1. A method for speech recognition in mismatched environments, the method comprising: extracting time—frequency speech features from a series of reference speech elements in a first series of sampling windows; aligning the extracted time—frequency speech features in response to reference speech elements from the series of speech elements that are not of equal time span duration; constructing a common subspace for the aligned extracted time—frequency speech features; determining a first set of coefficient vectors for the aligned extracted time—frequency speech features; extracting a time—frequency feature image from a test speech stream spanned by a second sampling window; approximating the extracted time—frequency feature image in the common subspace for the aligned extracted time—frequency speech features with a second coefficient vector; computing a similarity measure between the first set of coefficient vectors and the second coefficient vector; determining if the similarity measure is below a predefined threshold; and wherein a match between the reference speech elements and a portion of the test speech stream spanned by the second sampling window is made in response to a similarity measure below a predefined threshold.