Chevapchichi (Ćevapčići, Cevape or Cevapi: southeast european meatball)

Chevapchichi is a Croatian dish very similar to American meatballs/meatloaf or German Fleischküchle. We made Chevapchichi to go with Quick Potato Soup.

For about 10-12 Chevapchichi you need:

375 g ground beef (about 8/10 of a pound)
1 onion
1 bulb of garlic (if you love garlic like us!)
2 tsp salt (1/2 EL)
2 tsp pepper (1/2 EL)
1 Tbs paprika powder (1 EL)
1 Tbs parsley (1 EL)Oragano, majarom,other herbs to taste
2 tsp baking powder
50 ml of water (3 Tbs + 1 tsp)
Oregano, marjoram, other herbs to taste

Preheat oven to 350-390 F (or 200 C).

Cut the onions and garlic into very small pieces. Mix with ground beef and other ingredients. Mix and mix and mix until the mixture is very smooth. This can take 5 or more minutes, so not only will you be making tasty food but big muscles.





If you want to be fancy (as he says), you can put the mixture into the fridge for 30 minutes. If you are like us and just want to eat you can go straight to making the proper Chevapchichi shape.







Take some of the mixture and roll it into your hand into a slight log (like a small sausage, but thicker). A good way to know you have the right Chevapchichi shape and size is to make your hand a gentle fist and squeeze the dough in the palm of your hand.

Lay on a covered baking sheet and bake for 20-30 minutes or until they look crispy. Do not be scared if they look quite brown. This gives the Chevapchichi its nice texture and taste.









Serve like you would meatloaf with mashed potatoes and vegetables or change things up like we did and serve with soup.

Quick Potato Soup

We are trying to be good about what we eat, but that doesn't stop us from wanting tasty and filling food. This potato soup is super easy and quick to make, all while being extremely satisfying and filling. In the past week we have made it twice. Once we ate it with wurst and the other time we ate it with a Croatian dish called Chevapchichi. Even if you eat this soup plain, you won't be disappointed. That is how we had the leftovers and it was just as good as the first night!

Served with chevapchichi

For this potato soup you need:

5 large potatoes
1 onion, diced
1 L vegetable broth
~1 tsp oil
Pepper, salt, parsley, marjoram, oregano, rosemary
Red pepper flakes if you like it spicy

First, cook onions

Cook the onions with the oil over medium heat until soft. Do this in a big pot which you can later cook the soup in.

                                                Add the vegetable broth. 

Cut the potatoes into medium chunks. For this soup we do not even bother to peel the potatoes, you can't taste the skin and it gives the soup a nice brown color.

Add potatoes to the vegetable broth and let them boil about 20 minutes or until they are super soft.

Add the seasonings such as pepper, salt, 2 Tbs marjoram, 3/4 Tbs parsley and if you would like, red pepper flakes. Also add a few shakes of oregano and rosemary. Let soup cook for another minute.

Blend

Take the pot off the heat and blend. We have a hand blender which seems to be easier than pouring all of the potatoes into a blender. If the soup is too thick don't be scared to add a liitle bit of water. Blend again.

Served with wurst, toast pieces and creme fraiche

Serve with bread and if you would like, some type of meat. In Germany it is common to eat potato soup with sausage and a little bit of creme fraiche on top.

Sweet American-style Spare Ribs

Spare ribs were on sale this week at the grocery store and we just could not resist. So we brought them home and waited for the perfect day to make them.

Well, the first snow of the season brought that day and we decided that we needed something warm and delicious to fight the cold winter weather. We made our own sauce (saving our BBQ sauce brought from the USA for when we really crave it) and now the only thing we are wishing is that we had bought two packs of spare ribs instead of one.

For our tasty American-style spare ribs you need:

500 g spare ribs
1 onion
1 Tbs brown sugar
1/2 cup ketchup
1 Tbs vinegar (not balsamic)
2 Tbs honey
1/2-1 Tbs oil for cooking
salt, pepper and chili flakes

This recipe is very easy and only takes about 15 minutes to prepare. The long part about making spare ribs is letting the ribs cook long enough that they are soft and juicy.


Start by preheating the oven to 375 F (200° C). Then dice the onion, cook on medium heat with the oil until glassy looking. Add the brown sugar and cook until caramelized.
  
 

Add the rest of the ingredients, including the ketchup, vinegar, honey and seasoning. Mix well and warm thoroughly.




Place the spare ribs into a baking dish, cover with the sauce. Cook at 375 F for at least one hour.

It's ok to drool

Serve with rice or homemade french fries and a vegetable or salad. If you want extra sauce to use over your ribs once they are cooked double the recipe above.

The first snow of the season came on a German holiday. For the Americans out there, Nikolaustag (St. Nicholas Day) is a holiday for children celebrated in Germany and other parts of Europe. The night before children put their shoes outside of their bedroom door. The next morning, if they had been a good kid, the shoe is filled to the brim with chocolates and candy.

Even though she is a bit past being a child, Nikolaus must have understood that she missed all her Nikolaustags when growing up in America and in the morning her boot (of course, she put out the biggest shoes she owns!) was filled with her favorite sweets :)

Cheap and Easy Homemade Pizza

We have become big fans of making our own pizza. The idea that we can make so much pizza with so many different combinations which we would never be able to find out, especially for so cheap, convinces us to make our own pizza again and again. We do still get tempted to go out, especially to our favorite Italian restaurant, and order a pizza, but if we plan ahead of time that we want pizza, we and our stomachs are more than content staying in to eat our own creation.

To make four medium/large sized pizzas:
500 g  Flour (we switched to pizza flour which is not much more expensive and noticed a big difference!)
4 g  Yeast
2 EL  Olive Oil
300 ml  Water, lukewarm
10 g  Salt
Cheese, tomato sauce, or any other toppings you want


To make these pizzas you need about three hours. Don't preheat the oven until you are ready to roll out the dough and top your pizzas.

Mix the yeast,  flour, salt, and olive oil. Add the warm water.






Knead for five minutes and place on a cookie sheet or in a bowl.




Cover with a slightly damp cloth and place in a warm place. Let sit for 30-45 minutes (longer is better). Knead dough again and place back in the bowl in a warm place. Let sit for another 30-45 minutes.



Now it is time to preheat the oven to 230 C (445). While the oven is heating up, leave in a cookie sheet so it also gets nice and warm. This will help make your pizza nice and crispy. When it is time to cook your pizza put it on this hot cookie sheet (with parchment paper in between).


Roll out the pizza dough into 1 cm thick round pizza pies. We think it is easiest to do this on parchment paper so that you can just lift up your pizza and put it directly onto the hot cookie sheet.

Top with anything you want! We have found that we actually like our pizza with no or very little tomato sauce. This time we did not use any. Instead we used lots of vegetables such as tomatoes, bell pepper, onion, and zucchini. We also like to add lots of seasoning and garlic and hot peppers along with pepper flakes or a bottom layer. A little bit of cheese on top and ta da, great tasting non-soggy crispy pizza.

Each pizza will take about 10 minutes, depending on how large it is, what you put on top, and how hot your oven has stayed. To get the perfect crispy crust, remove the parchment paper from under the pizza about two to three minutes into cooking.

And now, because sometimes pictures do speak louder than words...our creations!

This time I could not resist and made a recreation of my favorite pizza from a little restaurant in another part of Germany. This pizza consisted of wurst, potato and an egg on top. Crack the egg onto your pizza right before it goes in the oven and it will be ready by the time your pizza is.









We made various mixes of tomatoes, zucchini, bell peppers, onions, garlic, hot peppers and lots of spices. Dipped into hot sauce makes perfection.

Leftover Thanksgiving: Chicken/Turkey Soup

What is a better way to use your massive amount of leftover turkey (or chicken in our case) than to make a big batch of homemade soup? It is perfect for the cold winter months, it breaks you free from the turkey sandwiches we all know you have had too many of, and it is pretty healthy when it comes down to it. We made a big batch of chicken soup this week and used up the rest of our chicken, carrots, and celery. Officially ending the Thanksgiving season.

For our soup recipe you need:
2 Liter chicken broth
1 Liter water
A roasting chicken or leftover turkey
3 Tbs oil
2 onions, medium diced
2 carrots, cut into rounds
2 celery stalks, sliced at least 1 cm thick
thyme and other herbs


Directions:


Separate the bones and skin from the chicken or turkey meat.



Mix broth and water and bring to a simmer. Add the bones and skin and reduce the heat to low. Let cook partially covered for 30 minutes.
Strain the broth to remove all skin and bones. Keep broth separate and put your soup pot back on the stove over medium.



Add the oil, onions, carrots and celery. Cook for about 10 minutes or until vegetables start to soften.





Add broth back to the pot and add the chicken (or turkey) meat, and seasonings. We used a little thyme, Nature's Seasoning mix, and basil.

Let entire soup simmer and either serve then or save in the fridge for a later date. If you want you can cook noodles and add them to the soup. Only add noodles to the soup you will be eating, if you leave them in the soup overnight they will become very bloated and soggy.

We got so excited about eating we never took a picture of the finished product. Oops :(

Leftover Thanksgiving: Hot Turkey Sandwiches

Hot turkey sandwiches are super fast and easy to make. They are a simple way to use up some of your leftover turkey and gravy after American Thanksgiving. Serve them for lunch or dinner and with your other leftover sides such as mashed potatoes and green beans.

Lay white bread out on a plate. Heat up turkey slices in the microwave. Place the turkey on the bread, heat up the gravy and pour over the the turkey.

Serve with green beans and mashed potatoes.

Yes, we really just made an entry about something so simple but it is good and many people don't think about making hot open-faced turkey sandwiches. He had never heard of them until this week!

Leftover Thanksgiving: Tacos with Corn Tortillas

We made these recipes with Thanksgiving especially in mind, and the leftovers that you might have and need to get rid of over the next week. Making interesting meals, instead of just turkey sandwich after turkey sandwich will get you through your leftovers without getting fed up with the massive amounts of boring turkey. Like we said in our previous post Thanksgiving Day Dinner, we made two chickens and therefore this recipe was made with chicken meat. Turkey works just as well, so don't let it fool you! Make a little Mexican out of your all-American Thanksgiving Dinner!

We felt that we needed a change from our regular flour tortillas and so we decided this time to try corn tortillas. What we found out is that it is much much much easier to mix up the dough and roll out than flour tortillas. We might just have a new favorite :)

For ~ 6 medium sized tortillas you need:
2 cups corn flour (or masa harina)
1 1/4 cup boiling water + 1-4 tsp more
1 tsp oil
1 tsp salt

Mix the salt and the flour (don't mix up cornmeal and corn flour, cornmeal will not work!) Add 1 1/4 cup boiling water and oil and mix with a fork. It will be hot so wait a few minutes before you try to knead it with your hands (he learned this lesson the hard way!)






Once the dough is cool enough knead it with your hands for  2 to 3 minutes. The dough should stick together but not be sticky. You will need to add more boiling water to get it to this state. Do this slowly, adding only 1 tsp at a time. We had to add 3 tsp to get our dough the perfect consistency.




Roll the dough into balls (we like medium sized tortillas so we made balls halfway between a golf ball and tennis ball in size). Use a tortilla press or roll out using a rolling pin. Best is to put plastic wrap or parchment paper over and under the dough while rolling so it is sure not to stick.





We rolled out our dough and then used a plate as a circle outline to cut our tortillas into proper tortilla shape.









Heat a pan (no oil) on high heat (best is a cast iron skillet but we do not own one) and wait to add the tortillas, one at a time, until it is very very hot. Cook on each side for about 1 minute. Put the tortillas in aluminum foil or wrap in a towel to keep warm.


 

For the taco insides we used:

1 1/2 cup chopped chicken (or turkey) leftover from Thanksgiving
1/2 cup mushrooms, sliced
1 large onion, chopped
2 tomatoes, chopped
1/2 bell pepper, chopped
Seasonings like pepper, salt, garlic powder, oregano and bail



 Heat a pan on medium with a small amount of oil. Add the chicken, mushrooms, onion, bell pepper and onion. Cook until hot and onions start to get soft. Add seasonings and tomatoes. Finish cooking through.








Serve on the corn tortilla with lettuce, sour cream, cheese, and hot sauce. We did not have any sour cream or cheese but our tacos were still delicious. Eat alone or with rice and beans.

Enjoy this different type of recipe to use up your turkey!