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Apragh

By: Barakat Haji

Ingredients:

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  1. Cut the meat (either lamb or chicken) into small pieces.
  2. Add potatoes
  3. Add three cups of rice
  4. Add tomatoes
  5. Cut eggplant into four pieces
  6. Add zucchini
  7. Add onions
  8. Grind pepper
  9. Add Basil
  10. Slice one lemon
  11. Add one teaspoon of salt
  12. Add one teaspoon of black pepper
  13. Add a full head of garlic

Procedure:

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Pico de Gallo

By: Courtney Lawton

Ingredients:

  • 4 large tomatoes
  • 1 large onion, roughly chopped
  • 4 cloves of garlic, roughly chopped
  • 2 jalapeños, roughly chopped. If you want the salsa hotter, leave some of the vein and seeds with the chopped peppers; if you want your salsa milder, remove the veins and seeds from the peppers; if you’re really wimpy, only use 1/2 of a jalapeño.
  • handful of fresh cilantro, chopped
  • 3 tbsp. lime juice or more to taste
  • 1 tbsp. of chopped fresh oregano
  • 1 tsp. salt, or more to taste

Instructions:

  1. Boil water in a large sauce pan, and place the whole tomatoes in the pan for about 30-45 secs. Remove the tomatoes from the boiling water with a fork, and shock them under running cold water. The skins should split, and you can easily peel the tomatoes.
  2. Roughly chop the tomatoes.
  3. Dump the chopped vegetables into your food processor. Hit pulse 4-5 times, depending on how smooth you want your salsa.
  4. Adjust flavorings.

Calabacitas

By: Courtney Lawton

Serves 4

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Ingredients:

  • 4 slices of thick cut bacon, roughly diced
  • 1 tbsp. olive oil
  • 1 small onion, chopped
  • 2 cloves of garlic, minced
  • 2 small zucchini cut into half moons
  • 1 cup chopped roasted green chile (if you want the chile hotter, leave the seeds and veins in, otherwise, remove the seeds and veins when you peel and chop the chiles; if you live where you cannot get roasted green chile and you don’t have any in your freezer from the fall, use Bueno Autumn Roast frozen green chile or Hatch canned green chile)
  • 2 cups fresh corn cut from cob (or frozen corn)
  • 1 cup pinto or black beans, cooked or canned
  • 1/4-1/2 cup low sodium chicken broth (do not use bouillon cubes or full-sodium chicken broth because the stew will be too salty)
  • 1/2 tsp. ground cumin
  • 1 tsp. oregano, crumbled
  • Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:

  1. Fry the bacon in a dutch oven or a similar pot with a tight fitting lid.
    Drain the bacon on paper towels and reserve 1 tbsp. bacon fat, discarding the rest of the rendered fat.
  2. Add the olive oil to the bacon fat in the dutch oven, and heat it over medium/high heat. Add the onions, garlic, cumin, and oregano, and cook the onions until they are translucent by 1) reducing the heat to medium and 2) covering the pot to sweat the onions.
  3. Add the zucchini and roasted green chile. Stir the concoction well, and cover the pot, sweating the squash and chiles with the onions. Cook covered for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
  4. Add the corn and the beans. If the stew isn’t juicy enough, add 1/4-1/2 cup chicken broth, but not too much (it should NOT be soupy).
  5. Cook for 10 more minutes.
  6. Taste the stew, adjusting salt and pepper.
  7. Serve with flour tortillas and with some grated medium cheddar cheese sprinkled on top.

Eggplant Dolma

By: Lamya Ali

“All my recipes are from back home. We have a special dish that we make. We stuff the vegetables with rice and ground meat and we boil it until it’s done; we don’t need a lot of water in it. We just steam it after it boils. It’s a famous dish. We call it dolma.”

eggplantdolma

Ingredients:

  • 1 pound of rice
  • 1 pound of ground beef
  • medium yellow onion
  • clove of garlic
  • 2 tomatoes
  • 2 jalapeño peppers
  • 2 handfuls of parsley
  • handful of mint
  • salt and pepper
  • ½ cup of vegetable oil
  • 10 cored eggplants

Directions:

  1. Wash eggplants, cut off the tops and core them as much as possible. Place cored vegetables into salted water until stuffing is prepared.
  2. Finely chop onion, tomato, parsley, mint, peppers, and garlic; mix well with rice and ground beef in a deep bowl. Add salt, black pepper, and cooking oil into the bowl and mix well.
  3. Begin filling the eggplants. Do not overstuff as rice expands as it cooks.
  4. Place stuffed eggplants in upright position into a deep pot. If desired, eggplants can be capped with tomatoes or mushrooms. Fill up the pot with water until the tip of the eggplants. Cook first on high and then on medium heat for 35 to 40 minutes until rice in the stuffing is cooked.

Beef Salad with Styrian Pumpkin Seed Oil

By: Franz Blaha

franzblaha

Ingredients:

  • 10 oz. boiled beef (round roast )
  • 1 hard-boiled egg, chilled
  • 1 large white onion
  • 5 tbsp. Styrian Pumpkin Seed Oil (available at specialty stores)
  • 4 tbsp. apple cider vinegar
    • salt & Pepper

Directions:

Slice beef thinly. Finely chop the onion and add to a bowl. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Gently mix in the pumpkin seed oil and then add the vinegar at the end. Refrigerate covered for about 30 minutes; garnish with the hard-boiled egg.

Tafelspitz

By: Franz Blaha

“Tafelspitz is simply boiled beef with a variety of root vegetables, delicious broth, served with roasted potatoes, horseradish and chive sauce. It is an Austrian specialty, especially popular in Vienna, where it is on the menu of most restaurants. Grünauer’s in Kansas City has the best Tafelspitz within 500 miles of Lincoln.”

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Ingredients:

  • approx. 1.5 kg. beef brisket
  • beef bones, if desired
  • 1 bunch of root vegetables
  • ½ leek
  • 1 large onion with skin
  • 1 or 2 bay leaves
  • a few peppercorns
  • salt

Directions:

  1. Slice the unpeeled onion in half widthways and fry off the cut surfaces without fat until fairly well browned.
  2. Put approximately 3 qts. of water into a large pot. Add the root vegetables, leek, halves of onion, bay leaves and peppercorns and bring to a boil. Add the cleaned meat and bones and allow to cook until softened in gently simmering water, which will take around 2 ½ – 3 hours. Add more water as required and skim off any scum which comes to the surface.
  3. Season well with salt, but only after about 2 hours.
  4. Once the meat has softened, remove it from the pot and keep it warm in some of the liquid from the soup. Season the remainder of the soup again with salt to taste, and strain it. You may serve it with dumplings and freshly chopped chives as a starter.
  5. Slice the boiled beef by cutting across the direction of the meat tissue and arrange as preferred on pre-heated plates, or serve in the hot broth in a decorative soup tureen.

Serve with roasted potatoes, and horseradish sauce, green beans in a dill sauce, or creamed spinach and chive sauce. If the root vegetables are to be served at the same time, cook some of them separately to be served al dente.

Cooking time: approx. 2 ½ – 3 hours

Spaghetti Squash Au Gratin

By: John Doran

Recipe makes 6 servings

Ingredients:spaghetti-squash

  • 1 medium spaghetti squash
  • 3 tbsp. butter
  • 1 small yellow onion, very thinly sliced
  • 1 tsp. red pepper flakes
  • 1/4 tsp. garlic salt
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • 3/4 cup sour cream
  • 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

Directions:

Cut the spaghetti squash in half and remove the seeds. Place in a covered dish with a ¼ inch of water and microwave for 10 to 12 minutes. In a medium sized skillet over medium heat, add the butter, onions, red pepper, garlic salt, salt and pepper and cook until the onions are brown in color.

Using a fork, scrape the insides of the squash and transfer to a small bowl.  Mix the squash, onions, sour cream and half the cheese together and mix well. Transfer the mixture to a buttered baking dish and top with remaining cheese.

Place into an oven heated to 375º for 20-25 minutes. Put on broil in the last minute until golden brown on top.

Basil Pesto Cubes

By: John Doran

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“There’s nothing I like better than fresh basil. My wife makes pesto. She makes this and puts it in ice cubes so that when she wants one of these little pesto cubes, she just pops it out.”

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup fresh basil leaves
  • 1 to 3 cloves garlic
  • 1/3 cup pine nuts, walnuts, or hazelnuts (toasted)
  • 3 to 6 tbsp. Parmesan cheese (grated)
  • 1/2 tsp. salt, or to taste
  • 1/3 to 1/2 cup olive oil

Directions:

Finely chop together all dry ingredients in a food processor. Add olive oil gradually while food processor runs to make a thick paste. Serve at room temperature with any kind of hot pasta. The flavor is intense; a little goes a long way!

To freeze: Freeze in ice cube trays. When frozen, remove cubes and place in a resealable plastic bag, removing from the freezer as needed.