Food Hits and Misses

I’ve been on a great streak here in Amsterdam eating some delicious food (both homemade and eaten out), which isn’t always easy to say when you’re travelling and buying unknown ingredients or eating at new restaurants/food stalls all the time.

But, as with everything, there have been some definite highs and some definite lows. Here are my hits and misses in the food world from this last week.

Hit – Tony’s Chocolonely

To say that I was excited to return to Amsterdam just to eat this chocolate again would be an understatement. To date, I’ve only ever seen it in Amsterdam supermarkets, but after a year of eating sub-par chocolate or overly-sweet Milka bars, I was craving some good milk chocolate. 

In stepped chunky, milky and delicious Tony last November.

This time around, we also tried the milk chocolate hazelnut version and it’s just as good.  I just wish Tony made a white chocolate. That would make me so happy.

Hit – Sweet Potato Veggie Fajitas 

These were just a random weeknight dinner when we couldn’t decide what else to eat.

We have been flirting with eating more vegetarian meals for a while (especially after watching several food-based documentaries and Food, Inc.) and we’ve been doing really well with this so far in Amsterdam. I’d say around 60% of our meals have been vegetarian.

I was a bit skeptical about added sweet potato to fajitas as I didn’t want them to go soggy, but I baked them in the oven first with a little oil and then added them to the pan with the other vegetables and seasoning as usual. 

They were delicious, and even though the bowl of veggies was huge, we managed to polish it off with ease, as you can see. You can never eat too many veggies, right? Right??

Miss – Santa Maria Organic Multigrain Tortillas

I guess this will teach us for trying to be healthy.

The second time we made the veggie fajitas, we decided to visit the health food store for our tortillas instead of using the usual white flour store’s own brand ones.

What a mistake.

When I pulled them out of the packet, they were all stuck together and one was even folded in half. When we tried to pull them apart, they ripped and fell to pieces. We couldn’t have made fajitas out of them if we tried.

I was a bit panicked as by this point, our veggies were already cooked and ready, so we didn’t have time to run to the store for some more. Luckily for us, there was a spare pack of big flour tortillas in the cupboard, so we used those instead.

I’m really not sure whether it was the brand recipe that had caused this or some factor in the store, but either way it was a mess.

Needless to say we returned the tortillas to the store the next day and got our money back. Not sure they’d ever had tourists bringing back shreds of tortillas before. There’s always a first time for everything…including embarrassing yourself.

Hit – Hummus Pasta

My love for hummus is pretty much like my love for guacamole. In that, it is undying.

I used to eat hummus for lunch almost every day when I worked in an office. True story. My workmates must have loved the fact I stunk of garlic all day long. Yum.

When I saw on Janetha’s blog that she had stumbled upon a recipe for hummus as a pasta sauce, I had to give it a try.

I had a difficult time convincing Scott of this dish – Scott, who never used to like hummus, has now (after spending two years with me) become not only a hummus lover but also a hummus snob. 

It was one of the most delicious and surprising discoveries I’ve ever made. It tastes like a healthy alfredo sauce. I kid you not.

We added pesto, hummus, lemon juice, parmesan and some sundried tomatoes to the pasta and it was divine. It’s definitely going to become one of our quick and easy go-to hostel kitchen meals.

Miss – When Metric Portions Go Wrong

One thing that annoys the hell out of me is the different measuring systems between the US and Europe. 

The US uses cups and sticks of butter in its recipes whereas in Europe we use measured grams by weight. This has caused problems for me on numerous occasions, especially when trying to replicate my favourite English recipes in the US and vice versa.

But the biggest issue I have is trying to figure out the amount of butter I should use in recipes. And thus, this week, while trying to cook my Whole Wheat Cheesy Jalapeno Breakfast Scones in Europe, using a recipe I formulated while in Mexico (using US measurements), this happened….. 

Yep. Whole wheat cheesy jalapeno breakfast cookies. Bleh.

Waaayyy too much butter in those bad boys.

I don’t know what it is, but I just can’t get this damn butter thing right.

Please World, for me, just all stick to one measuring system? Please??

Have you had any food hits and misses this week? I’d love to hear about them!