78. Make Cakes Using 5 Different Types Of Vegetables (3/5)

I decided that I should make something using carrots as they seemed to be taking over the fridge, I guess that's the problem with doing internet shopping without actually checking what we need. 

After looking through all of the recipes I could find that used carrot I managed to narrow it down to one that I knew I would be able to get all of the ingredients for (if only we had Tesco or Sainsbury or Waitrose or Asda or any decent supermarket here).  So the cake of choice for this weekend was Chocolate Chocolate Chip Muffins made using my super new magimix food processor.

I managed to make such a mess in the kitchen that Ian said it was like someone had been cooking with kids - it did look a bit like there had been an explosion with grated carrot and chocolate everywhere.  But it was worth it, the muffins were lovely.  I was a bit sceptical when I put them in the oven as they looked strange but they turned out fine.

64. Go To The Christmas Market In The Caves

As it's never very Christmassy here we've been going to Christmas markets in germany for the last few years to try and get into the Christmas spirit.  This year we thought that we give the the one in Valkenburg a try instead. 

As we woke up rather early on Saturday morning we decided to go and see what it was like.  Saturday was the first day so we were expecting it to be really busy but figured if we left Rotterdam early enough it shouldn't be too bad.  Valkenburg is about 2.5 hours drive away so we got there just before 11am and managed to find a parking garage very close to the caves. 

The market itself wasn't too bad, some Christmasy stuff and some other random things like bedsheets!  It was still pretty quite which was nice.  We bought a couple of little things and then decided that we would wander around Valkenburg for a while and then we found another cave market.  The second one was much busier than the first one and we got fed up of the pushing and shoving pretty quickly and decided to head back to the car.

Valkenburg looks like a nice place to visit so I think that we'll go back again when the Christmas market isn't on and have a proper wander around.

16. Try A New Recipe Once A Month For 12 months

Inspired by our trip to Budapest last month I decided to try and make goulash.  I found a recipe on good old internet and spent ages chopping meat & veg.

It turned out ok but not as nice as the one I had in Budapest, it was lacking any heat to be honest even after throwing in a chilli from the stash that I have.  If I make it again I'll try a different recipe and see if that's any better.

72. Change My Name On My Dutch Bank Account

As I had the day off work today, I thought that I'd do something useful. 

I went to the bank to change the name on my accounts there and it was relatively easy!  All I had to do was to show my passport with my married name on it and then sign a few papers. 

So now I have a double barrelled surname to match my double barrelled first-name - if I have to write my fullname on anything there better be a big space for it ;-)  Apparently that's what they do here, whether you want to or not doesn't really come into it.  Same thing happened with my health insurance.

It's only taken me 3 years to get around to doing this!