Christmas in Polican, Albania

Hey Family,
Ok, I couldn't see what pictures I was putting on here so they are a bit of a random collection.
This is a picture when I went for a walk with some friends. its part of the area around Polican. Pretty ain't it?
We had two tables for Christmas dinner, this was one of the tables. We had around 18 people.
This is Elidoni and he read the Christmas story and then we sang all together for a good looooooong time!
Dessert!

These are some Albanians that Moza (the girl in the middle) and I went to visit. Lili was taking the picture. Notice how much taller I am then them. I had to croutch down because I was too tall for the picture.
This is again a picture of the region around Polican, just before Christmas!

After everyone left we did some cleaning and these were the guys who 'helped', at least as much as an Albanian guy helps... :P

Cheap, Easy and Delicious . . .

Lentils for Stagflation

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cups brown rice
• 3 cups water
• 3 tablespoons sesame oil
• 1 teaspoon curry powder
• 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes, or to taste
• 3 cups water
• 1 cube vegetable bouillon
• 1 1/2 cups red lentils
• 4 eggs

Directions:

1. Bring brown rice and 3 cups of water to a boil in a saucepan over high heat. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer until the rice is tender, 45 to 50 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, heat the sesame oil over medium heat. Stir in the curry powder and red pepper flakes. Cook for a few seconds until fragrant. Pour in the remaining 3 cups of water, bouillon cube, and lentils. Bring to a boil over high heat, then reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer until the lentils are nearly tender, about 15 minutes. Make four shallow indentations in the cooked lentils with the back of a spoon, and crack a whole egg into each indentation. Recover, and continue cooking until the eggs have cooked to your desired degree of doneness, about 5 minutes for medium-well. Serve over the brown rice.

I LOVE this recipe! I have used green lentils and red, and a mix. The green lentils require more time to cook, but it is DELICIOUS!! Cooking the egg in the mixture is a little weird and you have to be careful or you may burn your lentils if you add the egg to late, but it is wonderful. I have even eaten this for breakfast on flatbread (instead of on rice).

And FYI, Stagflation is a economic state where inflation AND the unemployment rate are high.

And now for something completely different

HAHAHA alright well maybe not something completely different but it did manage to get your attention, at least that is the hope.  So being a student I am always on the lookout for quick, cheap and nutritious recipes to make and today I came up with a good one.  As a student I certainly have had my fair share of pasta with all kinds of different toppings and after a while you get bored of the typical toppings but today good family I came up with something different.  PASTA WITH YOGURT!

If you have already experienced this before then I don't need to tell you about the versatility, deliciousness and cheapness it is to make pasta with yogurt.  I had come across the idea while looking for dinner ideas online, now I know that you all are saying it is impossible it just can't be done it is a well known fact that when you heat up yogurt it separates and goes all grainy and weird.  You would be very correct as you have to be very careful when heating yogurt as it will do just that but I think that I have found a solution.

For this recipe the first thing that you are going to want to do is boil some water, because the pasta can't be very hot when you put the yogurt sauce on it I suggest making the pasta first as it will give it some time to cool down before applying the sauce.

After you have the pasta cooking then what you are going to want to do is heat up a frying pan and add some chopped onions, if you are like me and love the flavor of caramelized onions don't be afraid to use a couple of onions to get lots of onion goodness in the pasta.



Once you onions are well on their way to being cooked, be careful to keep an eye on the pasta as there is nothing worse then overcooked pasta, you are going to want to add some garlic.  In this case I have become lazy and bought some premashed garlic so I am going to add about a teaspoon and a bit (whatever feels right). At the same time that you add the garlic throw some cherry tomatoes in as well so they can get all nice and warm all though out.

The pasta is probably done so drain your pasta and set it aside (off the heat)

Now once your onion, garlic and tomato mixture is ready throw some salt into it to spice things up and then mix the mixture in with your pasta.  Now for the next step you are going to want to turn the heat way down on your frying pan (if you have not already done this) and let the pan cool a little.  Once the pan is just warm you are going to add your plain yogurt (I am sure that you could use a flavored yogurt but that would be just weird).  Anyways warm up your yogurt just until it gets runny (it shouldn't take very long), this will make it easier for you to spread your yogurt though your pasta as well as take all those delicious flavors from the onions and the garlic from your pan into your pasta.  I would suggest adding a little salt to the yogurt mixture as well or else your pasta may end up a little bland (I don't usually cook my pasta in salt water but if you have you may want to skip this step).

Anyways once that yogurt is runny you are going to add this to your warm pasta and mix it all around.  Then voila you have a delicious meal just waiting to be eaten that is nutritious, cheap and easy to make.  Three good things if you are a Van Bruggen.

If you have any dinner suggestions which meet the criteria of being fast, cheap, nutritious and easy please forward them on to me as I would be ever so grateful.

Love

Wes

Christmas and New Years 2010/2011

Hi all

So as you know over Christmas I had Maria come to visit me for a bit and then we headed off to Switzerland for a few days of snowboarding and fun before I left on Dec 31 to spend New Years in Milan and then on Jan 1 I flew out to Belgium with some friends where we spent the night and then returned to Amsterdam late on Jan 2.  Over all the trip was a lot of fun but I must say that I was absolutely enthralled with Switzerland (I think that the mountains are so beautiful) plus it was great being able to spend a few days on the slopes.

The view from the place in Savognin where we were staying, this town was in the mountains about 2100 m up.

This is the view of the town at night, the building lit up in the background was one of the churches in the city.  The city was about 1000 people and it was charming as everyone was either related or knew each other.

A picture with myself, Maria and the gentleman who we went to see (Fadri).  Fadri is a 5 star chef who was working in Geneva and had just quite and was waiting to start a new job in Singapore, needless to say we ate really well while we were there.

Doing a little night skiing with ski bikes.

The view from the ski lift coming back to town.

The place where we were staying in Switzerland, it was built about 80 years ago and had the feel of a hunting lodge.  The place was located just above the town and had a beautiful view of the town and sounding mountains.

A castle in Ballizona, this is a small town right on the border of Switzerland and Italy.  As you can see the city was very old with a few beautiful churches and this castle.  I was only in the town for a few hours so I was not able to take many pictures but these are the highlights.

This is at the battle field of Waterloo.  Lynnette you probably know the history better then I do but we found out that the battle of Waterloo took place about 50 kms from Brussels so we decided to head out and see the battle field on Jan 2.  The battle of Waterloo is where Napoleon was defeated for the second time in 1815 and over the course of 24 hours an approximate 70,000 men were killed on this battle field (which is only about 3 km wide and 5 km long).  During the battle the prince of The Netherlands was wounded in the shoulder and they built this giant hill (which you can see behind me and in the picture below) to commemorate him for his bravery.  Just imagine what they would have built if he had been more seriously injured.  There are 235 steps to the top of the hill and let me tell you about 1/2 way up you start thinking about how unpleasant if you were to slip and fall as there would be a lot of stairs to hit on your way down.  It was funny because upon reaching the top you just had a better view of the fields below, I am not really sure what we were expecting but it was a little anti-climatic.

A view from the plane while flying over Switzerland for those of you how have not had the pleasure to fly over this country yet.

This is a picture of our Christmas dinner and below you can see the chicken which we made with stuffing.  Surprising it all seemed to work out pretty well and we had lots of left overs but we had a good time making and eating the food and it reminded me of Christmas past.

Above are pictures of the mountains as we were heading up to a mountain pass.  These were pictures taken by Maria because I was in the back of the car trying to concentrate on not being sick.  In the end i was not successful (I guess I fail at being swiss) but the scenery was beautiful so I figure that it was all worth it.

A proper swiss breakfast involving cheese and chocolate and all that is missing in a cuckoo clock.

As I am sure that you have noticed the majority of my pictures focus around Switzerland with not too much for Milan or Brussels.  This was because I found Switzerland so beautiful and I was there for the longest time, also I had been to brussels a few times before so I didn't really feel the need to take many pictures.

Anyways this was a small view of my Christmas and New Years trip for 2010/2011.  I hope everyone is having a fantastic week and hopefully I will be able to talk to everyone sunday.

Love

Wes

Christmas with the family!

Hello my Wonderful Family!

Well, here is my first posting of the New Year! Christmas pictures!

Grandma and her newest Great-Grandbaby!!

The family doing what they do best . . . eating!
Proud grandma and Mama.
The newly weds and Grandma
Grandpa!

Blog posting

We were so good at regularly posting but it seems that the novelty has fallen off a little so I am just reminding everyone to post frequently and post pictures.  I admit that I am partly to blame as well because I have been busy with school and life but I will be posting pictures from my latest trip soon (I have an exam on Jan 5th so it will probably be after that) but I know that Netty you have taken a trip and Becky you had Christmas at the family so I am expecting on seeing lots of pictures from those events.  Mom and Dad I know that you always forget the camera everywhere you go but I am expecting you to make a concerted effort and at the very least take some pictures of all the snow that you are getting so those of us without any snow (netty and myself) can laugh at you and feel better.

Love you all

Wes

You decide!!

Well folks, I have found some potential pictures for Grandma/Grandpa's puzzle picture gift. You have to decide which ones. I am willing to order up to three. (Just a reminder 4x6 is $8.99 - and can be made with a magnetic backing, and 8x10 is $22.99)

If anyone has any better pics don't hesitate to post and rate. I need to get this done ASAP. Like this Monday!

The girls . . .

The gruesome threesome . . .

Grandpa (there are almost no pictures of Grandma and us kids!)

Classic . . .

Proud Mamma with her kiddies . . . thats right this is Grandma with Uncle Murray, Uncle Howard and MOM!

Proud Papa and his kiddies (the same as above, just substitute parents)

Rate and decide!