Shopping on a Sunday morning in Belgium is hard to do. I
realized I needed to pick up a few things at our neighborhood grocery store. I
knew from prior checking that it is only open in the morning but I was glad to
see that it was open at all! Intermarche
is a grocery chain and our store recently was remodeled so it is a real treat
to go there and see what interesting things I can find to bring home and try.
I was planning to make mussels for lunch and needed to get a
baguette so I could have some of it to soak up the yummy broth. I also wanted
to get some fresh potatoes and some of their steaks that are cut from
Chateaubriand because we've decided they are much better than anything we can
buy at the commissary on base. So here is a picture of what 50 Euro will buy
you:
You can see the baguette, a bag of soft little sandwich
rolls, potatoes, steaks, a wonderful 1.6 kilo roasting chicken, 2 bags of
elicoidali shaped pasta, surimi salad, Halloween (!) pumpkin salad and a small
bottle of white wine to add to my mussels. The chicken by itself was 12 Euro
and the steaks were just under 5 Euro each. If you wonder if it's expensive to
shop here, it really isn't.
The chicken is a bit expensive but it was really wonderful!
We had it for dinner last night roasted in a pan with potatoes, carrots, onions
and garlic - really, really good! It was such an easy dinner to make! I
preheated the oven to 400 degrees F. (or 200 C.) and rinsed and dried the
chicken placing it in the middle of the roaster and surrounded it with cut up
potatoes, carrots, whole garlic cloves and one cut up onion. I doused it all
with olive oil and sprinkled on salt and pepper and crushed rosemary. An hour
later, it was done and we had a really good dinner. Bear in mind that I got
home just before 5 and I assembled this and popped it into the oven and let the
oven do most of the work. You could use baby carrots that come already cleaned
in the bags but I wanted to have bigger pieces this time. I didn't peel the
potatoes so they added a rustic flavor to the dish. I meant to take a picture of it before and after but forgot! It was too yummy to wait and take a picture!
The pasta was used in our dinner on Sunday night. The boys
were out on the golf course in the misty rain all morning long and, when they
got home, I made them a big pot of pasta with prosciutto. They were very happy
to dive into that! I take butter and
melt it in a pot with diced onions and get them all nice and tender and then
add the cut up or torn up prosciutto and stir that around. Then I add about a
cup of chicken broth to that to give it some body and then add it to the cooked
and drained pasta mixing it thoroughly and adding parmesan cheese as I mix it.
It's an easy dinner and really delicious.
The surimi and pumpkin salads are for my lunch this week.
The surimi I've had before and it's one of my favorites. I haven't tried the
Halloween pumpkin salad yet. It's the first time I've seen this here and I'm
not sure if it's a good idea or not. It says it has pumpkin, viande (meat - but
what kind???) and mais (corn). It might be good, and it might not. I'll let you
know! But here's a picture of it because I couldn't make things like this up!
I really like shopping at our local stores. You can pick up
local foods that aren't available at the commissary that make living in Europe
interesting. Why just eat the same old food you can get anywhere in the U.S.
when you can choose from wonderful things at the deli or get different cuts of
meat (like the chateaubriand) or try different cuts of meat like veal (never
available at the commissary), unusual sausages (merguez, artisanale, etc.),
duck breasts (so good broiled), lamb and rabbit. All of these are available
already wrapped and ready to take home. It makes cooking an adventure and opens
up all sorts of recipes that you might not try otherwise!
Bon appetit!
No comments:
Post a Comment