Samantha's Bridal Shower

 Our dear friends here in The Netherlands, Samantha and Bart, got married last year and I threw Sam a bridal shower. It was a daytime event, on a Sunday, giving me ample cooking/decorating time on Saturday. Sam, herself, created the wedding banner of gold, silver, cream, and white tassels.

The menu plan included several varieties of quiche, tea sandwiches, a cheese board with olives, peppers and crackers, salad, berry cobbler, cannolies, mini-cupcakes, and Prosecco with peach juice and sliced frozen peach garnishes.

I developed this quiche recipe because I had tried many recipes that resulted in soggy centers. It is enough for one 9" normal pie plate, or with extra filling it can be stretched to a deep dish 9" pie. For the shower I made 1.5 times the recipe to fill 8 mini quiches.

Broccoli, Feta, and Leek Quiche
(makes enough for a 9" pie-  3 cups of liquid)
(Other combinations of veggies follow below:)

Ingredients:
1 pre-baked crust (recipe follows)
5 large eggs, beaten
300 ml  heavy cream (1 1/4 cups)
125 g cooked chopped leeks (about 1 cup, I use 2 leeks, white part only, saute in oil)
200 g feta cheese, crumbled (7.5 oz)
188 g chopped broccoli, parboiled (6.5 oz)
salt to taste (1/4 tsp?)

Directions:
Pre-heat oven to 400F/200C. Beat eggs with cream. Place cheese on the bottom of the pre-baked crust, then leeks and broccoli. Cover with beaten egg/cream mixture. Salt to taste.
Bake for 20-30 minutes or until barely jiggles in the middle. After 10 minutes of baking, use a crust shield to prevent burning of the crust.
Serve warm, or refrigerate and serve next day, warm each piece on a plate in oven for 5 to 8 min.

Crust Recipe (modified from Joy of Cooking) Makes one 9" pie crust.

Ingredients:
150 g all purpose flour (1 1/4 cups)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp sugar
250 g butter, cut into small pieces, cold (best to be in freezer but refrigerator is fine if you are fast)
75-120 ml cold water (1/3 to 1/2 cup)

Directions:
I keep my flour in the freezer and it works great for this recipe, because the ingredients should be as cold as possible. In a food processor, process flour, salt, and sugar until combined. Add butter and process until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Add water, minimum amount and process in five 1 second intervals. Pinch mixture in fingers and see if it sticks together. If not, add more water, a little at a time, until crust sticks together. Place cling-film on counter and place crust crumbs onto cling film. Using edges of film, shape into a disc and wrap tightly with the film. Place in fridge for 1 hour or overnight and then bring out of fridge for about 5 minutes to bring temperature up. Roll into a disc, place into pie plate and trim overhang. Line with foil and place pie weights or dried beans into foil. Bake at 425F/218C for 22 minutes. Remove from oven and let sit for 10' before removing pie weights/foil. Pre-baked crust is now ready for quiche recipe above.

For the quiche fillings at the shower I opted for the following combinations:
Tomato, Basil, & Feta
Shallots(cooked), Bell Peppers, & Dutch cheese
Bacon, Cheddar, & Chives
Bacon, Cheddar, & Thyme

Sam also provided the gorgeous Anthropologie plates for the setting.

The sandwiches served were classic crusts-cut-off and included:
Cucumber
Turkey, Cheddar, & Tomato Pesto
BLTs
Dutch cheese - I use Jong Belegen, which is ripened 8-10 weeks. While this is typically not available in the USA, the Oud, or Old version, Old Amsterdam (or something similar) can be found at my favorite grocery store, Wegmans. The difference is the older cheese is more flavorful, saltier and harder- better for eating with crackers, for example. The younger version of this cheese is perfect for a sandwich. We can't find Muenster or Colby Jack or Provolone cheese here but the Jong Belegen is fabulous for our typical lunch.

 I made berry cobblers and cannolies for dessert along with mini cupcakes in both gold and white wrappers.

The cannoli-filling recipe was from my Godmother and included a brilliant tip to remove the excess water in the creamy-mixture. Poke holes in a plastic lid and place it in the bottom of the bowl. Add your mixture and then let it sit overnight in the fridge. The excess water drains out under the lid!

The filling for these was amazing. Due to time constraints I decided to buy pre-made cannoli shells (imported from Italy!) but I was disappointed with the quality. Next time, I make my own and once I've got a good one, I'll share the recipe.

Once Sam had opened her gifts we made a 'bow-quet' from the bows on the gifts, using a paper plate as the base. She used this on her rehearsal day to walk down the aisle. I had never heard of this tradition until I got married and my friends did this for me.

 Mini-orchids in white candle-holders were the favors for the attendees. And we made a 'quiz-night' style set of pictures of Sam and Bart (and things related to them) for people to guess where or when the photos were taken as one of the games.

Congratulations to Samantha and Bart! Up next: their wedding cake!

The ubiquitous Albert Heijn (AH)

If you currently live or have lived in the Netherlands you will know about Albert Heijn. AH is a grocery store that you can find just about everywhere here. The size of the store depends based on location- tiny "AH To Go" at train stations and medium sized stores in smaller neighborhoods. For a real treat check out the AH-XL, as the name implies, it is huge. Strangely, it does not have much more selection than our AH in Aalst, however, just bigger aisles and a few things that might make a trip there worth it if I'm in the neighborhood. For those Rochester folk reading this... think of a standard Wegmans but maybe half as much selection. AH tries to be the grocery store with friendly, helpful staff, but I have to say employees are mostly ignorant of the store's products or locations of products. Even if I know the Dutch word for something and I show it to them written down (more on that later) they have to ask someone else. Not like Wegmans employees who always know where something is and will race a fellow employee to tell you the answer faster (and want to show you too, if you like). Not to say the AH employees aren't nice. But unless you are looking for something like milk or bread or standard Dutch cheese they have no idea what you're talking about.

The Dutch love their Gouda cheese. And it isn't like the Gouda I remember buying at Wegmans occasionally for a recipe- no- this stuff is actually quite good on its own and in a sandwich and grated in a taco. It is quite versatile, thank goodness, because it is just about all they have here. My Dutch friends would argue there is a wide selection of cheese- you have "Oud" (old), "Belegen" (medium), "Jong" (young) and all the combinations in between. Also, several brands are available in each of those options, and you can also buy sliced or grated or just a big chunk of cheese.

I love the packets of sliced AH brand Jong-Belegen for sandwiches or melted on a fried egg. If you want 'fresher' cheese you can hit the market or the other cheese section of AH:

 

Look at all this cheese! (it's almost all gouda)

Lest you be confused upon shopping at AH, I'll explain. For convenience sake there is a cheese section with all the pre-packaged cheese and one more like a deli-counter. Wegmans does a similar thing. However, I bet you would never have guessed there are two cracker sections at AH. One has crackers and things like these: "Echte Beschuit" (Think of a circular piece of bread, toasted, preserved, and packaged up in a tube- similar in texture to melba toast.) These beschuit are eaten with butter and "muisjes" (pictured sitting to the left of the beschuit) which are anise seeds covered in a candy shell in either pink and white or blue and white. They are served to guests when a new baby is born in the Netherlands and the muisjes are said to help increase milk supply for breastfeeding mothers.  I enjoy the muisjes and put them on toast or on sugar frosted cookies. The beschuit, on the other hand, along with melba toast, is best used in my opinion as a hockey puck.

The other section that has crackers at AH is near the wine. Because you have crackers with wine, of course! And the sugar and brown sugar are located in the coffee aisle. Because sugar is used with coffee or tea, since not many people bake here.

Here is Dina, with her pint-sized shopping cart (love this feature at AH!) in the tea/coffee aisle. Note the sugar next to the coffee creamers.

One other thing amazes me about AH: the candy aisle. It is insane!

We buy the licorice that looks like spirals. It is considered 'zacht and zoet' which means soft and sweet. Licorice, or 'drop' comes in so many different varieties. Soft, hard, sweet, salty- and any combination of these. Its tricky because salt is 'zout' - just one letter different than sweet.  And the Haribo gummy bears- you just can't beat them. Unfortunately, Dina likes to eat them without chewing- she can down a handful in less than a minute.

Admission of an Addiction

When my baby, Dina was born I hemorrhaged. As a result I was on a high protein and high iron diet. This sandwich became a habit and eventually an addiction.

Heat vegetable oil in a pan to sizzling. Turn heat to medium-low. Add two eggs, break the yolks. Salt and pepper to taste. Fry until whites are opaque, then flip. Cook through, adding a slice of cheese (Jong-Belegen) the last minute to melt. Toast wheat bread and butter (if desired) - add the fried egg-cheese and top with fresh spinach. Cut in half and serve immediately
.
Double the amount of spinach if you like. Or add tomatoes. Or sliced red pepper. Or sliced cukes. Or whatever you have!