Update: Monday 11 Mar

 I went to the market today. Do you want to see what I bought? It doesn't really matter if you want to, I want to show you.

I haven't done all of the research from Albert Heijn (the grocery store I shop at) that I need to do but these are the preliminary findings.

Also, I'm going to try to stretch the descriptions and explanations of all of these so that they are long enough that my blog formatting doesn't get really weird, because at first posting this looks pretty weird.

The bowl is for size comparison.

In descending order by price:

Cashews, half kilo for €4.75.
For comparison: 375g for over €6.50 at Albert Heijn. Last time I bought cashews at the market, it was a half kilo for €5. I eat cashews as a snack and to add protein to my diet because I don't want to fall into a protein deficiency. Oh, also because I love them. Almost as much as I love pistachios. The ones purchased from the market are bigger, come in larger quantities, and also taste much more delicious. Last time I bought cashews was when I went to the market with Jenn, and I only just ran out of those last Friday. I believe they lasted me about two weeks. Luckily, they keep for quite a long time in the cupboard.
Result: Cheaper at the market by a landslide.


I-don't-know-how-much bananas at €0.85 a kilo for a total of €2.20.
I don't know how much these are at Albert Heijn but I don't think bananas are a cheap anyway. These were not the cheapest at the market but they were the first I saw, and I have been craving bananas for weeks. I had a major weakness at that moment. Also, the guy selling them was cute. And he had so many bananas. And they are Chiquita bananas, which has no relevance whatsoever. The one I ate for lunch was pretty good.
Result: More research needed.

Black beans, 900g for €1.70.
Ekoplaza: 500g for €1.39
Chinese supermarket: 500g for €1.29
Albert Heijn does not have dry black beans.
The second Chinese supermarket only has black beans imported from the US (they are Goya brand, which I've only seen a million times back home) so they are actually pretty expensive. A little off-topic—that supermarket also had the same cans of baby corn, sweet corn and creamed corn that I've seen in my cupboards for most of my life living with my parents. Understandably also very expensive.
Result: Market is cheapest.


Mushrooms, 1lb for €1.50.
I don't know why every single stand that has mushrooms at the market sells them by the pound rather than by kilo/half-kilo. A pound is a little over half a kilo. I do not remember how much they are at Albert Heijn, but these are huge and it seems like there are so many of them so I think it was a good deal.
I'm interested in knowing if the mushrooms from the market last as long as the mushrooms from the supermarket, and if they do the same thing when they are past "expiration." The mushrooms from the supermarket don't even last a week, and once it reaches the expiration date listed on the packaging they almost automatically adopt this awful taste that I can't stand. I don't know how to test that. I usually eat mushrooms pretty quickly...
Result: More research needed.


Red bell peppers, half kilo for €1.15.
Yes, I could get these cheaper at the market. I could get a bin of 4-5 orange and red peppers for €1. I know for a fact that I cannot use four peppers before they go bad, and those bins always contained either fairly small bell peppers, or mostly orange with a single red. I know red and orange are supposed to taste the same but I really like red, okay? I could get a half kilo for €0.98 at another stand. They were wrinkly and old-looking. Not anything I want to eat. At Albert Heijn, I can get one red pepper for €0.59. Also, I admit that when I got home with these I found a bad spot on the top of one that I had to cut off, but was happy to discover it was a very small spot and didn't affect the whole pepper.
Result: This was a better deal but only barely. Next time I will try to be less picky at the market.

Cucumbers, two for €1.
I will have a hard time with these ones. I don't really like cucumbers, but I do like them. But I don't. It's complicated. I love how they smell, and sometimes I crave them, but I don't really like how they taste. I wanted some anyway, the hard part will be eating them before they go bad. I do not know how much these cost at Albert Heijn. Negative: The ones at Albert Heijn are larger, but probably about the same in cost as two of these together (again, I don't know for sure). Positive: I can cut into one, and the cut part might go bad in the fridge before I can eat it but the other one will still be whole and thus last a little bit longer. That made no sense the way I said it, but hopefully you understand.
Result: More research needed.

Carrots, 1 bin of unknown weight for €1.
Again, smaller than the ones I can get at Albert Heijn, and I don't remember how much those cost, but I think these are about equivalent to how much carrot I would get out of a bag of carrots from Albert Heijn, and I'm pretty sure the ones from AH are not under a euro. I eat a lot of carrots because they are one of my favorite vegetables when cooked, nonetheless they last quite a long time in the fridge even with me always eating them, so I think it is worth figuring out which of these is a cheaper option.
Result: More research needed. I might keep buying them from the market regardless of results though, because these are so pretty and clean that it might be worth the minute extra cost.


Zucchini, two for €1.
I originally forgot to add these to this post and I couldn't figure out why I went to the market with €23-some and came back with €7.50 only having spent what I spent. I'm glad I figured it out because losing even a euro is a sad thing.
I don't know how much zucchini costs at AH, but these are pretty good sized (still small than AH but that's probably good for the same reason as the cucumbers) and I buy zucchini rather frequently. If you'll remember, the last time I bought a zucchini I wasn't sure I could finish it all before it decided to go bad, and I ended up making very yummy zucchini bread. (I won't be doing that again, too much other-ingredient cost.)
Result: More research needed.


Broccoli, half kilo for €1.
This one is debatable. Bag of 500g cut and cleaned broccoli from AH: €2. 500g stalk comparable to the one I got from the market: €1.99, but with a lot more stalk than this has and I dislike eating that part (also when I weighed one it was closer to 450g).
Result: Cheaper at the market, but I might still prefer the bag of cut and cleaned stuff when I have a euro to spare.

Best acquisition of the day, right here.
Red jalapeños. I don't know the price per kilo, but I got these 4 for €0.30.
I don't know what to do with them. I have nothing in mind to make with jalapeños. I passed and avoided them several times as I was looping around the market looking at prices. I should have kept avoiding them, the minute I went to play with them and the guy asked if he could help me, I had to buy some. That is, after I said "jalapeños?" and he said yes. He was a nice guy to chat with too, he asked me where I am from and for how long I am here. He said he hoped to see me again some time. Most of the other market sellers just sell you their produce and then they want to be done with you. I feel like it's a little sad for me to say this, but buying jalapeños is a very sentimental thing when they are so hard to find around here. I will figure out something for them, I'm sure…

Okay. Total spent at the market: €14.60.

Taking into account that I will still need to visit AH to buy some sugar, because I am almost out; rice, because I am out; tortillas, because they don't sell that at the market but maybe I will learn to make my own for cheaper; milk, I don't think they sell that at the market; eggs, they sell them at the market but they'd probably break on the walk home and I'm not taking a tram; apple juice, I like apple juice so you're not going to talk me out of buying it, and usually I buy a liter for a euro and then when I pour it I add tap water because it's strong, so it stretches a little more. Other than those things, I would count market-shopping as a success. I think tonight I will go make note of produce prices at Albert Heijn for better comparison, and I will update this post so if you're really dying to know, check this post. I'm not making a new one for that.

A few things that I will not be buying at the market:

• Avocados. I want one ripe, one not-yet-ripe. So that I can cut one open and stick the other in the cupboard to ripen for another day. Any avocados I found at the market were mushy, and I wouldn't want to buy them even if I was going to use all of them immediately.
• Potatoes and onions. They have them, they look nice, they were probably cheap. The problem is that I don't know how much I would want (a kilo? half a kilo? aren't those things heavy?) and I don't know what kind of potato I would want. The stand I was looking at had 4 or 5 different kinds? Okay, I'd like a starchy potato that is similar to Idaho potatoes or Russet potatoes. Grocery stores in the Netherlands only carry small, waxy potatoes. Probably because that's what grows best here, but I don't want those. I want good baking potatoes.

 Last but not least, I went home and had lunch. So, here's a bonus picture of my lunch. Best lunch I've had all week, mainly because I've been skipping lunch. I didn't want to eat a bunch of carbs for lunch, and I was all out of veggies. Yay for having a lunch! Not pictured: my bottle of water. ;) Have a nice day!

Update: Monday 4 Mar

I think I'm sick. It's terminal. Do you know how much time I spent on the internet just looking at pictures of food and imagining all the ways I could play with the recipes? And then, I open a blog post and I… talk about food.  I wish I had a bottomless stomach (and limitless bank account) so I could just cook all the time. Well, half of the time. Then the other half of the time, I could be on the internet still, looking for more recipes to improve. Maybe I should have just gone to culinary school…

I forgot to tell you what I thought about IMAX. Usually I don't really like 3D movies, they make me a bit dizzy and sometimes give me headaches. IMAX 3D was so different. It was so cool. I don't know exactly how to explain. It didn't feel like a normal 3D movie because the glasses they give you are not the cheap limited-vision ones, these ones wrap halfway around your face. Then there's the whole "huge screen" factor, which is also really cool. I've seen two IMAX movies now, one 3D and one not. This is how much I liked it: I wouldn't mind seeing every movie for the rest of forever in IMAX. Maybe I'm getting a little ahead of myself, maybe I'm exaggerating too much. Maybe I need to go a few more times to collect more evidence. ;)

I also met with my Educational Career Supervisor today, she said my progress looks great and I'm on the right track. She even seems confident that they'll probably pick me to go on exchange too, so we'll see about that and keep our fingers crossed. I really want to go. Really. First selection for exchange is this month and I don't think my scores are currently good enough to make the cut, but hopefully I make second selection in September.

Bear with me for a minute as I torture myself. I promise you, I've been looking at and thinking about food all day. If I had all the time and money in the world, and a few extra stomachs (connected to other people, of course) to help me get rid of food, I would go make these enchiladas, these cute pot pies (I should buy a ramekin) and this sauce. With some pasta. And then more zucchini bread (I used this with some edits like Gouda instead of Cheddar, parsley instead of thyme, and garlic powder because I like garlic powder and I do what I want). Maybe some brownies too. And roasted broccoli because I love that stuff. With rosemary and garlic and oregano. And salt and pepper. Okay I really need to quit… I could also go for some fajitas… I do need to figure out a seasoning mix for those that I like, after all…

There is no cure for me.

I'm going to move to a remote island somewhere warm and plant huge vegetable gardens and hire some midgets (I don't know why they have to be midgets actually… I just feel like they would be super friendly but maybe that is stereotyping) to tend my gardens and eat all the food that I can't eat, and maybe I'll have to build some kind of greenhouse for vegetables that prefer to grow in cold weather like cabbage-family plants and onions/garlic/potatoes/carrots… And import grains from somewhere? I don't know where I'd get money for that, that's kind of the idea behind growing my own vegetables is that I don't have to pay for them… What a dilemma.

You could come visit me, if you wanted to do that.

Update: Saturday 2 Mar

Hello! I made pizza in a casserole dish for dinner today. We don't have any metal pans. I wish we did, I think I am going to make zucchini bread tomorrow and I'm not sure it will work very well in a glass casserole dish. It's not going to stop me from doing it, but I guess it's worth mentioning.

Anyway, my pizza was delicious. It had mushrooms, onions, red pepper and zucchini and I burnt the top of the crust. That's okay, I didn't need to eat that much bread.

So March is going to be a little challenging for me. I've just calculated my spending for the last 3 months, and apparently I have been spending under budget the past two months but I went way over the month before that. Therefore I have to dip into the next month's budget at the end of every month and that kind of perpetuates the problem. So challenge for the month of March: survive the month on only 85 euros. Maybe I'll be living on rice and beans. That's a depressing thought, I really like vegetables. Do you think it would be just as cheap to live on rice, beans and broccoli? Broccoli is good stuff…

Allow me to talk about food for just a while longer… Jenn and I found a half-price deal for this all-you-can-eat sushi place on Groupon… Their lunch price is 17 euros and their dinner price is 24.50, and this Groupon offered half-price on dinner. Yes, I know, that doesn't fall within 85 euros, but it's already been paid for before my 85 euro limit. And come on, really. €12.50 for an all you can eat sushi dinner is such an awesome deal around here. Also, I told everyone that I refuse to do an expensive dinner like that unless all four of us go (me, Jenn, Simona and Tessa) because then it's a little more special. The four of us rarely find time to do anything together.

I know you don't want to know this, but my bathroom smells nasty at the moment because of these Spanish girls that are still inhabiting my home. I cleaned blood off the bathroom floor this morning… Come on, girls. Have a little respect. That's pretty yucky. There's also a deal with the kitchen trash, because Alicia is always stuffing things into it and never bothering to take it out (not just this week but all the time) so I decided I wasn't putting anything in the trash until she takes it out. I put my trash in my desk trashcan instead. So she just kept filling it up so that the lid didn't even close anymore before she finally took it out. It does not take that long to take trash out, girl. I do it all the time. I shouldn't have to if you're the one who is putting the last things in it though…

Rant, rant, rant.

I talked to my daddy the other night and he made me feel better about a lot of things. My daddy is a smart man. I don't get to talk to him very often.

Wait. I know this is very random, but I just found 2 cans of corn in my bag. Oops. The grocery store doesn't give you plastic bags for your groceries and I forgot to take the ones that I paid for (because I didn't mean to go shopping to begin with), so I stuck those in my purse and forgot about them…

Anyway, this is starting to turn into a completely aimless post so I'll end it now. Bye! :)

Update: Thursday 28 Feb

Hi. Hello. How are you? How's your week been going? You doin' okay? I want to know how you all are. Tell me.

I am on spring break right now, Margaux is in Paris and Alicia has six friends staying the weekend in our apartment. I am not sure where the six of them are sleeping but I don't really care. They seem nice enough, at least they make an enormous effort to be quiet when the seven of them (counting Alicia) are taking turns using the toilet at two in the morning. I appreciate that. It still woke me up, but I'm a light sleeper and I can't fault them for that. I could not sleep last night anyway, only two Tylenol PMs helped with that.

I made fried rice. I think it looks very attractive but that's just my opinion. It would probably look prettier with some green onions… I can't eat green onions fast enough to buy a whole bundle. Some day, when I figure out where to buy soil, I'm going to get a little pot and then buy some green onions and replant the roots. That way I don't have to use 6 or 7 stalks at once… In the meantime, looking at this picture is making me want more fried rice; I made this several days ago. Yum.

I have been buying milk lately (a liter for €0.59, which according to the math I just did would be approximately $2.90 a gallon, so I guess it's not as bad as I thought) but I don't drink it very quickly so I bought some instant coffee… I've always had this prejudice against instant coffee due to the fact that growing up, we only used it for ice cream, milk shakes, baked things, etc. It's not too bad though. Maybe it's just the brand I bought that isn't too bad. I'm not sure, it's the first time I actually drank instant coffee.

Tomorrow, I am going to my first ever IMAX movie. I hope it's as amazing as the extra cost implies it will be.

I asked my sister if she wanted to start a food photoblog with me… She said sure, but that's as far as we've gotten. Obviously I really like talking about food, I do it so often here in my personal blog. I love walking through the market to see what food they have, and supermarkets too. I thought it could be fun to take pictures of food stalls at the market and things like that… Maybe she won't have as much to take pictures of…

I've just discovered my local Asian supermarket. It's huge. And full of awesome things. A lot of brands that I recognize from home. So I'll have to do my shopping for things like soy sauce and sesame oil there, because it's much cheaper. Also, instant noodles. Like ramen. They have so many different brands and so many flavors. Jenn and I found a few favorites like "special chicken" flavor (What makes the chicken so special? It didn't say.) and vegetarian flavor. Neither of us could figure out what vegetarians might taste like. The problem was that a lot of them didn't have the flavors written in a non-Asian language, so they were a mystery. Same with the ingredients list. I look at the ingredients of everything that I buy, it's sort of become a habit. I like to know what kind of crap I'm putting in my body. Oh no, I can't read Chinese/Japanese/Korean! So much fun. Simona didn't understand my problem with soy sauce (too many of them had more ingredients aside from soy, water, salt and wheat).

Anyway, I meant it. I am always telling you about my day. Tell me how your day has been.

Update: Wednesday 20 Feb

Hi! Did you miss me?

Here, have some veggies. Just because.

Okay, so I told my momma this, I might as well tell everyone else too.

This year, I decided for the first time in my life to make some New Year's resolutions. I didn't want to tell what they were yet because I know that many people make resolutions and then two weeks later they forget about them. I wanted to see if I could stick with it before I go announcing it…

Mine were a bit easier than most probably are because in a lot of ways they were things I was already doing.

• No more sodas/caffeinated beverages. Where the line is drawn is a little iffy, I'm not sure where to cut that off, but basically no more: Coke, Diet Coke, Sprite, Dr Pepper, any other kind of traditional soda, Ginger Ale, Fanta, etc. 
• No more fast food. With the same exceptions as before (Subway, Eazie, the good stuff) because I don't think those are nearly as bad as over-processed and grease-filled McDonalds, Burger King and KFC.
• No more meat. 

Okay, so the thing about that one. I had been thinking about going vegetarian for several months (since about the end of the summer I think), mainly because meat was too expensive to buy in a supermarket anyway and I wanted to experiment with it. I didn't think that was a good enough reason though. If I was going to start being a vegetarian just for fun, it seemed like that would make it too easy to say "oh, well, I can have meat just this one time, it'll be okay" and then that would happen so frequently that there's no point in pretending.

Some time around New Year's, I read a bunch of articles about how... true vegetarians tend to be healthier when it comes to heart disease, blood pressure, certain cancers, etc. and that, of course, vegetarians have to pay closer attention to what nutrients they are getting, so they tend also to eat healthier. And I like to eat healthier...

I was going to just do it for a year to see how it makes me feel but then other factors came in and I'm kind of enjoying it (it makes me feel nice, and I get to experiment with food) so I think I might make it a more long-term thing. Also because why not?

One thing, though, is that Europeans apparently have this funny idea about vegetarianism… It's related to the idea that fish is not meat. Which… I don't know, maybe by some biblical definition it's not but if you are vegetarian because you do not want to kill things, or you a vegetarian because you don't want to eat animal flesh, it makes no sense to eat fish too. Also, I'm not religious so I don't follow biblical definitions. Whether you are calling it meat or not though, it is still a living thing that has a heartbeat and protein-rich flesh (you know, meat), so if those are their reasons to be vegetarian, I think they are cheating. One funny description that I read on "pescetarianism" said that they just don't have what it takes to go completely vegetarian. ;) It's too hard. My French teacher told one classmate that she is actually vegan, because she doesn't eat fish. Oh geez… (Yeah, several of my classmates are also vegetarian. Most of them eat fish, though.)

I'm trying to think of the important things that have occurred since I last posted. There hasn't been much, which is why I haven't posted. 

I did get my hair cut though, which most of you have probably already seen. I like it. I mean, I really, really like it. I didn't think I would like it so short but it's actually very nice.

Oh, and. Those veggies. They made some pretty good fajitas, but I ate way too much. Because I ate all of it. A whole onion (the Dutch grocery stores call them large onions, but I would argue that where I'm from they'd either be small onions or medium onions. They are very small for large onions.), a third each of red, green and yellow bell peppers, and three mushrooms. And three tortillas. And also half an avocado. 

I made my own fajita seasoning (using some suggestions from other recipes) but I think it needs to be fixed a little next time. This one recipe I read said to use equal parts chili powder, paprika, sugar, salt, cumin, dry mustard and cornstarch. Instead I used equal parts flour, sugar, salt, pepper, cumin, chili powder and garlic powder. It was good, but too sweet so next time I will omit sugar, and use ground mustard because I forgot about that and I had actually wanted to try it. Oh well, next time. They were still very good. Maybe I'll put in the paprika too. I don't know. I won't be doing that again soon enough to worry about it. Mainly because I don't need to eat that much all at once.

Update: Thursday 7 Feb

Last night, my not-so-helpful kitchen assistant came over and we made pancakes.

With probably the simplest recipe I could find. I was surprised that they turned out so well. And then I threw strawberry jam on top and it was delicious. Jenn's roll in the creating of dinner: mixing the milk and eggs and butter into the dry ingredients. She did good. It was a very healthy dinner, I assure you. I had more for lunch today. Then tonight I'm going to have some leftover rice from the other night. And broccoli. And carrots. Because pancakes with strawberry jam are rather lacking in vegetables, and I like those things. 

After we made pancakes, we went to see a movie, The Impossible. I was a little iffy on seeing this movie, because I wasn't sure that I was really that interested in it. It turned out to be a very good choice. It was so… I don't know how to explain. It is a true story about this family, parents and 3 small boys, who go on vacation for Christmas at a beach resort in Thailand. This giant tsunami hits and they are all separated and they even don't know if any of the others are even still alive, and so it's the story of what happens to them after the tsunami. It's terrifying and sad and... so good. I think that it is not everyone's kind of movie though, obviously. 

Then, when I got home from the theater, I called my mommy and grandparents to say hello to them. Then I called my sister. That one was pretty funny. She was just getting out of class and she hung up on me at first because she hadn't left class yet, then she called back (she didn't know it was me yet) and when I told her who it was she freaked out on me. I guess I'm not supposed to be able to call her from the Netherlands. Fun fact: I have a Skype subscription (I didn't know I had one, I thought I only bought a phone number but it didn't take away any of my Skype credit when I made those two phone calls) and it will last until some time in March. So if you want to, you can call me at that number (you know, if I called you and you now have the number). For whatever reason.

Jennifer got me sick last weekend, so last night I took a Tylenol PM to help me sleep a little easier and I had some really strange dreams. I won't go into detail, mainly because I don't remember them too well. It was odd, though.

Oh. I just checked my Skype order history. So apparently, a year and a half ago when I bought a year-long unlimited calling plan for the US and Canada, it was set to automatically renew. Then this past September it automatically renewed for $30. I wish I had known that… I saw that $30 had been taken but I assumed it was something I had done intentionally and knowingly. Obviously I don't watch my bank account closely enough. I don't mind, $30 for a year of calling is not too bad, but I wasn't using it because I didn't know… I guess now I know. So I can make phone calls until next September. The phone number still only lasts until March, though. I don't know what happens then.

Update: Tuesday 5 Feb

This morning, around five, I was awoken by this enormous CRASH. Now, somehow there's always people crashing around in the courtyard. So that's why I thought it was. Then there was this sudden flash, immediate followed by an overlapping CRASH. I've never heard thunder that crashed like that. It was so different from the normal rumbling thunder that I love. Thus it was the strangest thunderstorm I have ever witnessed, but it was a thunderstorm nonetheless and I love thunderstorms so that's all right. It was very close, the thunder and lightning weren't at the exact same time, but almost. It didn't last very long though.

It was also hailing. Very hard. When I walked to school this morning, it started hailing on me halfway there. It's not even cold enough to freeze, why is it hailing? So it's been alternating between light hail, heavy hail and no hail all day. Right now we're on the "no hail" part and I think I see sun? I don't know, what does sun even look like? I forgot.

Every day when I come home lately, the apartment is empty. I am not complaining. I get a few hours to myself. It's nice.

My new roommate Margaux is a very nice girl. I cannot find any reason to complain about her. That said, I think I just don't get along well with others. I think I am just stubbornly determined to dislike anyone I have to share a home with, because I get annoyed by so many little things. I am hiding all of the dishes I have bought one-by-one. Now I feel like I can't hide anything more because they keep disappearing after she uses them. My frying pan, my big mug, my spatula. They are now stashed in my personal cupboard. The frying pan is just because Margaux used it one time. She did not mistreat it but I am paranoid.

The spatula is a different story. That one is hidden because Alicia tried to fry an egg on her electric skillet but she does not know how to cook so she burnt the egg to the pan (no oil/butter, I assume) and then she scraped it up with my spatula, covering it in burnt egg, and threw that in the sink and left it for two days, at which point I rescued it and scratched the egg off and scrubbed it, and then hid it. No more spatula for you. I don't know why she can't wash things right after she uses them. It makes life easier. Maybe it only makes life easier for me, and things that make my life easier are of no concern to her. How considerate.

Jenn and I are going to a sneak preview tonight… That means we have no idea what movie we are going to see at the movie theater, but we are going to see it anyway. It might be something neither of us even wanted to see… Oh well.