Rotterdam - Wow, what a wonderful city. Before I headed off for the weekend with my Dad on the North Sea Ferries from Hull to Europort I was a little clueless as to why my Dad had picked Rotterdam as our trip destination. Experiencing Rotterdam was a whole different matter - art galleries, beautiful sculptures, great food, friendly people and great open spaces. Here are some photos of our trip and a few places you should definitely trip in Rotterdam if you're heading over. At £45 each on the ferry each it is well worth a visit!
1. Rotterdam houses- I found this beautiful door whilst walking through a back street.
2. Chuck Close at the Kunsthal Gallery - part of the Avant-Gardes exhibition.
3. De Calypso building, Rotterdam.
4. Amazing display in the Netherlands Architecture Institute cafe.
5. Artwork by Jan van der Ploeg at the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen.
6. Delfshaven - the older part of Rotterdam to contrast buildings like De Calypso.
7. Delicious apple cake from Nieuw Rotterdams Cafe on Witte de Withstraat - great cafe
with nice surroundings and even better apple cake and tea. Well worth a visit.
8. A Picasso inspired sculpture outside the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen.
Museumpark is well worth a visit if you're into art or not - it's a great space to walk through and if you like galleries it's surrounded on all sides by some of the best galleries in Rotterdam - The Kunsthal Gallery and Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen were great. The pic above is of a small corner were the Kunsthal Gallery lives.
These M & M cookies are so easy to make and so quick - perfect for when you want something warm and chocolately for this cold time of year. I originally got the recipe from Bakerella's blog and decided I'd give these quick cookies a go - I've translated the recipe from cups to grams below to make things a little easier.
This recipe makes around 12 cookies:
75g Chocolate chips
100g M & Ms (Smarties would work well too!)
110g plain flour
2/3rds tsp baking powder
2/3rds tsp bicarbonate soda
1/4 tsp salt
65g porridge oats
75g brown sugar
60g white sugar
1 small egg
75g butter
1 tsp vanilla essence
Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees. Mix all of the dry ingredients together above in a bowl with a wooden spoon. Then add the egg, butter (melted slightly in the microwave) and vanilla essence.
Roll little balls (around walnut sized) in your hands and but them on a well oiled baking tray - it doesn't matter too much if they're not very neat!
Bake these in the oven for up to 10 minutes (I gave half the batch 7 minutes for a gooey centre and half the full 10 minutes for a crispier finish - we thought the gooey ones were the best!). So simple and they don't take up much time at all!
These could also work really well with any broken up chocolate bars - a Lion bar would be yummy to try!
