Muesli Breakfast
I couldn’t skip breakfast if I tried. Even if I wake up late, which I seem to be making a habit of, I still manage to eat something that resembles breakfast before having lunch. To me, breakfast is the symbol of a new beginning, another chance to have a happy and healthy day. When I was in Canada, my breakfast always involved a smoothie or freshly pressed juice. Since I started traveling six months ago, I’ve encountered less than five blenders and zero juicers. Naturally, I’ve had to open up to other options. In recent weeks, I’ve had many different things for breakfast, following along with the traditions of our hosts in each city.
Makings for Dutch Sprinkles on Toast
Dutch Sprinkles on Toast
In Utrecht, the Netherlands, we were introduced to the Dutch tradition of eating sprinkles on toast for breakfast. At first, I thought this was beyond weird. I thought it was crazy! But, eventually, our hosts convinced me to give it a try. I didn’t stick with the ultra traditional combination of toast, butter and chocolate sprinkles. Instead, I opted for some peanut butter, chocolate sprinkles and a few pink and white little mice. The pink and white mice are a special type of sprinkle, a sugar coated anise seed, that’s typically reserved for baby showers. When it’s a girl, friends and family of the mother-to-be eat toast with pink mice, and when it’s a boy they have blue mice. I have to admit, it was good enough that I went back for seconds. If you want to try this wacky breakfast treat for yourself, look for the puur chocolate sprinkles that are made without milk.
Dutch Gingerbread
Another interesting Dutch breakfast treat is slices of gingerbread loaf. This sweet loaf has a texture similar to pound cake. John really liked this one! You can find gingerbread at every supermarket and most brands we came across were vegan.
Breakfast Rolls
Vegan Sunflower Seed Spreads
Dutch people love bread, it’s a big part of the food culture in the Netherlands. That’s why they have so many varieties of bread and so many things to put on it. While staying in Almere with Chris and Harald of Vegalicious, we often had fruit and freshly warmed rolls with savoury sunflower seed spread for breakfast. The sunflower seed spread is very popular, and comes in many flavours including basil, garlic and onion. It’s delicious, and can be generously spread on bread or crackers to make a nice snack or compliment a meal at any hour of the day. It’s available at most health food stores and costs €2.00-€3.00 Euros ($2.51-3.77 USD).
Albert Heijn Smoothies
On days when we aren’t in the mood for bread, we revert to our old ways and enjoy bottled smoothies. Sure they’re not as good as the smoothies we’d make at home, but they work. The Albert Heijn supermarkets in the Netherlands have a reasonably priced line of (semi) fresh fruit juices, selling for €2.00 Euros ($2.51 USD) a pop.
Fruit Plate Breakfast
When we’re craving something light and smoothies aren’t available, we whip up a fruit plate. In Cork, Ireland, half a grapefruit, pear, orange and apple did the trick.
Oatmeal with Fruit, Nuts and Coconut.
The people we stayed with in Antwerp, Belgium rarely ate bread. They made oatmeal each morning and topped it with an assortment of fresh fruit, coconut, dried berries, nuts and oat flakes. We embraced this morning tradition and had lots of fun experimenting with different toppings.
Cooked Fruit with Cinnamon
Our Antwerp hosts also loved cooking fruit, adding a dash of cinnamon, and enjoying it solo.
Speculoos Spread and Chocolate Fondant Bread
In Ghent, Belgium, we visited Oud Huis Himschoot (1, Groentenmarkt), the oldest bakery in the town. We bought a loaf of whole wheat bread with chocolate fondant pieces, a dairy-free alternative to chocolate chips, for about €2.00 Euros ($2.51 USD). This was a small price to pay for such a rare find. We were so surprised and happy to learn it was vegan! Our hosts didn’t let us leave Ghent without trying the famous Lotus Speculoos (also called speculaas in the Netherlands, spekulatius in Germany and spéculoos in France) spread on our chocolate bread. This popular spread has the consistency of a super smooth peanut butter and the flavour of the Speculoos cookies, which are spiced with cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and ginger. It’s super sweet, super addictive, and super awesome. We tried some of the cookies too, which were also very tasty. Speculoos cookies used to be reserved for winter holiday celebrations but are now available all year round and often served along side coffee and tea in cafes. The spread costs about €3.00 Euros ($3.77 USD), but would be worth so much more to anyone who received it as a gift. The cookies are cheap, €2.00 Euros ($2.51 USD) for a pack of about 20 cookies.
Vegan Chocolate Spread
Vegan Pancakes with Chocolate Spread and Coconut
We recently enjoyed a pancake breakfast with our Couch Surfing host in Berlin, Jana. She pancakes from scratch, using whole wheat flour and apple slices. We topped them with chocolate spread and coconut. They were delicious! We used Cremino Dunkle Creme mit Kakaostückchen but there are enough vegan brands of this stuff that you’ll be overwhelmed with choices.
Homemade Fruit Smoothie
Jana didn’t have a traditional blender, but did have a hand blender, which she taught me to use as a smoothie maker. Before our lesson, I’d only ever thought of using a hand blender to puree soup. For the first time in two months, we had homemade fruit smoothies with frozen berries, banana and rice milk. Next breakfast mission: homemade waffles!
10 Comments »
Wow; all of it looks so yummy! I am in the USA, could i find those items here if i went to an international supermarket? I have never heard of cooking fruit in a pan like that, very interesting. I wish i could reach into the computer and try everything you posted. Thanks for this entry cause i am getting bored with my breakfasts and i saw it on facebook so i scooted over here to have a look. Yummy Yummy in the Tummy!!
If you got an immersion blender that comes apart in the middle, you might even be able to fit that in your backpack so you could have smoothies more often!
@Nutmeg – If you can’t find things like the sprinkles and Speculoos spread in your supermarket, you can always order them online.
@Elaine – I actually considered bringing a magic bullet but decided against it. I didn’t want to stick with my old habits. If I did that, I probably wouldn’t have tried half these things!
Your rice milk is named after my cat! Or maybe my cats named after your rice milk?? ;)
Everything looks so yummy. I love your site so much because it reminds me of when I was travelling around Europe trying to make sense of all these labels! but i’m with you about breakfast. Its the first thing I want when I wake up!
I don’t have a regular blender either, only an immersion blender and that’s what I’ve always used for making smoothies.
I love being able to see what people from other countries eat for breakfast. It gives me ideas for something different here at home. I wish we had some of those products here.
All of those spreads look so good! Especially the chocolate one and the sunflower seed ones. I think I would like a garlic one :) I’ve actually been meaning to make some muesli for breakfast. Thanks for the reminder.
Wow! This is a great post. I loved all your breakfast ideas except for the little mice. The food coloring would set me off to start, but the anise flavor would send me over the edge. :( I love the idea of flavored sunflower spread, and also cooked fruit. And of course, I sometimes fall into a smoothie habit during the summer.
Love the cooked fruit idea from Belgium. I have OAS (Oral Allergy Syndrome) so I can’t eat anything raw. Produce which is botanically related to the tree pollen I am allergic to is MISidentified by the body as pollen, not produce, and so my throat closes up, tongue swells up, etc. I really miss fruit (and salads). When you cook food it changes the size of the protein so your body does not identify it as something you are allergic to. Once pollen season is over (since it’s not wise to experiment with anything new during pollen season) I’m going to try the cooked fruit. Did they cook it in olive oil or what liquid did they use to cook it?
@Katherine – I’ve emailed my friend and asked about the cook fruit recipe. I’ll share it with you when I hear back :)
@ Katherine – Here is the response I got from my friend:
soooo, sounds great, people like our cooked fruit idea :). there are many options, you could make it with oil, but we always only add water. very important is to add kuzu in the end (to make it thicker, and let it cook for one minute afterward) and to put apples in the beginning and for example bananas and strawberry in the end. it takes longer to cook apples… you can warm up every kind of fruit, so tell her to experiment with it. and don’t let it cook too long, but long enough for the fruits to be soft. what else, oh yes: add cinnamon in the end as well, to give it the good flavour.
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