Egg nests

Easy, satisfying, and nutritious!

Ingredients

• Six eggs
• 2 packages frozen spinach (around 800g total)
• Chopped garlic & onion
• Herbes du provence
• Salt & pepper
• 1 package feta cheese
• Chili flakes, if desired

Baking it up

1. Thaw the spinach in a pan until there's no longer enough water in it to pool. It should be juicy but not "wet". 
2. Push the spinach to the side and sautee the chopped garlic & onions in the middle. Once soft, mix it all up and add the herbs, chili flakes, salt, and pepper.
3. Spread the spinach mixture in a baking dish. With a spoon, whittle out six evenly-spaced indentations. Carefully crack one egg into each nest.
4. Crumble the whole feta cheese over the top.
5. Bake at 180 Celsius until the eggs are how you like them. The time really varies; sometimes it's 30 minutes, sometimes 45. Just keep checking on it and giving the pan a shake to see how much they wiggle.
6. Serve with crusty bread.

Beanless beef chili

Warm and comforting without the, shall we say, after-effects of beany chili!

Ingredients

• Around 350g minced beef
• 1 tsp each allspice (Piment), ground black pepper, marjoram, thyme, rosemary, chili flakes
• 1 whole onion
• 3 garlic cloves
• Peeled carrots, cut into half-moon slices
• 1 tin chopped tomatoes, drained, or 3 chopped fresh
• 1 small tin of corn/maize kernels, drained
• 1.5 liters beef broth 
• 1 cup rice (I like wild rice but any rice will do)
• 2-3 bay leaves (Lorbeerblätter)
• Couple dashes soy sauce
• A few gloops of red wine, if you'd like

Stew time

1. Brown the beef in some oil/butter in a pan on high-ish medium heat. 
2. Add the chopped garlic and onion, and the spices (except bay leaves). Sautee till soft. 
3. Add the carrots, tomatoes, and corn. Stir around a minute or two.
4. Add the broth, bring to a boil. Add the rice. Turn down to a simmer and add the bay leaves.
5. Simmer until the rice is cooked and everything is nice and thick, 45-60 minutes. 
6. Toward the end, add the wine and soy sauce. Taste to see if you need more salt.
7. Serve with a dollop of crème fraîche or yogurt on each bowl.

Foolproof cacio e pepe

Can't take credit for this one, the perfect cacio e pepe comes from smitten kitchen!

The secret: This recipe begins the sauce with cold water, forming the cheese and pepper into a thick paste. No heat touches the sauce until it hits the piping hot pasta, so it melts only onto the noodles. A few spoonfuls of cooking water loosen it to a thick but lightly creamy consistency. 

Ingredients:

• 8 ounces dried spaghetti or tonnarelli
• 4 ounces aged pecorino romano, finely grated
• A lot* of freshly ground black pepper 

Method:

1. Bring a pot of well-salted water to boil. Cook pasta to one minute shy of package instructions and taste for your desired doneness, cooking a minute longer if needed. We are not cooking the pasta and sauce further together on the stove, so the bite it has now is about what your final dish will.
2. While it’s cooking, combine all the pecorino (except a spoonful for garnish) and lots of freshly ground black pepper in a bowl. 
• Add 1 tablespoon cold water and use an immersion blender to work it into a paste, adding additional cold water, 1 tablespoon at a time, only as needed. You want to form the mixture into a paste about the thickness of cream cheese or frosting. I use about 4 to 5 tablespoons total for this amount. 
• Blend more than you think is needed; you want this paste as smooth as you can get it. You can do this same process in a food processor, even grinding the cheese in it instead of grating it first but it will require longer processing to get the rubble-like cheese smooth.
3. Before the pasta is done, scoop out a cup of hot cooking water and set it aside. 
4. Drain the pasta very quickly in a colander (no need to shake every drop of water off) and immediately drop it, piping hot, back into the pot. 
5. Add 3/4 of cheese-pepper paste in dollops and toss to combine. It’s going to be too thick to form a sauce but once it has begun to coat the noodles, pour in one small ladleful of pasta water and toss, toss, toss (a lot of movement helps here) to loosen the paste into a lightly creamy consistency that evenly coats the spaghetti strands. Taste and add more of the cheese-pepper paste to taste, or use it all. Add more pasta water as needed only to loosen.

Finish with reserved pecorino and a few grinds of black pepper. Eat immediately.

*How much is “a lot” of freshly ground black pepper? It’s impossible to measure — too low in grams to register steadily on a scale, too varied in coarseness to measure in consistent measuring spoons, plus peppercorns vary in intensity, and your preference may not be someone else’s. Taste the cheese-pepper mixture. The pepper should be prominent and give it a sparkly kick. If you want more, add more. Remember that this sauce base will stretch over a lot of pasta, so if it tastes too intense, that’s probably correct. 

Spinach pie

Can never have too much spinach and cheese, nom nom nom

Ingredients

• 800 g frozen spinach (two packages)
• 2-3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 1 small onion or 1/2 large onion, chopped
• Salt & pepper
• 1 tsp herbes du provence
• 1 package feta cheese
• 4 eggs
• 1 c heavy cream
• 1 pie crust

Bakin' some pie

1. Roll out the pie crust and transfer it to a pie pan, pressing down firmly. You can pre-bake it a bit if you'd like but I don't think that's absolutely necessary.
2. Thaw the spinach in a pan, letting as much water steam off as you can. It should be moist and juicy still, but also dry enough that you don't see any liquid pooling up when you press on it with a spoon. This is important: If there is water, you will have a runny pie.
3. Push the spinach to the side of the pan and sautee the chopped garlic & onion in some oil in the middle. Once soft, mix it all up with salt, pepper, and herbes de provence.
4. Layer half the spinach mixture on the bottom of the pie.
5. Crumble the feta cheese over this layer, spreading around evenly.
6. Whisk up the rest of the spinach in a bowl with four eggs, the cream, a bit more salt. Pour over top of the pie.
7. Bake in the oven at 180 Celsius for about an hour.
8. Serve with a fresh green salad.

The Roast Chicken Legs

Crispy-skinned roasted chicken legs you can eat like a barbarian!

Ingredients

• Four high-quality Hähnchenschenkel (whole chicken legs). Get them organic or from a local butcher. Believe me, you will taste the difference.
• 2 tbs coconut oil
• 2 tsp thyme (fresh is good, but out of the spice shaker is fine too)
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp cayenne powder
• 1 tsp garlic powder

Roast 'em

1. Make sure there are no feathers on the chicken. Pluck out any bits you see. But leave the skins on!
2. Mix the spices together in a wee bowl.
3. Pan method: Heat up the coconut oil on the higher end of medium and drop in the chicken legs. Sprinkle half the spice mix generously over the top. When one side is browned (maybe 5 min?) flip them over and sprinkle the other side. Cover them and turn the heat down so that they're just sizzling, no longer frying. Cook around 30 minutes, until the meat is pulling away from the bone (or a thermometer stuck in says 70 Celsius).
4. Oven method: Coat the chicken legs in melted coconut oil and lay on a foil-lined pan. Sprinkle spices generously. Bake at 180 Celsius for 45 minutes.

Super warming broccoli cream soup

Perfect for a cold winter's day!

Ingredients:

• A full kilo of broccoli (seriously, like three of those frozen boxes)
• Let's say a half-dozen medium-sized-to-small mehlige Kartoffeln ("floury" potatoes? You know, the kind that cook soft, which you would use for making mash)
• Chunk of butter for sauteeing
• One whole big white onion
• Three toes (hee hee) of garlic
• Ground black pepper
• A ton of hot chilis. In whatever form: chili powder, chili flakes, fresh chilis, dried chilies. I used like nine dried bird's eye chilis and they were absolutely divine: definitely very spicy and warming, but not painful
• 1.5 liters of water
• A few spoonfuls of salt
• Some kind of blender, like a stand blender or handheld immersion blender
• 100g cheese (cheddar or gouda would be perfect)
• 100g crème fraîche 

Make the soup:

1. Prep the broccoli: If using fresh, wash this and cut it into pieces, peeling the tough parts off the stems (such as the bottoms and maybe even a couple centimeters up the stalk with a carrot peeler). Then cut off the florets really high up, so that you have a pile of stalks and a pile of nothing but florets. Chop the florets really fine.
2. Prep the taters, garlic, and onion: Peel these and cut into hunks. Don't worry about being too fine about it, we're just pureeing it all in a bit.
3. Sautee the onions and garlic in a pan with the hunk of butter. 
4. Once soft, add the potatoes, broccoli stalks, pepper, and chilis, and stir around for a minute or so.
5. Pour the water over everything, add the salt, and bring it all to a boil. Then immediately reduce the heat and simmer until the potato chunks fall apart when you prod them with a fork, about 15 minutes.
6. Add half of the finely chopped broccoli florets and simmer for another 5 minutes or so.
7. Remove the soup from the heat and carefully (it's hot!) blend it so that it is fine and creamy. Take your time and be thorough about it.
8. Carefully transfer it back to the heat to simmer. Add the cheese, crème fraîche, and remaining broccoli florets. Taste to see if it needs more salt, and if it's spicy enough, mmm.

Serve with another dab of crème fraîche in each bowl and a sprinkle of parsley over the top, if you'd like. Crusty bread and a cold white wine are great with this. I'd suggest a fruity wine to counteract the chilis' heat – something more like a Sauv Blanc than a Riesling.

Thick n chewy chocolate chip cookies

Another cookie recipe for the collection! This one produces a perfectly textured, thick (not puffy!) cookie with a crisp exterior and a tender interior. Plus puddles of melted chocolate. Yes yes yes.

Lifted from the excellent recipe from smitten kitchen, adapted here for the Euro crowd.

• 115 grams unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 115 grams white sugar
• 1 teaspoonful of dark molasses (this is key! do not skip)
• 1 teaspoonful of ground bourbon vanilla
• 1 large egg
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• Heaped 1/4 teaspoon (or, technically, 1/4 + 1/8 teaspoon) fine sea or table salt
• 200 grams medium-protein flour, e.g., Halbweissmehl or Weizenmehl 550
• 200-225 grams dark chocolate, chopped into roughly 1/2-inch chunks

Heat oven to 180C.

Beat together butter, sugars, molasses, and vanilla until very light and fluffy, about 5 minutes with electric mixer or kitchen machine. Beat in egg. Beat in baking soda and salt. Turn off the beater and use a wooden spatula to mix in the flour until just combined (if the dough looks crumbly, that is okay). Fold in the chopped chocolate.

Shape into cookie sized balls and arrange on baking paper on a baking sheet. Make sure to leave a good 10cm between cookies (avoid them running together, amoeba-like).

Bake 8-12 minutes, until the edges are looking brown and crisp but the insides still soft. Don't overbake! They'll continue to firm up a little on the hot pan when removed from oven. Let rest on pan for at least 5 minutes before removing for cooling or eating.

Pro tips:

• Get a cookie scoop thing! They are amazing.
• Don't chop the chocolate too fine! Big chunks make nice big pools of melty chocolate.
• White sugar + molasses can be replaced with American brown sugar if it's available.
• Consider sprinkling with sea salt before popping in the oven. If you're into that.
• You can either bake these straight away, or rest the dough in the fridge first (for 30 minutes up to a few days). I've done both and they turn out great. If resting the dough, scoop the batter into cookie-sized balls before nestling them into a plastic bag and tucking them into the fridge. Then no wrestling with hard, cold dough when you're ready to bake; can just arrange them directly on the pan.

NYT Chocolate Chip Cookies

Adapted from the famous New York Times cookie recipe, a.k.a. The Best Cookies Ever, a.k.a. All Hail the Great and Powerful Cookie!

• 280 g flour
• 1 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 1/2 tsp coarse salt
• 285 g butter
• 520 g sugar
• drizzle of molasses
• 2 large eggs
• dash of vanilla
• chopped dark chocolate

Sift together dry ingredients and set aside.

In a stand mixer, cream together butter and sugar until very light and fluffy (approx 5 mins).

Add eggs and mix in one at a time. Add vanilla.

Remove from stand mixer and gently add in dry ingredients until just combined.

Fold in the chocolate bits.

Spoon into a plastic baggie, seal it air tight, and wait at least 24 hours (48 even better!)

Line a baking sheet with baking paper.

Spoon out cookies into golfball-sized balls and arrange on the baking sheet.

Make sure to leave ample space between the cookies so they can spread out without touching.

Bake 185C for 10-12 mins per batch.

Tips!

• Don't overmix the dough after adding the dry ingredients, as it will activate the gluten and make for a harder cookie. I prefer to do the final wet/dry combine by hand just to be sure.
• We baked up a batch of these after 72 hours of refrigeration and they were still nomnomnom.
• Careful not to overcook them; remove from the oven when they are just browning on the bottom but are still light (or even slightly doughy-looking) in the middle. They'll continue to cook on the sheet for just a wee bit after removal. They'll also look a bit puffy, but don't worry, will collapse into proper cookie shape as they cool.
• The original NYT recipe calls for part cake flour and part bread flour, but I just use all Halbweissmehl and be done with it. Texture still comes out great.
• Speaking of flour... if you're buying in Switzerland, make sure you get Halbweissmehl, not Weissmehl ;) Otherwise you'll get puffy little cakes instead of chewy cookies!

Pumpkin muffins

Adapted from Pumpkin Muffins II from allrecipes.com:

• 1 cup pumpkin puree
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1/3 cup coconut oil
• 2 eggs
• dash of vanilla
• dash of molasses
• 1-1/2 cup flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp each of cloves, cinnamon, ginger
• dash of allspice

Beat together wet ingredients: pumpkin, sugar, oil, eggs, vanilla, molasses.

Sift together dry ingredients: flour, soda, powder, salt, spices.

Gently combine.

Spoon into paper-lined muffin tins.

Bake 175C for ~25mins.
Makes 12 muffins.

Ideas for variations: maple syrup! Bet that would be yummy.

Thai Red Curry(ish)

Thai Red Curry(ish)

Just put all this together in a pot one day, and it looked kind of like how I remember red curry looking. It was delish!!

Ingredients

Coconut oil
Beef - sliced
Garlic - half of a head, pressed
Red chilis - those little hard ones. 2 or 3 (to taste), finely diced
Mushrooms - handful of white button mushrooms, sliced
Coconut milk - 200ml or 250ml (something like that, didn't measure precisely)
Fish sauce
Red curry paste - generous spoonful
Lemon grass - a few (whole)

Thai basil - to taste, chopped
Green beans - heaping handful
Red bell pepper - one big one or two small

Lime - juice from one half during cooking, the other half for garnish
Cilantro - garnish

Rice

Method

Fry the beef in coconut oil until brown.
Turn down the heat and add garlic and chilis (and more oil if needed). Let them saute a little.
Add the mushrooms. Let them cook down a little.
Add coconut milk, a small dash of fish sauce, and the red curry paste. Stir well.
Add a little more water if necessary to thin, and add lemon grass.
Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to simmer and let this stew for a while so the flavors blend.

At Time(to eat) - Time(to cook rice), start the rice. In a separate pot, of course.

To the stew, add thai basil, green beans, bell pepper, and juice from half of a lime. Cook until veggies are desired tenderness (10-20 mins, depending on whether you like crisp or mushy).

Serve with stew spooned over rice. Garnish with cilantro and juice from the other lime half.

Substitutions

• Chicken for beef
• Broccoli, carrots, zucchini for the veggies
• Soy sauce or tamari for the fish sauce (if you skip the fish sauce, consider adding shrimp)
• Reduced fat coconut milk for regular coconut milk
• Olive oil for the coconut oil (but you should get some coconut oil to have at home! Trust me, you won't regret it)

Notes

• Note that there's no separate listing for salt -- there's a ton of it already from the fish sauce! If you want to add more salt, go for it, but definitely wait until all the other ingredients are added first and then taste it, to avoid over salting.
• Thai red curry paste should be easily found at any sufficiently large or international grocery store. Something like this product.
• If you buy the right kind, you can one with get simple, natural ingredients.
• In spite of the name, there is no curry in it.