Lentils+Barley

This is one in a series of typical lunch-or-dinner dishes I'm making these days. It has every chance of being vegan - just substitute the stock cube with actual vegetable stock (more effort) or seasonings and soy sauce (the simplest way to go). 

WHAT YOU NEED

- 2 onions
- 4 clove garlic
- ginger (hard to measure it - I just chop off a branch, peel it, and take a few slices)
- 1 cup pearl barley
- 1 cup green lentils
- 1 pack (can or carton - ca. ½ kilo) tomato puree, chopped tomatoes or something along these lines (fresh tomatoes will always be better)

- sunflower or canola oil (this can be substituted with any other fat, like lard or butter)
- 1 stock cube


WHAT YOU DO

1. Boil the lentils in salted water (will take ca. 30 mins) 
2. Peel the onions and quarter them. Saute them on hot oil together with garlic and ginger. 
3. Add the cooked lentils, stock cube and tomato puree. 
4. Boil the barley (will take ca. 15 mins). 
5. Once the barley is cooked, combine everything.

SPOTYKACH

Spotykach is a Ukrainian nastoyanka (sort of tincture) liqueur. This recipe I've tested a couple of times already. With a very intensive taste of spices, it makes either a nice gift or a treat for your guests in the Christmas season.

SPOTYKACH

1/2 tbsp cinnamon 1 tbsp clove 1/2 tbsp saffron (not sure if this amount changes anything, possibly one could try and skip it) 10 g nutmeg 20 g vanilla (actually I normally use vanillin sugar which is cheaper) 1/2 l vodka 2 glasses sugar

For 2-4 weeks infuse the spices in vodka and shake the substance everyday. Then filter it through gauze (or whatever fabric). The original recipe I used advised to boil the whole thing after filtering and then filter it again, which I never did, and it was still fine.

Russian Vinegret or Beetroot Salad

Vinegret is a long tradition and there are many recipes varying in details. What you find below is a good vinegret optimised for the availability and cost of ingredients in Hamburg.
(No, this has nothing to do with the vinaigrette sauce.)

 WHAT YOU NEED

- 1 pack sour cabbage (Weinsauerkraut) - €0.39
- 1 jar beetroot (Rote Bete) - €0.39
- 1 big Asian carrot - ca. €0.45 - otherwise you may buy 0.5 kilo regular carrot but there's more peeling involved
- 1 kilo potato - ca. €1
- a few onions (I'm thinking ca. 0.5 kilo)

- sunflower or canola oil (you'll need this for the onions, plus some veggies are worth anything only in the presence of fat - in fact this can be substituted with any other fat, like lard (Schmalz) or butter)
- olive oil (it's not super necessary but the taste is better) 
- soy sauce (a few drops enhance the taste - again it's not crucial but worth it)

Estimated total cost: €3 for a bloody big bowl of relatively healthy nosh.

WHAT YOU DO 

1. Peel the carrot(s), slice into a few big chunks (or don't slice if you've already bought small carrots and gone through lots of peeling) and boil them until tender. Remove them from the water (don't get rid of the water) and cube them (I wouldn't care about perfect cubes). 
2. Put the potatoes into your already boiling after-carrot water (and boil them until tender obviously). 
NOTE! I normally don't peel potatoes (they're tastier this way and there's less work involved). Check if your potatoes can be eaten unpeeled. Mind you can peel the potatoes even after the boiling and it's super easy then - basically you can do it with hand. 
3. Peel the onions and quarter them. Saute them on hot oil. 
NOTE! No reason to cube them. If you just quarter them, it's a minimum amount of work and they'll be tastier then. They'll defragment further in the sauteing anyway. 
4. Stir carrots, potatoes, onions, beetroot (I normally slice it additionally), and cabbage. Spill some olive oil and soy sauce. Stir. 
5. Basically it's ready to eat the moment you've mixed the ingredients but after a few hours the taste gets more mature.