The German version of Mac'n'Cheese?!
Originally it was planned to make enchiladas but we didn't have all the ingredients, so we went for the next best option: Kaese Spaetzle! It's a German specialty consisting of homemade pasta in a thick cheese sauce. Well, traditionally it's obviously supposed to be cow cheese but by now y'all should know that I'm not going to be a dumbass and use cow cheese :)
My Mom started preparing the dough for the pasta (for 4 people) by mixing 700 g (according to my online
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| Spaetzle maker (Google) |
converter that's around 17.5 ounces) of spelt flour, 700 ml (~ 3 cups) of water (it was a little bit too runny so you might want to use a bit less), 2 tablespoons more of spelt flour (you can also use corn starch or any other kind of flour of course), a pinch of salt, pepper and a few tablespoons (just try until it starts to taste a bit like something) of dried vegetable broth. Then moving on to the cheese sauce I poured some rice milk into a frying pan, because...well...because my Mommy told me to do so haha. I was quite skeptic if this was going to turn out anything like it's supposed to, because rice milk has a significantly lower level of fat than cow's milk or even soy milk. Since I didn't have soy milk I just had to use rice milk. You wait until the milk is boiling and then you sprinkle the (vegan) cheese (I used the same kind as I wrote about two posts ago) in the pan. I used about six slices of it and in the beginning it really didn't look too well, because it seemed like it didn't want to melt the way I needed it to. After waiting, stirring and letting it boil a while more it turned out quite gooey and cheesy! While working on the sauce you might want to get the water boiling for the Spaetzle. To make this kind of pasta you actually need a Spaetzle maker, but you can get one of those in pretty much every department store or you just improvise. Glazed onions taste really (and I mean REALLY) great with this meal also, so if you can live with shedding a few tears over this meal you should cut up some onions and
gently fry them in a pan. You place the Spaetzle maker on top of the pot of boiling water and just slice them right in there. Let them cook until they come swimming back on top and then put them in the sauce pan. Stir, season with salt, pepper, the onions & a few cut up tomatoes and TA DAAAAA you have some cheesy, traditional German Kaese Spaetzle with a hint of American Mac'n'Cheese.
I hope I don't bore you guys with these food posts. If you ever try this recipe I'd love if you would let me know how it went! Or not. That's fine too...
Seriously though, you won't regret trying this out!
Thanks for stopping by and I hope to see you around here again someday!
Katie Lynn :)
PS: This is where we got the idea btw and they have so many more awesome recipes! http://www.veganguerilla.de/kase-spatzle/
Since I usually go home for the weekends I get to enjoy some of my Mom's awesome food at least once a week. Yesterday she made her tomato salad (I looooove it!) as a side to their main course which was fish. I boiled, fried & seasoned some potatoes and added some of the salad to the pan when the potatoes were already pretty much done. I let it sit there just until the tomatoes were warm too. Then I got out a tortilla shell, filled it with potatoes & tomatoes, rolled it up and then topped it with some more (cold) tomato salad.
Some potatoes and salad were still left, so I decided to get one of the nori (seaweed) sheets out that I bought a while ago. They contain so much iodine, however, that it's recommended to only eat one sheet a day. I did the same as with the tortilla shell before, rolled it up and topped it with tomato salad. Admittedly, it looks kinda gross, but I promise it tastes a whole lot better than it looks. I like the sea-flavor the nori have, because I always liked eating fish before I went veggie.
These two meals were super easy and fast to make. However, the tomato salad was already done by my Mom so you would have to calculate that time in too. If you don't want to make a separate tomato salad though, you could just cut up a few tomatoes and throw it into the pan with the potatoes. Just don't put the tomatoes in too soon, because you don't want them to lose all their nutrients by heating them up too much.
Maybe you wanna try out this easy & vegan recipe some time :)
Katie Lynn :)
