Austrian Käsespätzle

Spätzle are halfway between dumplings and funny little noodles. They're really easy to make, especially if you have a Spätzle-maker: basically a large-holed cheese-grater with an attachment for dough. If you aren't lucky enough to own a Spätzle-maker, then you can still make em by pushing the dough through a cheese grater, or just dribbling it off a spoon into the water.

For the Spätzle(enough for a meal for 4):
Mix 1.5 cups Flour with a little
Nutmeg
Pepper, and
Salt
Beat 3 eggs.
Add the flour mixture plus .5 cups Milk to the eggs, and beat until smooth. You can add other ingredients at this point too, like cremed or chopped spinach, or minced Bärlauch, or whatever you want to flavor the Spätzle (spinach or bärlauch works really well with a cream sauce, plain is better with strong cheese).
Let it sit for half an hour.

Boil a big pot of salted water. Once it's going, grate the dough into the pot- make sure you don't end up with a big pile under the grater, or you'll end up with clumps. They're done when they float- fish em out with a big slotted spoon.

For Käsespätzle:
Grate 1.5 cups strong, hard cheese (Austrian Bergkäse or Raclette is good, but lots of other hard cheeses will work. Some folks make it with Emmentaler, but I think thats a little dull).
Put the fresh spätzle in a dish and mix in half the cheese.

Slice an onion very thin and fry it up on high in a few tablespoons of butter- get it nice and golden brown. Add spätzle and the other half of the cheese, get it good and melted, and EAT. Serve with apple sauce (REALLY, it's SO good) and a green salad.

Alternatively, spätzle are really nice with a light cream sauce- for example, fry some minced onion and chopped ham in a pan, and then add some cream and salt, and voila, you have cream sauce. If you don't like the idea of cream, you could use half milk, or even all milk: to give the sauce a little thickness, add 3 or so tablespoons flour to the ham and onions and fry for a few minutes, until it looses it's flour smell. Goes especially well with Spinach or Bärlauchspätzle.

Turkish Lentil Soup

1 large mug Lentils (red lentils are traditional)
1 carrot
1 potato
Water/soup stock
Salt
Cumin
1 Lemon

Wash the lentils, peel the veggies, and cube them (the carrot cubes should be quite a bit smaller than the potato cubes). Put the lentils and veggies in a pan, and put in enough water/stock to cover with 1" water. Bring to a boil and then cover, simmer for 20-30 minutes, stirring occasionally. It's ready when the potato squishes against the side of the pan, the lentils are falling apart a bit, and the carrot isn't crunchy anymore.

Take off heat and blend a little with a wand mixer. Add salt, cumin, and juice of half a lemon. Serve with bread and lemon slices.

Cold-fighting Tea

Make a Tea out of fresh or dried Thyme, 1tsp to 8 oz, steep for 1-3 minutes. If you have Rosemary, use that too. Same proportions, steep 3-5 minutes.

Make a decoction of cinnamon: add 1 tsp to 8 oz water, and boil for 10 minutes. If you have ginger, that works too: 4-5 slices fresh or 1/2 tsp dried to 8oz water, or Liquorice Root, 1-2 tsp to 8oz. You could also put them all in together- good for you, but may taste on the far side of interesting.

Combine the tea with the decoction, sweeten with honey, and drink. Will last 3 days in the fridge.

Oatmeal (Pumpkin) Cookies

These aren't really cookies. They're more like power-bars.

DRY
2 cups Flour
1 cup Oatmeal
1 tsp Cinnamon
1 tsp Salt
1 tsp Baking Soda

WET
1 cup Brown Sugar (or raw sugar, goes in dry)
2 sticks/1 cup of butter, or 3/4 cup of oil, or some combination thereof
1 cup pumpkin (optional)
1 egg
1 tsp Vanilla
Extras: Raisins, chocolate bits, nuts...

Combine dry stuff and set aside. Cream the butter with the sugar, eggs and vanilla. Add half of the pumpkin. Add the extras. Add half the dry stuff, the rest of the pumpkin, and then the rest of the dry stuff. Bake them big on greased cookie sheets at 350F/180C for 15-20 minutes. Let 'em cool, they're hot!

Bell Pepper and Mushroom Stroganoff

Turkey, sliced into cubes or strips
Olive oil
Salt
Paprika
Mushrooms, sliced
Red Bell peppers, cut into rings
Thyme, fresh or dried
Flour
Soup base or soup cube
1 Single Serving Plain Yogurt

Take your chopped Turkey and mix it with about a tablespoon of Paprika and a dash of Salt. Brown it in a large frying pan in Olive Oil (it doesn't need to be cooked through, just browned), then remove from pan and set aside; be sure to leave as much of the turkey's juices in the pan as possible. Add the mushrooms and thyme and let saute a little. Add a tablespoon of paprika and several tablespoons of flour, combine well, and let brown for a few minutes, until the flour looses its flour-smell. Add 'soup base' (what do I mean by soup base? When I made this recipe, I had made a very bad onion and cabbage soup the night before, very salty and overcooked, and I had about 2.5 cups left over- the perfect soup base. If yr not so lucky to have a bad soup lying around, just use hot water and a soup cube. Maybe add some onion to the recipe- let it fry a few minutes before adding the mushrooms) and stir. Add bell peppers. Let bubble for awhile until it starts looking nice and saucy- the flour should be thickening it up. Then add the turkey and let cook until done. Stir in the yogurt just before removing from heat. Serve over brown rice.

GARLIC COLD CURE

Garlic is amazing- not only is it a lovely thing to cook with, but it's a great medicine aswell. Garlic is antimicrobial, working against just about any living organism that may be bothering you (bacteria, parasites, fungi), but also against not-so-living organisms like viruses. And since its active components are released through the lungs and mucus membranes, its a really effective weapon against most infections of the respiratory system. Garlic breath being the worst possible side effect.

Yeah, you could shove it in capsules or something- but I prefer this simple recipe. Believe it or not, it tastes really good- and you can feel it working right away (especially in the sinuses ;)

1-2 Cloves Garlic
Honey
Fresh Hot Toast

Cut the garlic into thin slices and layer them on the toast(buttered or unbuttered, however you prefer). Cover with honey. Eat. Repeat a few times a day until you feel better.

Classic American Bananabread

For one loaf:

Sugar (a little less than half a cup)
Butter (about 2oz/half a stick- easiest if it's room temp)
One really ripe Banana
1 Egg
Vanilla (1 tsp)
1 cup flour- half white, half whole wheat
1.5 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt

Cream the butter and the sugar- or just beat it with a spoon until it's combined. Mix in the Banana, egg and vanilla. Combine the dry ingredients and then mix them in too. Put the dough into a buttered breadform(don't worry if it doesn't fill the form, it'll grow in the oven) and bake at 325F/180C until a knife comes out clean, about 40 minutes. Mmm.

Toping options: Sprinkle with oats and sugar before putting in the oven. Or, for Austrian-American Banana Cake, make a chocolate topping by melting a few onces of chocolate with a tiny nub of butter in a double boiler. Once it's nice and melted together, pour or spoon it over the top of the 'cake'. You might have to add a little boiling water to it to make it thin enough- don't worry if the whole cake is covered neatly, just drip and drizzle and call it rustic. You could even mix some chocolate bits into the batter- for Rosanne's Special Banana Bread, mix in some marijuana aswell. Real hit with the college kids.

Tahini Salad-dressing

Ok, this one's pretty complicated.

Tahini
A healthy squeeze of lemonjuice
Hot water
Raw sugar or some other sweet-thing

Take a glass or jar. Fill it half full of Tahini. Squeeze in the lemon. Fill the rest of the way with hot water and stir or shake until well blended. Stir in a teaspoon of something sweet- I used raw sugar,but honey or normal sugar work too. Stir again.

That's it. I put it on a simple salad, just arugula leaves and cubed up tomato, and it was great.

Portuguese Style Pork & Paprika

I don't know if this is really portuguese style, but it sounds nice. It takes a little prep time (oh no), but if you want to skip the marinating step then it's a quick dish. Serve with polenta or potatoes (would probably be good with spätzle or nockerl too, if you want to make it Portuguese-Austro-Hungarian style).

Olive Oil
Garlic, finely crushed
Salt
Hot paprika
Ground Black Pepper or Peppercorns
Pork Medallions (tenderloin is great- although really you can make it with any old pork, even cubed)
Onion, cut into thin rings
Red Bell Peppers, sliced
A cup or so of wine (red or white)
1 Organic Lemon; use 1/2 for juice, and cut the other half into very thin slices.

Marinate the pork in a few tablespoons of olive oil, salt, pepper, and a little hot paprika for 2 hours or so.

Heat olive oil on high in a BIG frying pan. Add pork (including marinade) and fry on high for one minute, then flip and fry another minute. Take out meat and put aside. Fry the onion rings a bit in the same pan; once they're on their way, add the red bell pepper and fry for 2-5 minutes, until their just barely starting to get tender. Add the wine, get it simmering, and scrape any brown bits off the bottom of the pan. Lower heat way down, add the pork, and simmer for around 15 minutes.

Arrange pork and peppers on a plate, garnishing with lemon slices. Sprinkle with lemon juice and serve.

This dish, even after being ground up, did not make a popular babyfood. :(

Creamy Veggie and Feta Polenta

This makes a good light meal- and can double as babyfood too (only interesting to those of us with one-yr-olds out there)

Olive Oil
Onion, diced
Polenta (Cornmeal)
Garlic cloves, crushed sligthly and peeled (the more the merrier)
Salt or 1/2 soup cube
Corn (canned or fresh, cut from cob)
Veggies: Red bell pepper cut into rings, zuchinni cut into slices...
A small block of feta, cubed

Put some water on to boil.

Using a nice deep frying pan, saute the onion in the oil for a minute, and then throw in the polenta- around 1/4 to 1/3 cup per person. Stir and let fry a little. Then pour in the boiling water until it's very soupy- polenta really sucks up water, so you may have to keep adding water to keep it on the creamy side. Add salt/soup cube and stir. Add garlic cloves- WHOLE- they'll cook long enough to mellow out.

Let it simmer for about 15 minutes- keep stirring occasionally, and adding water if it starts looking too thick- it should be pretty soupy, since polenta hardens a lot as it cools. Then add the corn and veggies and cook for 5 more minutes. Stir in the feta, let cool a little, and serve.

Mmmm.

Whole Wheat Beer Bread

Found on the internet- really not bad. Made it with 1/3 cup raw sugar instead of brown sugar (alas, no brown sugar in Austria!) and a decent austrian lager- turned out pretty well, if a little on the sweet/bland side. Next time I'd try it with less sugar, more salt and a darker, richer beer (not so easy to come by round these parts).

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
• 4 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1/3 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 (12 fluid ounce) can or bottle beer

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease a 9x5 inch loaf pan.
2. In a large mixing bowl, combine all-purpose flour, whole wheat flour, baking powder, salt and brown sugar. Pour in beer, stir until a stiff batter is formed. It may be necessary to mix dough with your hands. Scrape dough into prepared loaf pan.
3. Bake in preheated oven for 50 to 60 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of the loaf comes out clean.

Kiwi Style Chicken Roast

Just yr basic roast. Takes about an hour to cook.

Chicken (whole or pieces, skin-on bone-in)
Pumpkin, Potato and Onion, cut into chunks...
Carrot, cut into much smaller chunks...
...and any other root veggie, treated sensibly
Olive oil
Rosemary (or curry, paprika, basil, whatever herb or spice you got)
Garlic cloves, peeled
Salt n Pepa

Salt n spice the chicken and rub it down with olive oil. Put all yr chopped up veggies + garlic in a baking pan and toss em with the same (salt spice and a little oil). Nestle the chicken in with the veggies. Bake at 200 C until its all done (might be necessary to take the chicken out and let the rest roast a bit. Then again, might not.)

Good Meal

So, I had a bit of leftover pumpkin soup (see below) and a roasted chickenbreast.

Add to that:

POLENTA- Cornmeal cooked in milk/water(1:1 or so), with salt pepper oregano and a little hot paprika for about 20 mins

STIR FRY of onion slivers, zucchini rounds and chopped tomato, spiced with hot paprika, salt, pepper, whatever. Chickenbreast added to the pan at the end to heat.

Heat up the pumpkin soup, which magically becomes PUMPKIN SAUCE

Serve the polenta with pumpkin sauce, plus stirfry and half a chickenbreast. Very tasty St. Josef's style eats.

PUMPKIN SOUP

Cubed pumpkin (as much or as little as will fit in the pot)
1 medium potato, cubed
1 Diced Onion
1 diced Carrot
Milk + hot water
Spices (I used Paprika and Curry, but there are other possibilitites)
Herbs
Salt (+soup cube)
Fresh parsley

Fry the onion in a bit of oil. Throw in the carrot, then the pumpkin, the potato, the paprika/curry and whatever herbs yr using, and let cook a little. Pour in the milk and hot water- enough to cover- proportion can be anywhere from 1:1 to 2:1 (milk:water). Bring to a boil, and then reduce to a simmer. Add salt and soup cube, if using. Let simmer til it's good. In the end, use a wand (or a potato masher) to puree it a bit- as much or as little as you like. Add fresh chopped parsley. Serve with fresh bread and a little pumpkinseed oil.

Some other possible additions: sour cream or yoguhrt(add at the end- about a single serving size yoguhrt worth is good), fresh or powdered ginger(with other spices), fresh hot chilis(with onion), apple(with potato), creme fraiche or coconut milk(also at the end)...

One Good Breadpudding

2oz Chocolate (or more)
3 cups milk
4 cups breadcubes (any bread will do: whole wheat, white, baquette, whatever. Challah makes it particularaly rich and desserty, and I've heard of it made with old croissants. The bread can be stale since the egg mixture will soften it up a lot- discard any rock-hard pieces, though)
3/4 cup sugar
pinch of salt
3 eggs beaten
Optional: chocolate bits, nuts, whatever

Melt the Chocolate in the Milk.
Add Bread, Sugar and Salt. Let it Soak a bit. Add extra Chocolatebits or Nuts, if u want.
Stir in the Eggs.
Bake, sitting in 1/2" hot water, at 350F/175C for 45-55 mins.
Cool a bit and eat.