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Chili con carne that feeds your extended family

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What you need (for 10+ people):

– 500 g chopped pork (or other meat you prefer)

– 2 super large onions

– 1 large carrot

– 1 paprika

– 5 cloves of garlic

– 400g canned or pureed tomatoes

– 40 g concentrated tomato

– 3 celery stalks

– 1 can of kidney beans

– 1 can of chickpeas

– 1 can of maize

– half a glass of water (if needed)

– a bit of olive oil

– half a teaspoon of cumin seeds

– half a teaspoon of dried chili

– half a teaspoon of sweet paprika powder

– half a teaspoon of smoked paprika

– half a teaspoon of powdered cinnamon

– half a teaspoon of dried parsley (or fresh one)

– half a teaspoon of dried oregano

– a pinch of cayenne pepper

– salt and normal pepper as needed

How to make:

First warning: you need a really large wok or a large pot for this one. It is an easy and forgiving dish, but takes about 2 – 3 hours to finish.

Chop everything up to small pieces before you start cooking, this will save you a ton of time.

Start by heating up cumin seeds and dried chili flakes in a large cast iron wok or skillet. If you have any trouble with your sinuses, then after doing this step, you won’t anymore. As the aroma rises, you will sneeze and cough all out for hours. A free medication. You are welcome.

Add a bit of olive oil into the wok, then add garlic and onions for a couple of minutes until they start to brown. Now, if you are using a wok, push them just up the sides and add the minced meat. (If you are using a pot, it might be better to take the garlic and onion out for a bit, so that they don’t burn. The recipe is written for a large cast iron wok,so you need to adjust accordingly. You can also use a dutch oven, but you need to cut the recipe down a bit to fit all the stuff.) When the minced meat is halfway cooked, add the carrot and celery pieces. Let them fry on a medium or high heat for some minutes, then add the tomato paste, mix well. Add all the other spices, mix well and heat for another couple of minutes. Add the beans( you can add with liquid), then your canned or pureed tomatoes and around 100 ml of water. Mix well, cover and let it simmer on low to medium heat for around 1 hour. You need to check the heat regularly and stir the mixture. If it gets too thick and starts to stick on the bottom, add more water or lower the heat. After around one hour, add in the paprika and maize, let the mixture simmer for another 20-30 minutes, salt and pepper to taste and it is ready to serve with rice or french fries or just a spoonful of sour cream.

Despite its name, this chili con carne has not the biting chili taste, but should attain a super comforting warmth that heats you from inside out. Also, you need to adjust all the spices to your preferences, so have fun and go crazy with it!

How much does it cost:

With the prices rising, this one will rack up the costs fast, but on the positive side: the amount feeds a legion. Chopped pork comes around 2,5 euros, onions at 20 cent, carrot at 10 cent, paprika at 50 cent, garlic at 30 cent, canned tomatoes 1,3 euro,canned beans 1 euro, canned maize 1 euro, concentrated tomato 50 cent, olive oil 20 cent, all other ingredients around 2 euro total. This makes it around 10 euros.

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Easy Pear Dessert

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What you need (for 2):

– 1 large and soft pear

– 2 tablespoons of brown sugar

– 1 tablespoon of unsalted butter

– 1 shot of rhum

– nuts , ice cream or what you like for garnish

How to make:

The secret for this one is a soft pear. If your pears are hard, don’t bother. So, cut the pear in half and take the core away. Melt your butter in a heavy pan, add sugar and mix a minute or two until you get a „melted“ consistence. Add the pear into the pan and fry it 2 minutes from one side and 2 minutes from the other side, while stirring the sugar mix – it should not burn or stick to the pan. Throw a shot of rhum into the pan, wait for the alcohol to evaporate and serve the hot pear immediately. You can garnish it or serve it with vanilla ice – but if your pear and sugar mix is good, it won’t need any additions.

How much does it cost:

Maybe 30 cents for a pear, 30 cents for rhum, 30 cents for sugar and butter, so you come away for under 1 euro for this dish.

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Estonian summer dessert with a secret ingredient

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Frozen kama yoghurt

What you need:

– 3 large tablespoons of Greek style yogurt ca 10% fat)

– 1 teaspoon of coconut sugar

– 1 teaspoon of kama

– fresh berries or marmalade to taste and garnish

How to make:

Summer is truly here and chances are, that you get guests from the city who want to relax in the lovely countryside with rose bushes, rapeseed and rye fields. This means trying out some fast and cheap summer classics, because these visits always tend to come as a surprise.

So, take the tiniest bowls you have or just creme brulee forms. Mix together the yogurt, kama and coconut sugar, top with berries, mint or what you like and put it in a freezer for 5 minutes (to get it cold) to 20 minutes (to make it frozen). Serve and enjoy!

How much does it cost:

At current prices, you can get 500g of Greek yogurt at some 1,3 euros. You will need only 3 tablespoons, which is not more than 70 – 100g at most – so this is around 20 cents, kama is less than 10 cents, so is coconut sugar. You top it with berries or jam just lying around lazily in your garden or fridge anyway, so this way you get a cold dessert, which will cost you less than 50 cents.

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Crispy ground elder appetizer

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The spring has arrived and this usually brings an influx of hungry guests to the countryside. Sure, usually it will be grilled meat and bread and some salad as a side, but sometimes the weather is too bad to get out that grill and you have also forgotten to stock up your fridge.

What then? Lucky for you, you still have copious amounts of ground elder (Aegopodium podagraria L. Or just plain naat in Estonian) growing in the garden and can whip out a crispy appetizer which I would describe as a love child of potato chips, omelette and fried fish – all in the form of that unassuming weed.

What you need:

– handful of ground elder leaves – as much as you need

– 1 egg

– 2 tablespoons of potato starch

– tablespoon of ice cold water

– pinch of salt

– 1-2 teaspoons of oil

How to make:

All in all, the process takes maybe 5 minutes. Pick the ground elder in your garden or trusted forest – it grows everywhere. The younger the leaves, the better – old large leaves might leave a bitter aftertaste. First, wash your ground elder and sprinkle with a little salt, set aside. In a small bowl mix the egg, a bit of salt and cold water, then add the potato starch and mix until the clumps are gone. How thick or runny you want the batter, is up to you – but it should be thick enough so that the leaves get somewhat coated with it.

Heat the oil in a pan – the oil should be constantly hot enough that it starts to sizzle when you throw a water drop on it, otherwise you won’t get the crispy result.

Now put some of the leaves into the batter, coat them well and spread the leaves individually in the pan. Fry them 30 seconds on one side, then repeat with other side, until the batter gets that golden and crispy hue. Then take them out of the pan and put them on a paper towel for a second to get some of the extra grease out of them. Serve hot.

How much does it cost?

Egg is around 30 cents, the potato starch comes maybe up to -5-10 cents soaking wet, a tablespoon of oil would be the same. Ground elder is just a weed that grows free everywhere – so here you are serving your guests a large platter of a hot crispy snack which cost you around 50 cents.

What is ground elder?

If you have a garden in Estonia, then you have the naat or ground elder everywhere. It is considered largely as a nuisance weed at worst or animal feed at best. Still, it is edible and basically a free food source. Some people like to eat it raw in salads, but the taste in raw form is not considered good by any stretch of imagination by most: grassy, earthy, slightly bitter and with the distinct air of „yup, this is a weed“. However, once fried, boiled or otherwise cooked, it loses all that lingering bitterness and you can use it, as you would, say, use spinach.

Ground weed lovers maintain, that this weed is packed with iron, magnesium and vitamin C, has a herby taste, helps with digestion and cleanses the body and whatnot.

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Smoky lentil soup

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What you need:

– 30-50 g of smoked ham

– tablespoon of olive oil

– 100 g dried lentils

– 1 onion

– garlic

– 1 larger carrot

– 2 celery sticks

– dried herbs: parsley, oregano, chili, laurel leaves

– 3 tablespoons of white wine vinegar (or more)

– 1,5 litres of water

– half a teaspoon of vegetable or chicken broth cube

+ 1 very large potato (optional)

How to make:

Cut the ham into small pieces, set onto medium high heat to get the fat out, add chopped onion and garlic along with the oil. Cook for a minute, add the carrot, celery, lentils and herbs (if you use fresh ones, then add them later). Cook for 2 minutes, add the vinegar, then the water along with the broth cube. Cover and cook for around 20 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. You can add more vinegar in this step if you like the sour taste more.

How much does it cost?

Lentils about 60 cents, smoked ham around 90 cents, the rest not more than 1 euro total – you will get a healthy soup for 2,5 euros.

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The classic pea soup of vastlapäev

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What you need:

– 200-300 g of smoked fatty ham

– 300 g whole dried peas

– 50 – 100 g pearl groats

– water, as needed + a little salt

How to make:

Soak the peas in cold water overnight. In a large pot, throw the whole smoky ham, peas and pearl groats, cover with at least 2 litres of water – or more. Set on medium high fire and cook for around 1,5 hours, stir a couple of times, because the peas might gather on bottom and then your soup is burned. It is ready when the ham starts to disintegrate into smaller pieces and peas are soft enough for you. Salt, if necessary and enjoy!

How much does it cost:

Peas and groats are not more than 50 cents, ham around 2 euros – in total less than 3 euros for this soup!

This is the one eaten traditionally on vastlapäev, or fastelavn, faschnacht or such. You get it in restaurants, in schools and at home. There exist much more elaborate versions of this classic soup, with mustard and brandy and so much more, but this is the classic one that was made in my family.

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Lucky raisin rings

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What you need:

– 15-20 g fresh yeast

– 1 tablespoon of sugar

– 1 very large egg or 2 medium ones

– 300 g flour (or more, if needed)

– 200 ml fresh milk

– 75 g butter

– 150-200 g raisins

– a shot of rhum

– pinch of salt

How to make:

Mix sugar and yeast until it has turned into liquid. Add eggs and rhum and mix. Then add milk and strips or cubes of butter (you need to incorporate it later into batter, so the smaller you make it, the easier of a life you have). Mix lightly. Mix flour, salt and raisins and add to the mix. Start kneading, at least 5 minutes, if necessary, add more flour. The dough should feel like you could take parts of it and form it with your hand without getting your hands soiled with wet dough too much:) Leave the dough to rise for around 1 hour, until it has preferably doubled in size. Heat the oven to 200 degrees. Then take out the dough, take small pieces of it, roll them into long „snakes“ and pull them together into a ring.

You can leave them to second-rise for around 15 minutes.

Then bake for approximately 15 minutes – depending on how large rings you managed to make! And enjoy!

You can make the dough in the evening before and leave it to rise in the refrigeator & use in the morning. Nothing bad happens.

How much does it cost:

Eggs are around 30-40 cents, butter around 1 euro (how do the prices keep rising monthly?), raisins around 40 cents, everything else around 1 euro – so less than 3 euros total.

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Simple beet and cabbage soup

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What you need:

– 400 g red beet

– 400 g cabbage

– 1 large onion

– 5 cloves of garlic

– 3 tablespoons of apple vinegar or wine vinegar

– a bit oil for frying

– teaspoon of oregano

– teaspoon of parsley

– bay leaf

– 1,5 liters of vegetable stock

– salt and pepper to taste

– to make it more filling: smoky bacon, leftover meat etc

How to make:

Peel your red beet and grate it. Cut the cabbage into small pieces. Cut your onion and garlic into small pieces. If you use bacon, let the fat come out of it before you fry the garlic and onion and herbs in it, if you use a vegetarian route, fry these in a bit of oil. When the onion starts to turn golden, add shredded beet and cook for a couple of minutes, add the cabbage and stir for a minute or two. Add vinegar. Add hot vegetable stock (just throw in the vegetable stock cube and put hot water on top). Let the soup cook for half an hour under a lid. Salt and pepper to taste and enjoy with sour cream or a bit of Greek yogurt on top.

(You might want add more vinegar afterwards and it is ok. You will need more vinegar only if you eat the soup right away. After it has had time to sit around for a couple of hours, the taste comes out very nicely, so don’t pour too much vinegar into the mix if you plan to eat the soup later. This soup tastes best the next day!)

(Some like to put sugar into the soup to enhance the sweet and sour taste of this one, but I find, that the beet and cabbage are usually “sweet” enough to get that taste going.)

How much does it cost:

Since the red beet harvest was crazy last year, I haven’t looked up the red beet prices for months… The kilo price is around 70 cents in online shops, so you come out of it with some 30 cents, cabbage kilo is around 50 cents, so let’s make it 25 cents. Everything else will cost around 50 cents, too, so you will have a very nice amount of soup for less than 1 euro.

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Coq au vin with rare wild mushrooms

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What you need:

– ca 800 g chicken pieces with skin and bones (thigh, or half a chicken or whatever you get)

– 500 ml dry red wine

– 70 g unsalted butter

– 100 g smoky fatty bacon

– 1 carrot

– a shot of brandy

– 3 medium onions

– 5 cloves of garlic

– 2 tablespoons of flour

– 100 g dried mushrooms (chanterelle + parasol mushroom) (or, if you want the original recipe – go with normal fresh champignons, 100-200g,but then you need to fry them before you put them into the chicken mix)

– 300 – 400 ml chicken or vegetable or veal stock*

– rosemary (if dried, around 1 teaspoon)

– thyme (if dried, around 1 teaspoon) (or any herb you like)

How to make:

It is surprisingly easy to make and will succeed 100%, if you use the alcohol. The difficulty comes from setting aside enough time for this one, because it demands several steps.

In the evening before: chop the garlic cloves, thyme and rosemary (a bit of parsley etc what you like) and mix with half a liter of red wine. A decent wine will definitely improve on the taste, but well, I try to get a cheap one… Then put the chicken pieces into the mixture and massage for a bit. The wine should cover the chicken. Then put a cling film over the bowl and let it rest in refrigerator or in a cool place in your home overnight, the longer, the better. French recepies say at least 12 hours, so trust them.

Cooking day: Cube the bacon, chop the onion and carrots, set aside. Then take the chicken out of the marinade (leave marinade, you will need it!) and fry the pieces sharply in a bit of butter until both sides have browned a bit. It is not necessary to cook the chicken 100% through, but this frying gives it extra taste. Put the chicken aside.

In a large deep pan or dutch oven, or a large cast iron wok – trust me, you need the space – put the bacon cubes and fry on medium heat until the fat has come out and you are left with crispy bacon cubes. Add the onions and carrots, fry for a minute or two. Throw the shot of brandy on the mix and wait for a minute for the alcohol to evaporate. Then add the chicken marinade and vegetable stock* and let it cook for a couple of minutes until it starts to diminish. Then add the chicken pieces, cover and let the mixture simmer for around 1 hour.

Meanwhile, mix around 10-20g of butter with the flour into a small ball, set aside.

After 1 hour, take the chicken out of the mix and put the flour ball inside and stir the mixture until the sauce starts to thicken. Put the chicken back inside, cover and let it sit over a low heat for another 15-20 minutes which gives you ample time to get your bread, potatoes or noodles ready.

Enjoy!

If you have any leftover chicken left next day, then just put it into a pan, toss in half a glass of water and a bit of stock and you will have more chicken with sauce.

How much does it cost:

Wine is the real killer here in Estonia… even the cheapest wine tends to be around 4-5 euros, so this will be around 4 euros. Chicken on bargain could be around 2 euro, full price more like 4-5 euros. Butter comes at 1 euro. Bacon around 1 euro, carrot and herbs and stock still not more than 1 euro, add an euro if you need to buy champignons. So, in total it is around 9 euros and there is enough for 4 people. I managed to get a bargain and ended around 7-8 euros. These mushrooms, though… you need to get yourself anyway. I have never seen dried giant mushrooms on sale here. They taste like young veal meat. For dried chanterelles – the kilo price is somewhere around 300 euro, so you better go into the forest or go broke : ) Still, the taste will be very different to your normal coq au vin due to the wild mushrooms. Behold super expensive mushrooms:

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Rucola and beet salad

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What you need:

– 2 handfuls of fresh rucola

– 1 medium red beet

– 3 cloves of garlic

– teaspoon of olive oil

– 100 g greek cheese, goat cheese or similar

How to make:

Peel your red beet and cut into thin long stripes – the thinner, the better. Salt them lightly and set them aside. Finely chop the garlic. Then heat olive oil in a pan large enough to get all your beet in. Add the garlic and when this starts to brown, add the beet stripes. Fry for about 3-5 minutes or until they look like they start to char. The beet should still remain somewhat crispy!

In a large bowl, put the fresh rucola, add the fried beet strips with remaining oil and garlic, then top with goat cheese and enjoy!

This should be enough for 4 people… or 1 person if you want to make it your main meal – but then top with fried egg to make it even tastier.

How much does it cost:

If you need to buy everything, then about 1,5 euros!