Update: Sunday 31 Mar

Happy Easter! It's Sunday. Food time! I actually wasn't going to post about food today because I haven't done anything that I thought was notable this week, but I thought of something last-minute.

Tomorrow is Monday. Tomorrow is the first of the month! Do you know what that means? That means tomorrow I am going SHOPPING! I miss vegetables. Remember when I said I didn't have a lot of money for the rest of March? Starchy foods (aka carb-laden foods) are cheap, I've been eating way too many carbs this past week, and it's really affecting how I feel. Yeah, yeah, I've had some vegetables too, but not a lot. Vegetables are hard to stretch while still eating a lot of them… Overload on carbs doesn't feel good when I've spent the last several months eating so well.

The unfortunate thing about tomorrow is that it's Easter Monday, and in the Netherlands Easter Monday is still a part of Easter. A lot of the stores will be closed. I think I saw that Ekoplaza would be open (health food store, expensive stuff, woohoo) and the specific Albert Heijn that I usually go to will be open (all the other ones are closed. This one is the biggest). There isn't a lot that I buy at either of those places any more, but I still like to walk through and make sure there isn't anything that might be useful to me. The market's website also states specifically "Tweede Paasdag open!" It is open on the second Easter day. Thank you, market.

So tomorrow morning I'll be going to the market, followed by home to drop things off, then AH and then Ekoplaza. Wait, maybe I'll do that in a different order. AH, Ekoplaza, home, market? Actually I guess I should go to the market first so that if I can't get something there that I really want, I can get it at AH…

I'm trying to completely wean myself off of AH though. Fun fact, since the last time I bought produce there they have doubled the price of bell peppers. No thank you. The only thing I'd prefer to buy there is milk, which I don't drink a whole lot of, because there it's cheap, and cheap is nice. I've been thinking of changing that though… I'll come back to that. A lot of the things that I was buying at Albert Heijn that weren't fresh produce can be bought cheaper at other places. Herbs and spices are much cheaper at the Asian supermarket, as are (naturally) soy sauce, mirin, sesame oil, etc. I don't buy premade sauces or anything like that. Nuts and produce are cheaper at the market, cheese is probably cheaper at AH but I don't eat much of that either so I might stick to market cheese because it's delicious. Eggs I will keep buying at AH because I worry they would break on the way home from the market, but I rarely eat or use eggs. Uhh. I can't even think of what else I buy. Rice, flour, and sugar are still cheaper/more convenient at Albert Heijn but that's also another thing.

Then there is Ekoplaza. I don't shop there often. Well, it's expensive, and I don't exactly need organic or blah blah… stuff. But last time I was there I was admiring their wide selection of muesli mixes, and there was one in particular that looked good but I passed it up because it had dried cranberries. Muesli can be eaten dry, right? Anyway, I don't usually like dried fruits… But for the past couple days I have had this strange craving for them. I think once my mom bought these cookies, those Fig Newton fruit thins with dried cranberries in them? I've been craving something similar to that. I don't know where the craving comes from but I thought I'd try one of those mixes. Also, Ekoplaza has a much better selection of whole wheat pastas than AH does. I love whole wheat pastas. I know they're wrong because it's not authentic, and Italian people don't use whole wheat pasta, and all the other arguments one could come up with, but I like the flavor of whole wheat so much better than over-processed white flour products like white bread and white pasta. Personal preference? Anyway, Ekoplaza has a lot of fun shapes. It's more expensive, probably (I haven't checked prices on that) but I don't eat pasta a whole lot anyway. So it's not like I'll be spending a lot on that.

Okay the other thing about Ekoplaza… This might turn into a very lengthy story, let's see. Every day I usually have a cup of coffee when I wake up in the morning, water while I am not at home, and tea the rest of the day when I am at home. But when I make coffee, it's typically a teaspoon of instant coffee, about the same amount of sugar, ⅔ boiling water and ⅓ milk. When I have a cup of tea, I add a teaspoon of sugar to that as well. The point is, I want to stop using sugar in both of those. I can drink tea without sugar, but the coffee not so much. I always liked my coffee sweet… So that's what I meant when I said we'd come back to the milk thing, I searched some alternatives to sugar for coffee because I don't want to use artificial sweeteners, and one site that I found suggested either maple syrup, because it is even sweeter and lower calorie than honey (I don't really like the flavor of honey in my drinks) so you don't have to use as much or… Almond milk. Because almond milk is naturally sweet. But also more expensive… I don't really know…

I guess, if you know of any alternatives that I haven't thought of you could let me know? Another site also suggested vanilla powder, which is expensive, or cinnamon, which I don't like in coffee unless there is chocolate involved. ;) I haven't done a price-check on almond milk yet, or even looked to see if they have no-sugar-added almond milk… I'm absolutely certain that it is going to be much more expensive than my €0.59 a liter for 'halfvolle' milk though. Halfvolle? How does that translate? Volle melk = whole milk, halfvolle melk = half whole milk? Half milk? Half-fat milk? I don't guess I really care how it translates…

Anyway, I guess most of this was for my own entertainment and not yours, sorry if you read through all that just to be bored to death with my pointless rambling. I hope you have a nice Easter~