Think Spring

Just 11 days until Spring!

Thinking spring is easier said than done when you wake up a week into March and find snow on the ground, as I did just this morning.

We actually had a full blown blizzard by noon, so I decided to leave work early and ended up having a white-knuckled commute most of the way home. I made myself a cup of tea once inside our little cozy bungalow in an attempt get my blood pressure to subside a little. It was very scary driving. I am officially done with Winter!

Interestingly, when I look outside now, I see that the sun is shining and blue sky is trying to break through the gray clouds. If it weren't so cold and blowy out, you might think that the morning's winter storm was just a figment of your imagination. You might even find that you can imagine SPRING is here (just don't go outside!)

I have one more week of school until Spring Break and absolutely no time to cook and bake. But this is supposed to be a food blog (primarily) and so I would be remiss to not talk about food. Notice that I haven't really blogged this month at all- and I do apologize. I am learning that they don't just hand these MBAs out to everyone...they are actually making me work for it!

But back to Spring....

When I think of spring, I think of tulips and daffodils and inevitably that gets me thinking about the Netherlands.

My paternal grandfather was a Dutch American. His parents were immigrants from Holland. The Dutch influence on my family was slightly upstaged by the Italian influence. As you can imagine, Italians are a little louder...a little more boisterous...and the Dutch are a bit more reserved. As a result (and this is only my theory) the only evidence of my dutch heritage was that my Grandfather looked very Dutch with his blue eyes and blonde hair and he passed on to me a very Dutch surname that I carried for most of my life: "VanderHouwen".

A few months ago, a coworker of mine had returned from the Netherlands with a few packages of these most delightful morsels called a "stroopwaffel". I had never tried these before.

Stroopwaffels are composed of two thin, cinnamon-flavored, waffle-like wafers with a smathering of caramel in between. The caramel just oozes through the biscuit, making these stickey, gooey, slightly crunchy and everso addictive.



So you can imagine how pleased I was to come across a bag of these at Trader Joes recently. They call these "Caramel bites" and they are a quite tasty stroopwaffel alternative.

Trying these again, naturally led me to wonder just how wonderful homemade Stroopwaffels would be (I bet they would blow these little caramel bites right out of the kitchen!) I came across a recipe on the Cream Puffs in Venice website that definately piqued my interest. I have added this recipe to "Post MBA - Baking to do list!" I will do a whole post on these just as soon as I find some time to bake 'em!

In the meantime, check out this fabulous Stroopwaffel report:
http://creampuffsinvenice.ca/2006/01/28/pizzelle-meet-your-maker/