The Ex Expat

28 November 2012

I’ve been trying to think of recipes to use my freshly harvested peppers in, and a hearty Autumnal goulash popped into my head. To make it a bit healthier I’ve used lean turkey meat. It only took about half an hour to throw together, so makes a perfect midweek meal.

Ingredients:

• vegetable oil
• 400g turkey meat
• 1 large green pepper (or 4 mini peppers, in my case^^)
• 1 tin or carton of tomato passata (ca. 500g)
• 1 cup water
• 1 teaspoon ground garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon stock powder (vegetarian or meat, as you prefer)
• 1 teaspoon smoky paprika powder
• salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

• Cut your turkey into small chunks, sprinkle with the garlic powder and fry in a couple of tablespoons of vegetable oil until brown all over.
• Chop the pepper into small chunks and add to the turkey; cook for about 5 minutes until the pepper begins to soften.
• Add the tomato passata and hot water and bring to the boil, then stir in the stock powder and paprika powder. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
• Lower the heat and leave to cook for another 10-15 minutes, stirring occasionally. 
• Serve on a bed of fluffy rice.

7 November 2012

Just to complicate the whole expat/ ex expat thing a bit, one of my grandmothers was actually from Austria. Although she had already been living in Germany many many years by the time I was born, it meant a lot of family holidays in Austria visiting relatives while I was a kid. And they have some really delicious food over there.

One of my favourites is Nockerln, which is basically pasta for lazy people. Well, not really, but it’s got all the ingredients of pasta dough, but instead of rolling it out and going through all those other pasta making steps, you just drop teaspoons of the dough into boiling hot water and they turn into very tasty if somewhat mishapen pasta dough balls.

This recipe is actually from my mum. It’s the first time I tried making it with gluten free flour, and it turned out just fine. It was a big hit with the boy too - he gobbled up his portion and then ate about half of ours too (at least that’s what it felt like^). 

Ingredients

• 250g gluten free flour
• a good pinch of salt
• 4 medium sized eggs
• a quarter of a cup of water

Directions

• Sieve the flour into a bowl.
• Make a well in the middle and add the water.
• Work a little bit of the flour in to the middle and mix it with the water.
• Repeat this process with the four eggs.
• If the dough becomes too tough, beat it into submission with a wooden spoon.
• If your dough seems to dry once you’ve worked in all the eggs, add a little more water. If it seems to wet, add another sprinkling of flour.
• Boil a large pan of water, then using two teaspoons, drop teaspoonfuls of dough into the water. You will need two teaspoons so you can use one of them to scrape/ push the dough off the other teaspoon as you will NOT want to use your fingers for this over a pan of boiling water! If you have a mug of hot water standing by that you can dip the teaspoons in between, it makes the dough come off more easily.
• Once you’ve used up all the dough, take the pan off the heat and leave the dough balls in the hot water for another 5-10 minutes.

The Nockerln taste great with a simple tomato sauce. I made a quick Napoli sauce here with a tin of passata, a teaspoon of stock powder, a teaspoon of dried oregano and a teaspoon of dried basil. Add some freshly ground pepper to taste, and a pinch of sugar to bring out the flavour of the tomato.

5 September 2012

I love myself a nice bowl of hot soup. I haven’t made much soup over the summer, but now that Autumn is heading our way I think we’ll be having soup again more often.

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 2 cloves crushed garlic
• 2 large or 4 medium potatoes, peeled and cubed
• 1.5 litres vegetable stock
• 500g frozen spinach
• 2 tablespoons cream cheese
• 1-2 teaspoons madras curry powder (depending how spicy you like it)
• salt and pepper to season

Directions

• Heat the vegetable oil in a deep saucepan and fry the garlic and potatoes for a couple of minutes on a medium heat. Careful not to let the garlic burn.
• Add the vegetable stock and the frozen spinach. Your potatoes should be fully covered. If they are not, add a little extra water.
• Continue cooking on a medium heat until the potatoes are soft enough that they give way if you press them with a fork against the side of the saucepan. Your spinach should have thawed out by now too.
• Take the saucepan off the heat and use a hand blender to puree everything.
• Put the soup back on a medium heat and stir in the cream cheese until it dissolves.
• Season with the madras curry powder, salt and pepper. I tend to add in just a little bit of curry powder first, about half a teaspoon, take a portion or two of soup aside for the boy, then add in some more curry powder for the grown ups.

29 August 2012

I love this variation on a classic egg florentine (spinach with baked egg and white sauce). After tracking down several recipes that all weren’t quite right - too spicy for the boy, too goats-cheesey for the husband - I ended up with my own variation based on several different recipes. This is intended to serve 2 (plus a toddler) as a main meal, but you could divide it into 4 portions as a starter.

Ingredients (serves 2)

• olive oil
• 1 crushed clove garlic
• 1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves (or 1 teaspoon dried thyme)
• 3 peppers (I used one red, one orange, one yellow for colour, but you can use whichever you like best)
• 2 handfuls of baby leaf spinach 
• salt and pepper
• 4 eggs
• 50g crumbled feta cheese

Directions

• Pre-heat your oven to 200 C (or 180 C for a fan oven).
• Heat the oil in a pan over a medium heat and cook the garlic and thyme for a couple of minutes, taking care not to burn the garlic.
• De-seed the peppers, cut them into thin strips and add to the pan. Cook on a medium heat for about 15 minutes until softened.
• Stir in the spinach to wilt, then take the pan off the heat.
• Season with salt and pepper.
• Transfer to an ovenproof dish. Make four wells in the bed of spinach and peppers and crack the eggs into them.
• Scatter the crumbled feta on top.
• Bake for around 15 minutes until the eggs are lightly set.
• Serve with rice or some nice bread.

22 August 2012

This is a super quick and easy midweek meal, and if you want a vegetarian option you can just leave out the hot dog sausages. If you have fresh herbs at hand, it tastes even better than with the dried herbs.

Ingredients (serves 4)

• vegetable oil
• 1 crushed clove garlic
• 3-4 hot dog sausages
• 1 medium courgette, cut into chunks
• 1 red pepper, cut into chunks
• 1 tin of pre-cooked chickpeas (i.e. not dried chickpeas)
• 1 tin chopped tomatoes
• 1 teaspoon dried parsley
• 1 teaspoon dried basil
• salt and pepper

Directions

• Cook the crushed garlic in the oil on a medium heat for a couple of minutes.
• Add the sausages, coourgette and pepper and cook for a couple of minutes until the vegetables being to soften.
• Stir in the tin of chickpeas and the tin of chopped tomatoes and cook for about 10 minutes until hot through.
• Stir in the parsley and basil, and season to taste with salt and pepper.
• Serve on rice or with some nice bread.