Day Five: Black on Black, or Pasta 007

One of my core culinary problems in the coming days (or even months) will how to use up my stash of Beluga lentils, almost 1,5 kg in total. When doing the inventory, I found one bag in each cupboard. No idea how and why they ended up there - I why I haven’t used them before!

My son has decided he’s going to be a secret agent. One of the most important features of a secret agent is that they only wear black. Fine, I said. But how about they also only EAT black?

In this pasta dish I used black tagliatelle I had bought in October and meant to use at Halloween - but somehow forgot about the whole thing. For the sauce I managed to use 250g of my black lentil stash, so I’ve only got 1,2kg left. But seriously, this really tasted great, so I’ll definitely be doing this dish even when I won’t “have to”!

For 5-6 big portions you need:

• 1 medium-sized onion, chopped


• 1 medium-sized carrot, grated


• 3 garlic cloves, crushed


• 4 Tbsp olive oil


• 250g Beluga lentils, washed thoroughly and drained


• 30g tomato paste


• water or vegetable broth


• salt and pepper to taste


• a couple of drops of Liquid Smoke, if available


• 500g (black) tagliatelle


• Parmesan cheese (optional) and any herbs of your liking, to serve

Heat the oil in a large pan. Sauté the onions until they get translucent, then add carrot and onion, and sauté 2 minutes more. Then add lentils, water or broth to cover them, tomato paste, salt, pepper, and liquid smoke. Bring to the boil and let simmer over a low heat until the lentils are tender-ish (but note that black lentils don’t really get as soft as the other other lentil types, no matter how long you cook them), or about 35 minutes.

Serve with cooked (black) tagliatelle topped with grated Parmesan (if using) and some chopped herbs!

Day Four: Grand-Uncle's Meat Stew

Today was day four of my no-grocery-shopping week. It was especially easy to avoid grocery shopping - everything is closed on Sundays here in Germany! For lunch we had some Karelian pasties that I had made the day before - an excellent way to use any leftover mashed potatoes or rice porridge!

It is time for a confession: I admire, no, I envy those that are vegetarian because they don’t like meat. I’ve worked very hard for the last years trying to convince myself not to eat meat. I’d like to be able to say I’m 100% vegetarian. But I can’t. I crave meat! Especially when I’m cooking meat for the kids (about every 2 or 3 weeks). So I’ve told myself that I’m allowed to eat meat as well, provided it comes from animals I personally know (or knew, I should say). And as long as it’s not more than once a month.

Today was that once in a month. I cooked meat for dinner. And it was delicious!

When you eat meat rarely, it better be a perfect dish! This particular dish is one of the most delicious and one of the easiest dishes ever invented. The recipe comes from my grand-uncle, who was a great man - and a great cook. (By the way, today he’d be celebrating my grandmother's birthday, if they’d still be alive. A very suitable day indeed for writing about this recipe.)

Only four ingredients are needed: meat, swede, salt, and water. And a little magic. Or how else would one explain the most extraordinary transformation that takes place during the four-hour cooking of this dish? The chewy meat becomes tender, the slightly bitter swede develops a heavenly sweet taste, and the ensemble tastes much better than the simple combination of the ingredients.

For about 6 people you need:

• 1 kg beef, cut into cubes (here in Germany that kind of meat is called Gulasch)


• 600g swede, cut into cubes of the same size as the beef


• 2 tsp salt, or to taste


• water

Place beef and swede cubes into an oven pot in layers: first beef, then swede, then beef again. Sprinkle salt between the layers and on top. Pour cold water in the pan so that it just covers everything. Cover with the lid.

Cook in a preheated oven (200 C) about one hour or so, then reduce the temperature to 150 C and let cook for three hours more or so. Once in a while, it’s good to check that there’s enough water.

Serve with mashed potatoes or cooked rice.

Day Three: Flammkuchen, or Pizza the Alsatian Way

Once upon a time there was an Alsatian who wanted to bake pizza. Unfortunately, he had run out of most of the basic ingredients: he didn’t have tomatoes, he didn’t have yeast, nor cheese. But he insisted on baking pizza anyway - and invented Flammkuchen - or tarte flambée! Good for me, because I’ve run out of tomatoes and yeast as well, and the rest of our cheese is already earmarked for something else ;)

Flammkuchen is a pizza-like bread topped typically with sour cream, ham, and onions. In my veggie version, I used smoked tofu, chopped carrots and red pepper, corn, and onions. It was a good combination, but I’m so going to try with fresh tomatoes and rucola once this no grocery shopping week is over..!

Flammkuchen exists in sweet version as well. On top of my sweet Flammkuchen I spread sour cream, sour cherry jam, some sugar, and almond flakes. I was very pleased with myself for having thought of a use for my delicious cherry jam - that for some reason no-one eats! - and for the almond flakes that were left over from Christmas baking. And it tasted great as well! The traditional sweet topping would be apples, sugar, and cinnamon, and I’m planning to give that a try later, too.

One big Flammkuchen is enough for two eaters - especially if the dessert is half of a sweet Flammkuchen :)

For two big Flammkuchen you need:

• 300g flour


• 4g salt


• 2 Tbsp oil


• 125-150ml water (a bit more if you use plain flour, a bit less if not)

Salty topping:

• 150g sour cream


• 2 Tbsp water


• salt and pepper to taste


• any veggies of your liking


• smoked tofu, cut in small cubes


• onions, cut in thin rings

Sweet topping:

• 150g sour cream


• 2 Tbsp water


• 2-3 Tbsp sugar


• 150g sour cherry jam (or other jam you’d like to get rid of :) )


• a handful of almond flakes

First set your oven to 225 Celsius. Then prepare the dough: in a bowl, combine flour and salt, then add water and oil and work until it’s easy to form a ball out of the dough. Take half of the dough and roll it out on a floured work surface. Place the Flammkuchen on an oven pan covered with a parchment paper.

For the filling, combine sour cream and water (and salt and pepper for the salty version) in a bowl. Spread the mixture on the Flammkuchen. Then add the other ingredients you’ve chosen for the topping.

Bake in the oven until the edges start to get colour, or about 15 minutes. Flammkuchen is supposed to be really, really crispy, so don't underbake it!

This was a very practical dish: while we were eating the salty Flammkuchen, the sweet one was in the oven - and it was ready just in time for dessert! A Güeter!

P.S. I have no idea how this dish REALLY was invented :D

Day Two: Borsch Soup

Today was the second day of my No-Cost Food Challenge and I realized I’m going to have to buy onions tomorrow. I’ve got only two left, and I don’t see any sense in trying to cook without onions. So I thought of an additional rule: in order to save another ingredient from ending up in the garbage, I'm allowed to buy just a bit of something. But today, I still managed with no grocery shopping at all.

For lunch I had some rests from yesterday - falafel, hummus, and a bit of rice. For dinner I decided to cook borsch soup, one of my all-time favourite dishes. I had an opened can of sour cream that had to be used, and the beetroots that had been lying in my fridge for three weeks were not getting any fresher either.

I used to cook borsch with my parents’ old recipe, but now I needed to change two things. First of all, I wanted it all-vegetarian. Second, I wanted it a bit more filling, so I added potatoes; in my parents’ recipe there was just cabbage, carrot, beetroot, and onion - no potatoes. And especially no canned beetroots nor sausages - the barbaric habit of some people to add any of those two ingredients was our conversation topic number one at many an occasion :)

For 2-3 portions you need:

• 1 medium-sized onion


• 2 carrots


• 2 beetroots


• about 300g cabbage


• 2 potatoes


• 1-2 garlic cloves


• vegetable broth


• 3 Tbsp tomato paste


• 3 Tbsp olive oil


• salt and black pepper to taste


• sour cream to serve

Chop the onion and crush the garlic. Heat the oil in a large pan and sauté the onions and garlic. Then add carrots, potatoes, and beetroot, cut in thin sticks, and chopped cabbage. (I used Savoy cabbage, and it worked just fine, although the colour didn’t turn out perfect.) Add broth to cover the vegetables, then add tomato paste, salt, and pepper. Let simmer over a low heat until all vegetables are tender, or about 30 minutes.

Serve as a starter or a light main dish with a generous dollop of sour cream and a slice of rye bread. Borsch tastes even better the next day - too bad we ate our way through all of it in one go!

Day One: Falafel

Yesterday was the first day of my No-Cost Food Challenge. I served leftover pasta for lunch, and for dinner I opted for homemade falafel - for two reasons: my fresh coriander needed to be used or it would have ended in the garbage. Second, I had found what seemed a perfect recipe, from my newest cookbook called Jerusalem.

And the recipe really is perfect. I just had to re-read it a couple of times to make sure I’d understood it correctly: and yes, falafel are made out of soaked but uncooked chickpeas. This turned out to be a bit of a challenge as I don’t have a proper grinder to grind the chickpeas, so I had to manage with my Bamix hand blender. But it wasn’t impossible. And as a result I got the best falafel I’ve ever eaten: delicious and oh so crunchy! I changed the spices a bit to correspond to my taste. Feel free to add some cayenne pepper and cardamom as the original recipe suggests.

For about 30 falafel you need:

• 250g dried chickpeas, soaked 8-12 hours


• 1 smallish onion


• 1-2 garlic cloves


• a handful of chopped herbs - I used coriander and mint, parsley would work as well


• 1 tsp ground cumin


• ½ tsp ground coriander


• 1 tsp salt


• ½ tsp baking powder


• 1 ½ Tbsp plain flour


• 3 Tbsp water


• about 750 ml frying oil


• 2 Tbsp sesame seeds for coating

Drain chickpeas and combine them with chopped onion, crushed garlic, and chopped herbs. Now comes the tricky part: all of this should be turned into a paste, not too coarse, nor too mushy. It should be easier with a meat grinder, but I haven’t got one. So what I did was to take small amounts of chickpeas and pulse them with my hand mixer - the result wasn’t perfect, but it worked. Then it’s time to add spices - cumin, coriander, and salt, baking powder, flour, and water. Work the paste with your hands until everything is well combined.

Let the paste stand for at least one hour in the fridge before using it.

Heat the oil in a pan - the temperature should be about 180 C. I don’t have a kitchen thermometer either, so I use a trick I learned from my mother-in-law instead: I cut a raw potato wedge and test the temperature with it. If it starts kind of bubbling but not too much, the oil has the right temperature. (And if it starts browning immediately it’s too hot! This never happened to me, though, ‘cause I’m so so scared of burning the oil ;) )

Wet your hands and form small balls out of the batter. Coat them with some sesame seeds and fry 6-7 falafel at a time until they are golden brown - this takes about 4-6 minutes. Drain your falafel in a colander to get the extra oil out.

To avoid food waste, fry only the amount of falafel you’re going to serve at one meal. Falafel doesn’t taste that good the day after. The rest of the batter can be used next day, or even frozen and used within a month or so.

I served my falafel with cooked rice, potato mash for the kids, hummus, and avocado-cucumber-mint salad.

From Low-Cost to No-Cost

During the last two weeks or so, I’ve been testing low-cost recipes mostly out of different winter vegetables. Using seasonal veggies really had an effect on my budget - I managed my grocery shopping with about half the money I’d normally use.

But now I’m taking the challenge even further. I’m going to cook no-cost food in the next few days. That means, I’m not going to spend a single cent in grocery shopping in a week or so - or, at least I’ll try. Here is  why and how.

Why? Well, this year seems to be the European Year Against Food Waste. Up to 50% of food produced in Europe ends up in the garbage. No matter how you look at this, it’s not good. And I’m afraid I’m not an exception. I do end up throwing A LOT of things in the garbage. But now I’m determined to change that.

How? The rule number one against food waste is to use up what you have before buying anything new. So, as of today, I’ll try to use all the stuff I have in my cupboards, in my fridge, and in my freezer, until I’ve used it all up.

Here’s a list of ingredients I currently have at home:

• bulgur,


• polenta,


• rice,


• black pasta,


• black lentils,


• brown lentils,


• red lentils,


• chick peas,


• potatoes,


• onions,


• garlic,


• carrots,


• sauerkraut (ok, I don’t have any more - instead, I have a bag full of dark, bad-smelling stuff - into the garbage it goes!),


• butternut squash,


• Savoy cabbage,


• swede,


• celeriac,


• beetroot,


• half of a red pepper,


• one weird black round small veggie (I have no idea what it is!),


• frozen peas,


• frozen spinach,


• frozen blueberries and strawberries,


• milk,


• cheese,


• blue cheese,


• yogurt,


• smetana,


• apples,


• bananas,


• oranges,


• mandarins,


• cucumber,


• avocado,


• fresh mint and coriander,


• frozen minced meat and meat cubes (for the kids),


• eggs,


• tofu,


• flour,


• and that’s about it.

And then obviously spices, oils, and so on. I’d say that, with this amount of food I don’t need to go grocery shopping in at least a week or so. Besides it’s going to be fun thinking of what to cook out of those things - my own one-woman Ready Steady Cook..!

Curious to find out what I’ll come up with? Or, even better, any good recipe suggestions to turn all of that stuff into something delicious? :)

P.S. Cleaned my fridge today, and all of these sad-looking jars are going to garbage..

Pelmeni Filled with Potatoes and Porcini Mushrooms

Poor old Silvio. First he insults the Finnish food, then some Finns, as a revenge, go and win the America’s Plate Pizza Contest in 2008 with their Pizza Berlusconi (read the whole story here). And as if that wasn’t enough, it turns out that tortellini, yet another Italian national pride, were not invented by Italians, but somewhere far, far away in Russia by the Komi people - whose cuisine most likely wouldn’t please the delicate taste buds of dear old uncle Silvio either. It’s the finno-ugric Komi language that gave the name for these small dumplings - they call them pel’nyan, or "ear bread/dough".

Pelmeni are are traditionally filled with meat, but I’d say these veggie pelmeni would beat any meat version. They are filled with potatoes and porcini mushrooms - but a very low-budget amount. Only 15g are needed :)

Normally I have no idea how long exactly it takes to cook a specific dish. With pelmeni I do. To make this portion of about 60 pelmeni, it takes exactly one Total Balalaika Show. If you’re able to resist a primitive urge to grab the nearest vodka bottle and to start dancing hopak instead of making pelmeni, that is.

For about 60 pelmeni you need:

For the dough:

• 300g all-purpose flour


• 50g rye flour


• 125ml water


• 4g salt


• 1 egg

For the filling:

• 340g potatoes, peeled and cubed


• 1 medium-sized onion


• 2 Tbsp oil and 20g butter for frying


• 15g porcini mushrooms


• 250ml hot water


• salt and pepper to taste

 

For cooking:

• about 3 liters vegetable broth

To serve:

• smetana/sour cream


• parsley


• grated (parmesan) cheese


• black pepper


• Russian-style pickled cucumbers

First, make the dough. Measure the flour in a baking bowl, add salt, then water and egg. Work the dough until it feels elastic. Add a bit more water if needed. Then cover and let stand in room temperature until your filling is ready.

For the filling: first boil 250ml water. Place dried mushrooms in a small bowl or a cup and pour the hot water on the mushrooms. Let stand 15 minutes or so. Chop the mushrooms with scissors - and keep the water.

In the meantime, chop the onions and garlic. Heat oil and butter in a large pan, sauté the onions for a few minutes, then add potato cubes and continue frying over a low heat. Stir regularly so that the potatoes don’t stick to the pan. After 10 minutes or so, add garlic, mushrooms, mushroom water, salt (I used a heaped 1 tsp fleur de sel), and pepper. Cover and let boil until the water has been absorbed and the potatoes are tender.

Place the filling in a bowl and let cool until you roll and cut the dough.

Now, take half of the dough and roll it out on a floured working surface as thin as you can. I’m still a novice to pelmeni making and mine were not as thin as they should be - but the pelmenis tasted great even so.

Use a glass (mine had a diameter of 7 cm) to cut out circles out of the dough. Repeat until you’ve used all of the dough. Then place about 1 tsp of filling on each circle. Wet the edges and close the circles so that the result looks like half moons. Press the edges well together with your fingers.

Then it’s time to cook your pelmeni. Bring the vegetable broth to the boil and cook about 10 pelmeni at a time in it. They are ready when they come back to the surface - this takes about 2-4 minutes. Remove pelmeni with a skimmer and place on a plate. Repeat until all pelmeni are cooked.

Place the desired amount of pelmeni on each plate - I’d say about four if you serve them as an appetizer, about ten if it’s a main course. Serve with a dollop of smetana and decorate the whole with chopped parsley, black pepper, grated cheese, a pickle wedge or two, and rye bread. And, obviously, with sto gramm vodka to go with!