:

1. Toss a bit of olive oil into a pan and begin caramelizing onions. You know how to caramelize onions, right? 

2. Caramelizing the onions takes a while, but it’s worth it. Use this time to prep the other ingredients and get your pasta water boiling. 

3. Once your onions are pretty much caramelized, toss in the chopped garlic and saute until fragrant. 

4. Toss in the sun-dried tomatoes and roasted red peppers. Let all of that sizzle for a few minutes. 

5. Next comes the spinach. If you’re going with fresh you’ll need to throw it in and put a top of on the pot to let it wilt down. Maybe even through in a splash of water if you think it needs it. If you have frozen-chopped spinach (which you thawed already, of course), toss that in and mix it around to incorporate into the mixture. 

6. Beans! 

7. Put in around a cup of tomato sauce and mix everything together. Now would be a good time for nooch, salt, pepper, and any other herbs. I like to let this simmer a bit before I go for the soy cream. 

8. Add your soy cream, a bit at a time, until the sauce is a blush color. I taste it around this point and see if it needs any salt (it shouldn’t because the sun-dried tomatoes and peppers are pretty salty on their own), pepper, or additional tomato sauce. We’re going for a pretty thick sauce, but not dry. 

9. Serve over pasta. Add a little more black pepper and nutritional yeast before serving.

Just a warning about soy cream. I use Alpro cooking cream and it’s great, but it’s a bit sweet. I use it sparingly since a ton of it can make a savory dish way too sweet. This is probably the case in the states, though I rarely bought soy cream there. I found the one from Trader Joe’s to be pretty good for dishes like this. 

Sun-dried tomatoes and roasted red peppers can be expensive, but used sparingly they last a while and can add a lot of flavor to your dishes. This dish is even cheaper if you use homemade tomato sauce and beans cooked from dry. 

Let me know if you try it! 

This post is part of VeganMoFo - the Vegan Month of Food. Learn more about it by checking out VeganMoFo Headquarters where you can subscribe to a bunch of vegan blogs and drool over delicious and cruelty-free food. 

Another thing I’ve noticed about living in The Netherlands is that the Dutch love their bread. Sure, Americas heart carbs so much they’ve started producing t-shirts about it. And the French love their baguettes, sure. But the Dutch care a great deal about fresh, sliced bread and you can tell by walking into a grocery store at 5 p.m. You won’t get any bread because it’s nearly all gone at that point and no one’s buying the last few loaves because they’re not fresh anymore. Every grocery store has their own bakery churning out bagged loaves each day and while they’re still using dough from a factory, which often times contains a few preservatives, it’s still better than the shelf-stable bread that will no doubt survive nuclear fall out. 

Oh, and for a lot of Dutch people, the darker the bread the better. They really like whole grain breads with seeds and nuts baked into the loaf. No complaints here. Bread is the only thing we purchase a couple times a week because my partner eats a lot of sandwiches at work and we also go for it as a treat sometimes after dinner with a bit of margarine and hagel slag (seriously these are chocolate sprinkles that they eat on bread over here). I wish, for money’s sake, that we could bake our own but I’ve had little luck in that area. We have a tiny, microwave/convection oven combination unit that sits on the counter top and I’m wary of putting anything in it that has plans on rising lest it billow into the top of the oven. I’ve also tried and failed twice at using a bread machine my partner’s parents let us borrow. One day I will master the use of a bread machine to bake our own bread, but for now I’m satisfied with spending a few euro for a fresh, nearly black loaf of bread. 

Sometimes, though, your bread gets stale (remember, this isn’t that Wonderbread that lasts weeks) before you can eat it. Enter French toast. It’s the perfect answer to stale bread and it’s much more satisfying than homemade breadcrumbs. 

My go-to recipe is the “Fronch Toast” in Vegan with a Vengeance, because it’s a base recipe good for building upon with different flavors. For example, I’ve added a banana to the batter in the past. You could also sub coconut milk for the non-dairy milk in the recipe and get a tropical theme going on. If you still have some pumpkin puree laying around, I’d recommend the Pumpkin French Toast from Vegan Brunch. Lucky for us, the recipe is posted on the PPK web site. Eat it. 

This post is part of VeganMoFo - the Vegan Month of Food. Learn more about it by checking out VeganMoFo Headquarters where you can subscribe to a bunch of vegan blogs and drool over delicious and cruelty-free food. 

Thomas and I make a point of visiting our mushroom man each week at the market to get some of his oyster mushrooms. We generally like them lightly sauteed with a bit of salt and pepper before we scarf them down in seconds flat, but when we have the patience I try to work them into a recipe. This was one of those times where I wanted to use the mushrooms in a way that they wouldn’t get lost flavor-wise. This vegan clam chowder recipe is from Besty DiJulio of The Blooming Platter. Having met her in person, Besty is a charming lady, inspiring teacher, and creative vegan in the kitchen. Her recipes are always on point and I didn’t doubt this one. I made a few substitutions and when we sat down for the first spoonful, Thomas and I decided this was one of the best soups we’d ever had…vegan or otherwise. Served with a big, dark baguette, it was a perfect meal and we both went in for seconds. I was so thankful I brought my little bottle of liquid smoke from the states.

Here’s Betsy’s recipe, which you can read for the ingredients and directions, but I’ve listed my substitutions below in italics:

**I used new/red potatoes and didn’t peel them. I chopped enough for three cups
**I added a thumb-size clove of garlic, chopped, to the onion and celery.
**I subbed 1.5 teaspoons of fresh thyme.
**I omitted the kelp granules.
**I used bouillon cubes for my veggie broth.
**I used one cup soy cream and one cup soy milk for the soymilk.
**Instead of seitan, I cooked the recipe to completion then sauteed some chopped oyster mushrooms in a bit of oil and vegan butter and added that to the soup for a few minutes before serving.
**Instead of additional liquid smoke I added a hefty quarter teaspoon of smoked paprika to the soup. I did use the initial 1/2 tsp of liquid smoke when sauteing the veggies.
**I just used chopped parsley as the garnish for each bowl)

This post is part of VeganMoFo - the Vegan Month of Food. Learn more about it by checking out VeganMoFo Headquarters where you can subscribe to a bunch of vegan blogs and drool over delicious and cruelty-free food. 

The wonderful thing about The Netherlands, I’ve found, is that they value cooking at home a great deal (at least this is the case with the Nederlanders I’ve come in contact with). I’ve also seen more people snacking on the go than eating fast food. For example, I’ve seen girls eating sandwiches from home-wrapped foil packages while riding bikes, or guys pulling apples from their backpacks (also while biking). McDonald’s and KFC still have a market here and I’ve definitely seen people with Happy Meals, but for the most part people understand the value (financially maybe more than nutritionally) of packing food at home and taking the time to cook dinner. 

My partner has to commute pretty far to and from work, so he welcomed someone with a lot of time on her hands (still waiting on my residency permit) cooking meals each night. But for the first few weeks I had to get my pantry going - a basis for all the cooking I knew I’d be doing. If you’re interested in organizing your kitchen and stocking  a pantry that’s conducive to cooking, check out The Kitchen Cure going on at Apartment Therapy’s Kitchn blog. Lots of great ideas over there. 

My answer to stocking the pantry is the same answer I had in America - ethnic markets. In America I often visited Asian markets and a nearby Indian market. Here in the Netherlands its Asian markets and Turkish markets. I’ve been able to find silken tofu, locally-made tempeh and sambals (there’s a large Indonesian population here), various frozen dumplings, black beans, miso, silken tofu, dried beans, raw cashews, etc., all for cheaper prices than you would find in the grocery store if you could even find this stuff there. The Netherlands, probably due to space constraints, opts for smaller grocery stores than the big boxes I’m used to in America. This means you may end up hitting a few grocery stores trying to find an item (canned artichokes, for example) or just giving up altogether. For me, the Asian and Turkish markets have really filled in the blanks in my pantry and made me feel more at home here. 

This is a photo from the shelf closest to my cooking area. I keep all of my go-to items for food prep, like oils, vinegars, sauces, and syrups, right here within arm’s reach. 

There are health food stores where you can get teeny, tiny, pricey jars of egg-free mayonaise, but for the most part we do our dry/pantry shopping at ethnic markets and the grocery store and get everything fresh at the weekly markets (a post I’ll save for another day). The only thing I get at the health food store is a vegan margarine. It was a tearful goodbye between me and Earth Balance this summer, but I’ve found a decent substitute. 

Spices are expensive and I had a great spice collection going on at home, so I vacuum packed and shipped them all. I’m working on a DIY spice storage system that I hope to finish during VeganMoFo. 

I’ll save my pantry must-haves for another post, but I’m curious to hear how other people managed cooking when moving to a new country. It was a serious learning curve for me and while I have the ingredients taken care of, I’m not battling the constraints of a tiny European kitchen (see: no real oven). 

This post is part of VeganMoFo - the Vegan Month of Food. Learn more about it by checking out VeganMoFo Headquarters where you can subscribe to a bunch of vegan blogs and drool over delicious and cruelty-free food. 

Enter peanutty noodles. It’s our delicious, go-to meal when we need something fast and fairly healthy. When I went to America for three weeks, I made a bulk batch and froze it in portions for Thomas (I know, aren’t I nice?) to throw over veggies, noodles, rice, or whatever else he could manage. 

I would love to share an exact recipe, but I’ve never measured anything (I’m finally one of those cooks!). I’ve given you a rough idea of the sauce with guesses for measurements. We often steam some broccoli and toss it in with the sauce and some buckwheat soba noodle, but you could use any noodle. Spaghetti even. Don’t be scurred. Chopped green onions (scallions) and sesame seeds are awesome on top as well.

Peanutty Noodles

Ingredients:

Big scoop of creamy, unsweetened peanut butter (1/2 cup)

Ketjap manis / soy sauce (maybe an 1/8 cup? Enough to get the peanut butter loosened)

Rice vinegar (same amount as ketjap manis)

sambal manis (1/2 tsp.)

tamarind paste (1 tsp.)

grated garlic (1 tsp.)

grated ginger (1 tsp.)

coconut milk (1/2 cup or more to taste)

Directions:

1. Put the peanut butter and soy sauce in a bowl and start whisking to loosen it up. I like to do this first because if you throw all the liquid in the peanut butter can get clumpy. 

2. Then go for the rest of the ingredients except for the coconut milk. Whisk everything together. Be careful with the sambal manis - this stuff is insanely hot. 

3. Add coconut milk to taste. I say to taste because you may want just a hint of coconut flavor or a lot, you may not want your sauce as liquidy as a lot of coconut milk will make it, or it may be way too spicy and you want to cut it with more coconut milk. Do what you want - it will taste good. 

4. Use this in a dish! I usually just pour it over noodles and veggies and toss it all together, serving it garnished with lots of chopped scallions and sesame seeds. But I have been known to eat it straight up with pasta. 

Notes:

The Netherlands has a large population of Indonesian people, which also means Asian market shelves chocked full of Indonesian cooking staples. Ketjap manis is the Indonesian soy sauce and it’s more thick and sweet than what you think of as soy sauce. If you don’t have it, sub any other soy sauce, but maybe use a little less. Sambal manis is also a staple of Indonesian cooking and much spicier than the sambal oelek I got in the states (The first time I used it I scalded the mouths of my partner and his friend because I had no idea of its potency.). We buy a locally made versions, but just substitute anything hot here if you can’t find it - sriracha sauce, chili powder, etc. Tamarind paste is awesome and adds a sour sweetness, but if you don’t have it you can leave it out or add a bit of brown sugar or something sweet to the sauce if you think it needs it. It’s one of those ingredients you don’t taste but you recognize when it’s not there. 

This post is part of VeganMoFo - the Vegan Month of Food. Learn more about it by checking out VeganMoFo Headquarters where you can subscribe to a bunch of vegan blogs and drool over delicious and cruelty-free food. 

I gots it somethin’ terrible.

As much as I hate to admit it and just want to jump back into life in The Netherlands, my body is reminding me that I did just travel 4,000 miles and it doesn’t like it. It’s times like these that I consider traveling by boat or container ship next time I want to visit the states, an experience Seth Stephenson detailed in his awesome travel book “Grounded.” He talks about the impersonal nature of air travel and its many side effects. Not only does your body reject the recycled air, the pressure change (hello, swollen ankles!), and the abrupt time difference, but you also miss the many cultures and people that could enrich your life by flying over them at 35,000 feet. Travel should be more about the journey than the destination. Sure, air travel has made the world smaller and it’s comforting to know I can visit mom whenever I want, but at what cost?

I think this exhaustion is making me a little too philosophical. I want to sleep, but I know I need to power through to the evening and save those z’s for after 9.

Anyone have any good jetlag remedies? 

I’ve been telling people that I’m going “home” on Tuesday, back to The Netherlands, but it’s still hard to stammer out those words. I’m not sure what my home is at the moment. America feels a bit foreign and I still feel like an outsider in The Netherlands. I have a lot of work to tend to when I get back, so that will give me something to throw my mind into rather than sulk about why the world has to be so big. 

Lots of writing to come!

Or at least my body is.

In The Netherlands dining out isn’t as common as it is in America. Restaurant meals seem exorbitantly expensive and Thomas and I have only gone to a restaurant once since I arrived in July. Snackbars, on the other hand, are fairly cheap and about the only dining out I see Nederlanders doing on the regular. Cooking at home and packing your lunch are standard. 

In America it seems to be the opposite. Cooking at home has become a lost art and something people do for nostalgia’s sake or to save money. Dining out seems to be something you should always want to do and cooking at home something you do when you can’t go out. For the past few years, restaurants were my regular source of meals and the leftovers became my lunches or dinners for the following night. My body was used to the high fat and sodium content of take-out. 

But that changed when I arrived in The Netherlands and started cooking all of our meals. Planning health meals from market fruits and vegetables, beans and grains. Everything was vegan and fairly balanced. Always fresh. 

So far on this trip back to America I’ve done a tremendous amount of typical American eating. I’ve hit a few fast food lines and frozen food sections for nostalgia’s sake and my body is completely rejecting it. Instead of going out and visiting friends tonight I’m laying on my mom’s couch sipping water and slowly eating a bowl of plain jasmine rice. 

I love you, America, but my body can’t wait to be back to its new life in The Netherlands. 

When I first learned the Dutch word alsjeblieft I understood it’s purpose as “please,” but didn’t quite get the “here you go” part. My partner Thomas swore that we do that in America - that when handing something over to someone we say “here ya go,” or something to that effect. He said that not doing so would seem strange. I couldn’t really remember a time that I could use to demonstrate his incorrectness, so I dropped it. I still wondered. 

This morning I watched my mother pay for some bagels (ones which I’ve been dreaming about since I left for The Netherlands) and she handed the money over without saying anything. The cashier handed my mother change without saying anything. But thanks to my time in The Netherlands, I now found this interaction to be strange and lacking in warmth. I needed a few alsjebliefts in there for it to seem complete. 

Expats always talk about the little things they notice when they go home after living in a new country - a sort of “you might be an expat if” list. I didn’t think I’d notice anything after being gone for only three months, but today I noticed a few things: 

1. I was surprised to see green when I pulled money from the ATM. Not the rainbow-colored euros I’m used to, though I’m so thankful to not be taking the currency exchange hit.

2. It feels weird saying “thank-you” in customer service situations. I ordered a coffee and when the barista asked for whipped cream I said “nee” and blushed a bit. 

3. I have to get used to talking more. In the Netherlands I probably come across as the quiet, shy type since I don’t know the language and tend to only vocalize the necessary niceties. But in the U.S. I’m usually the chatty, cheerful customer. I need to find that place again.