Day Seven: Pizza Polenta with Spinach and Peas

On the final day of my No Cost Food Week I wanted to use up a polenta package that I had open, to make the easiest of my polenta recipes. I didn’t use to like polenta at all, actually. But after moving to Germany I decided to give it another try - and I loved it! Best of all: the kids did as well.

This dish is yet another alternative to pizza, and even simpler and quicker than Flammkuchen. And very, very tasty! As toppings I used spinach and green peas that had been lying on the bottom of my freezer for ages. Just like with the Shepherd’s pie recipe, this first time combination of ingredients (thank you No Cost Week!) beats the one I would normally make, by far. Normally I would use garlicky mushrooms, but spinach really gives the Pizza polenta a fresh taste!

For four portions you need:

• 250g polenta


• 100g frozen spinach


• a handful of frozen peas


• ¼ onion, cut in thin rings


• 1 mozzarella (125g - or more if you have!)


• any grated cheese available - I used Parmesan


• salt and pepper to taste


• 2 Tbsp olive oil

Boil 1 liter of water in a pan. Add 1 tsp salt and 2 Tbsp olive, then add the polenta and whisk. Turn the heat down and let simmer a couple of minutes. Pour polenta on an oven tray covered with a parchment paper and spread it out about 1cm thick using a spatula. Place spinach, peas, and onion rings evenly on top of polenta, then the mozzarella cut in slices and finally grated (Parmesan) cheese, salt, and pepper.

Bake in a preheated oven (200 C) until the cheese melts and starts to get brown. Serve piping hot with some salad - if you've got any left. I didn’t :)

Day Six: Vegetarian Shepherd's Pie

On the sixth day of No Cost Food Week I had run out of milk and all-purpose flour. I don’t need any milk myself, but the kids do. And I don’t need all-purpose flour either - but my sourdough would die without it! So I decided to cheat a bit and buy these two things.

For lunch we had leftovers from Pasta 007. For dinner I didn’t have much choice anymore: I had lentils (brown, black, and red), a couple of carrots and onions, a bit of Savoy cabbage, one butternut squash, a bit of celeriac, potatoes, a bit of butter, frozen peas and spinach, a bit of cheese, and that’s about it.

I decided to cook a vegetarian shepherd’s pie. Normally I’d use a variety of veggies and mushrooms, but now I had no choice. I used half of the butternut squash, one onion, the rest of the cabbage, and red lentils. Surprisingly enough, this combination was much tastier than the one I normally do!

This is what you need for 4 portions:

• 1 onion


• ½ butternut squash (large-ish)


• 200g Savoy cabbage (even more if you’ve got :) )


• 100g red lentils


• 2-3 garlic cloves


• 2 Tbsp olive oil


• 800g potatoes


• 30g butter (optional)


• salt and pepper to taste

First, peel the potatoes and cut them into cubes. Boil them in salted water until tender, or about 15-20 minutes.

In the meantime, chop the onion, crush the garlic cloves, peel the squash and cut it into cubes, and wash and drain the lentils. Heat oil in a large pan. Sauté the onions until they are translucent , then add garlic and cabbage and sauté five more minutes. Then add squash, lentils, water, and salt and pepper, and let simmer over a low heat until the vegetables are tender.

Now return to the potatoes: leave enough water to mash the potatoes (or use milk instead: I didn’t have any to spare at this point..!). Add the butter (if using) and stir until it melts.

Place the veggies-lentil-mixture on the bottom of an oven pan (a Pyrex or a lasagne form is perfect). Top with mashed potatoes and cook in a preheated oven (200 C) until golden brown spots start to appear on the surface.

If I’d have to choose one dish so far from the ones I’ve cooked this week, this would probably be it! Oh wait, it would be the meat stew. But you get the point: it’s delicious!

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.