German Lentil Soup and Sausage with Onions

I proposed to my wife that I make one dish every week and do some research ahead of time, but we sort of ran out of time last week (now several weeks! - sorry about the late post) and she suggested this dish because it is “easy”. My cooking skills fall somewhere between horrible and non-existent with the exception of spaghetti (it’s damn good!) so this was not “easy”.  Also, I’m neurotic and get stressed out easily so I ending up pacing around the kitchen muttering a bunch of expletives to myself.  Honestly, I probably looked and sounded like a crazy person half way through the preparation.  In the future, my focus will be on quick meals – about a half hour or less- since honestly I don’t like spending this much time preparing dinner.

By the way that’s not me above- way too calm.

German Lentil Soup - This serves 6!

• 8 oz brown lentils
• 1 tbsp sunflower oil - We used olive oil
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 1 leek, finely chopped
• 1 carrot finely diced (seriously what’s the difference between chopped and diced)
• 2 celery sticks chopped
• 4 oz. of bacon
• 2 bay leaves
• 6 ¼ cups water
• 2 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
• 8 oz. frankfurter sliced
• salt and pepper

So I chopped up all the vegetables – carrots, leeks, celery onions, parsley- with the grace of a bull in a china shop – luckily no fingers were lost.  Onions make you cry a lot,  I mean a lot.  However, like most people I survived and all the vegetables were chopped, 3 cups of water was added instead of 6 ¼ since the lentils had already been soaked, and the lentils were dumped into the iron skillet and put into a boil for 45 minutes.     

Sausage With Onions - serves 4 to 5

• 3 tbls butter or margarine - Use butter, always butter
• 2 pounds pork sausage links
• 4 large onions sliced - really, 4 onions.  I used 1 since I was tired of sobbing but this probably could've used a 2nd one.
• 2 cups dry white wine - Germans really love wine in their food - no complaining:).

The second part of my dish was Sausage with Onions.  However, due to anxiety with all the ingredients in the above dish, I somehow mixed up hot dogs which were supposed to be used for the German Lentil Soup for sausage and ending up frying them out of order.  Not a big deal to fix, but the wife was not happy because she said she told me this but I wasn’t paying attention - story of our lives.  This was actually super easy if the selective listening hadn’t kicked in.  Really just melt the butter on the skillet, add the sausages to brown and then remove them to a plate.  Place the onions back into the skillet and saute them for a couple minutes and throw the white wine in and let simmer for 10 mins.  Once done grab a baking dish and place the sausages on top of the onions.  Throw into the oven at 375 degrees for about 20 minutes (30 minutes if you do the full recipe).  

Eventually, the lentils finished steaming and the sausage with onions baked and we had a happy household dinner – minus the 3 year old who doesn’t eat anything but 4th of July food.  My wife even said it was “pretty good.”  Personally, I thought it was a pretty solid meal too!

Chicken with Bratwurst and Noodle Pudding

This was a spectacularly easy meal to make and spectacularly unhealthy. Spectacular!

But honestly, this was a heavy meal and I could see this being served at Wurstfest for a bunch of drunks.  No offense to drunks, they're my favorite people! They find me hilarious and think I'm a great dancer. And by "they" I mean myself. When I'm drunk I think I'm the next Amy Schumer and MJ, r.i.p.

 Chicken with Bratwurst

8 chicken breasts. I used four.

8 bratwurst, with the skin removed. I used four.

2 slightly beaten eggs

2 tbsps water

1 1/2 cups flour mixed with salt, pepper, and paprika

1/2 cup margarine. Margarine is gross, use butter. I don't care what this recipe says! Did you know that margarine is one molecule away from being plastic? And keep in mind, any site debunking this fact is backed by big margarine *adjusts tin foil hat*

1/2 cup dry sherry

Preheat oven to 350. Flatten the chicken breasts with a mallet. Place a sausage on each breast and roll tight. Tie with a string. I didn't do this, I just fried the seam first. Dip the breasts into the beaten egg with water, then dredge with seasoned flour. In a large skillet, brown the stuffed breasts in margarine (BUTTER). Place into a casserole dish, pour drippings from the skillet over the chicken breasts, and add sherry. Cover and bake for an hour.

Noodle Pudding

1 pound wide egg noodles, cooked according to package. I used one 16 oz package.

1/2 cup melted butter

5 eggs, well beaten. I used two because, really? FIVE EGGS?

2 cups sour cream

S&P to taste

1/2 cup grated Swiss cheese

1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese

Butter a casserole dish. In a bowl, toss the noodles with butter. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs with sour cream until very smooth. Fold in the cheese. Pour over the noodles, toss, and put into the casserole dish. Bake for 45-50 minutes until firm or golden brown.

If I had the Photoshop skills, I'd insert a Doge meme here. Just fyi

Wow. So much fry. 

No fooling, so.much.fry. I could feel the oil seeping into my pores when frying the chick-wurst (no one take that name, it's mine!). And all that meat! No one needs all that meat! The chick-wurst is such a great example of privilege. I don't mean to get all political here but seriously! When you are in a position to stuff one meat with another meat for a fun meal, you don't have real problems in life. Just sayin'...

The egg noodles, regardless of the fact that mine were 'yolk free' were super yum! And let's go back to that 'yolk free' mess. I didn't realize I bought basically non-egg noodles until I was making this meal, I just grabbed whatever bags I saw. Had I been paying attention, I never would have done that (story of my life). Yolk free egg noodles are like gluten free bread or tofurkey, it ain't right! I get why we have these alternatives but the fact that they exist makes me so sad. 

This meal was so filling, I drank some Oban Scotch with the hopes that it would burn the food out of me. It worked, a little. 

Thank goodness the next week is Myanmar. My body needs some roughage

Kohlrabi Baked with Ham, Bavarian Potato Dumplings, and Poached Celery

So this was an unexpectedly tasty meal. Poached celery? Kohlrabi? Potato dumplings? On their own, they sound pretty bland but they all worked well together. It also helped that a good amount of butter was involved. Butter is good.

Kohlrabi Baked with Ham

4 tbsp butter

4 kohlrabi, peeled and diced. I used three because I thought it would be enough but after peeling, there isn't a lot of actual fiber. Also, did you know that it gets its name from the German word for cabbage "kohl" and turnip "rabi"? Interesante!

8 oz thick ham, diced. I used sandwich meat because, honestly, I already had it in my basket for the Chicken Theresa. Then I went to the deli to get ham for this recipe but there was some lady at the counter, ordering like a bazillion different meats, and I was over it. I was RBFing all over that deli!

2 tbsps chopped parsley

There's a sauce

3 egg yolks

1 cup double cream. I ran out of double cream so I used sour cream and it was fine.

2 tbsps plain flour

Pinch of mace

S&P to taste

Preheat the oven to 350. Melt the butter in a large pan and cook the kohlrabi for 8-10 minutes. Hey, be adventurous, cook it for 11 minutes. Arrange half of the kohlrabi at the bottom of a greased casserole dish, top with ham and parsley, and finish with remaining kohlrabi. Beat the sauce ingredients together and pour over the kohlrabi and ham. Bake for 30-35 minutes. Serve hot.

Bavarian Potato Dumplings

Real conversation with my husband:

Me: Isn't Bavaria, like, Germany?

Husband: Bavaria is a state in Germany. Hitler had a home there.

Me: I didn't ask for a history lesson!

3 lbs potatoes, peeled. I used half a pound because I didn't need that many dumplings.

2/3 cup semolina. I thought I had semolina so I didn't buy any but when getting my ingredients together, I realized I didn't. So I didn't use semolina and I made a mental note to look through my pantry before getting my grocery list together.

1 cup wholemeal flour. "Wholemeal" is non-American speak for "Whole Wheat" thanks Google!

1/4 tsp nutmeg

2 tbsps sunflower oil. No sunflower oil so I used sesame.

2 thin white bread slices, crusts removed, cubed. We only eat whole wheat bread because we're elitists so I couldn't make my own and the only croutons I could find at the store were either seasoned or came in a bag of like two pounds so I didn't include this in my dumplings.

6 1/4 cups beef stock. Um, I used maybe two because I wasn't making dumplings to feed an army.

Ground black pepper

Parsley and bacon to garnish

Cook the potatoes in a large pan of boiling, salted water, for 20 minutes. Drain well, then mash and press through a sieve into a bowl. Add the semolina, flour, salt, a little pepper, and the nutmeg. Mix well. Fry the cubes of bread until light golden brown. Drain on a paper towel. Divide the potato mixture into 24 balls (um, no, I made ten). Press a few of the fried croutons into each dumpling. Bring the stock to a boil, add the dumplings, and cook for five minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon and serve with parsley, bacon, and the recipe calls for a jug of butter. A JUG OF BUTTER. Hope you don't have high cholesterol.

 Poached Celery

4 celery hearts. I used one. It's celery! I wasn't taking chances.

2 tbsp butter

1 cup dry wine. I like to use the four packs of wine for cooking. Each bottle is 187 ml and perfect for single dishes!

S&P to taste

1 tbsp chopped parley. I didn't use this.

Grated cheese. I used Swiss, because that's what I had, but the recipe calls for a harder cheese.

Clean the celery and trim the ends. Really clean the celery because unless you're eating organic celery, celery is one of the most pesticide and dirt laden vegetables out there. Everything pools at the bottom so you want to make sure you scrub the crap out of it, literally. Cut the hearts half lengthways. Blanch the celery in a pan of boiling salted water for 5 minutes. Drain and rinse under cold water. Pat dry. Melt the butter in a frying pan and gently cook for 1-2 minutes. I cooked mine in the bacon fat left over from the dumplings. Pour in the wine and bring to a boil; reduce the heat to a simmer. Cook uncovered for 5 minutes. Drain well. Sprinkle with parsley, pepper, and serve with cheese on top.
 

I'd never eaten kohlrabi before so I read up on it beforehand. Everything I read implied that it was similar to a turnip and I agree that it was in texture but the flavor was so much sweeter. It reminded me of something else but I still can't put my finger on it (update: it's broccoli!). This dish would have probably benefited from larger ham pieces but for a quick substitution, the sandwich slices worked. The little one picked out all the ham so next time I make this, I need to use larger chunks.

The dumplings were surprisingly light and flavorful; I think this was due to using whole wheat flour and the bit of nutmeg. I'm not a big fan of dumplings but I do love potatoes. Like, I loooove potatoes. My dream wedding cake was tiered mashed potatoes with florets made from cheese. For some reason everyone was against this idea. You know why? Because people hate dreamers! Where was I? Dumplings. Dumplings are basically balls of dough but these balls of dough had mashed potatoes and, I mean, I just explained my adoration of mashed potatoes. So I obviously loved these.

The biggest surprise was the celery because, c'mon! It's celery! Celery is never interesting and it's the poster child for negative calories. Can't you see it? Celery and lettuce, back to back, with the caption "We're a waste of space!" Literally. But this dish wasn't! I mean, yes, it was covered in cheese and bacon grease but still, bet you never thought celery could be this good!

So on a scale of, to quote my daughter "Yuck!" and "Lawd, just rip my stomach out right now cause ain't no way I'm ever eating this good again!" this meal was right in the middle. Right at "This meal was delicious!" which isn't a bad place to be. I'm looking at you, Liver Casserole!

Breast of Chicken Theresa, Sardine Fritters, and Cabbage Salad

First things first: if you're watching your fried food intake, step away from this meal. It's not for you.

Secondly, I don't get the name of the chicken dish. Like, is the chicken named Theresa? Or should it just be Chicken Theresa? No se. (that's Spanish for "I don't know")

This was my favorite meal by far! Everything was amazing and even though two of the dishes were fried, I didn't hate myself afterwards. There are some meals that do that! They're so good but you know they aren't good FOR you and you're left with conflicting feelings of joy and remorse but not this meal. It was, literally, all good.

Also, all these recipes came from the All Along the Danube cookbook.

Breast of Chicken Theresa 

6 chicken breasts

 

6 thin slices of ham, baked or boiled. I used sandwich meat

.

6 slices Swiss cheese. When making my grocery list, I forgot to add I needed slices so I ended up buying shredded cheese. It still worked out well.

1 beaten egg

1 cup flour

3 tbsps butter

1 chopped onion

1/2 lb small mushrooms. I sliced mine because I thought it would be easier for the girls to eat them 

sliced than whole.

1/2 cup dry wine

1 cup heavy cream

S&P to taste

Cut the breasts in half and pound them with a mallet so they're even sized. Cut the ham and cheese slices so they're the same size at the breasts. Place ham and cheese slices in between two filets and sprinkle with S&P. Moisten the edges of the filets with the egg to keep them together. Dredge the breasts in flour and shake off excess. Melt the butter in a pan and saute the filets for 10-12 minutes on one side, flip and saute the other side for 5. Remove to a platter and keep warm. Place the onion and mushrooms in the same pan and add the wine. Cook until liquid is reduced by half. Add the cream, stir, and coon until thickened. Pour over the chicken and serve.

Hot Sardine Fritters

3/4 cup seasoned breadcrumbs

1/3 cup water, more if needed

4 tins skinless sardines. I used two.

1 tbsp minced scallions

2 cloves garlic, mashed

1 tbsp minced parsley

1/4 tsp oregano

1/4 tsp thyme

1 cup yellow cornmeal

2 cups oil

3 sliced lemons

In a bowl, combine breadcrumbs and water so crumbs are barely moistened. Drain the sardines but reserve the oil. In another bowl, mash the sardines with a fork and then combine with the breadcrumbs. Add the Sardine oil, scallions, garlic, parsley, S&P, oregano, and thyme. Blend thoroughly, forming a smooth mixture. Shape into golf ball sized fritters and roll in the cornmeal. Heat about one inch of oil in a skillet and fry fritters until they are brown on all sides. Serve hot with lemon wedges.

Cabbage Salad

1 head cabbage, shredded

1 small onion, diced

3/4 cup sugar

2/3 cup oil

2/3 cup vinegar

1 tsp dry mustard

1 tsl celery seeds

2 tsp brown sugar

In a bowl, mix the cabbage, onion, and sugar and let stand for one hour. In a saucepan, combine the remaining ingredients and bring to a boil. Pour over the cabbage. Cool until lukewarm and refrigerate 2-3 hours.

Everything was so good! The chicken was crisp on the outside and gooey on the inside because of the cheese. I had expected the sauce to be very rich but it was perfection! I was a little worried about the sardine fritters because sardines are very fishy but the taste was very sublime. And the cabbage! The cabbage was sweet but not in a bad way. It was sort of like a cole slaw. And everything went together amazingly. It was a fast, easy, delicious meal. My favorite!

Smoke Pork Chops with Spiced Red Cabbage, Spatzle, and Black Forest Cherry Cake

So based on the title of this post, you can tell I was a little ambitious with this meal. This was our second German meal for the week but it should have been our third. My husband, James, prepared the first meal and will be posting about it someday and I was too tired the second day to cook. Our oldest came home early from school with a fever, which required a doctor's appointment, and after doing all that I was beat. I can't even remember what we ate that night.. For this meal, we had dinner guests so I kinda went a little crazy with the cooking.

What I learned from this meal and throughout the rest of the week is that German food isn't as labor intensive as the others. The food looks a lot more complicated than it actually is. That's not to say I still didn't mess up, I totally did, but it still worked out well.

I also didn't take many pics. The oldest kiddo was home because she still had a slight fever from the day before and like a good mother, I put her to work in the kitchen. What's that saying? Feed a cold, make your slightly feverish three year old work in the kitchen since it's better than allowing her brain to turn to mush by watching cartoons all day? I think I saw that on a t-shirt once.

Ingredients for Smoked Pork Chops. For this recipe I used All Along the Danube: Recipes from Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria. I've had this book for years but the recipes I tried out last week were all new ventures.

6 thick smoked pork chops (1 1/2 - 2 inches thick)

1 large onion, sliced

1 chopped tomato

2 cups boiling water

1 tbsp butter

2 tbsps flour

1/2 cup sour cream

Salt and pepper to taste

There's also a stuffing

1 cup finely chopped apples

4 tbsps bread crumbs

1/2 cup finely chopped walnuts. I thought I had walnuts but when I got my ingredients together, I realized I didn't, so my stuffing didn't have walnuts.

2 tbsps melted butter

1/4 cup seedless raisins

1/4 tsp allspice

Mix all the ingredients together.

Preheat the oven to 375. Make a deep incision in each chop and fill with with the stuffing. Secure with a toothpick. In a baking pan, spread the onion and tomato and place the chops over them. Cover and bake for a half hour. Uncover, add 1 cup boiling water and bake an additional 40-50 minutes. Add more water as needed. Strain the liquid from the pan and puree it in a blender. In a pan, melt the butter, add flour, and cook for 1 minute. Add the puree, sour cream, and S&P to taste. Pour over the chops.

Oh hey, what do you know? My husband did take a pic of the chops before they went into the oven. Teamwork!

Spiced Red Cabbage. For the remaining recipes, I used Russian, Polish, and German Cooking

The recipe says to cook this a day in advance. I just saw that. I really should learn how to read things more thoroughly.

3 thick rindless bacon rashers, diced. What are rashers? Strips of bacon. Now you have a new word when you want to sound fancy and educated.

1 large onion, chopped

1 large red cabbage, shredded

3 garlic cloves, crushed

1 1/2 tbsp caraway seeds

1/2 cup water

2 firm, ripe pears, cored and chopped

juice of 1 lemon

2 cups red wine

3 tbsp red wine vinegar

3/4 cup honey

S & P

Fry the bacon until brown and stir in the onions. Cook for five minutes. Stir in the cabbage, garlic, caraway seed, and the water. Cover and cook for 8-10 minutes. Season with S&P then add the pears, lemon juice, red wine, and vinegar. Cover and cook for 10-15 minutes. Stir in honey.

The Spatzle

3 cups plain flour

1/2 tsp salt

2 eggs beaten

1 cup water and milk combined

1 tbsp sunflower oil. I used sesame because, as usual, I thought I had something but it turned out to be something else.

2 tbsp melted butter

Serve with bacon (I didn't)

Sift the flour and salt in a bowl and make a well in the center. Add the eggs and enough of the milk/water to make a very soft dough. Beat the dough until it develops bubbles (this was hard for me since I have zero upper body strength. I got tired) and then stir in oil and beat again. Bring a large pan of salted water to boil.

So, you can do the next part two ways: the book way or the easy way. The book way requires wetting a chopping board, placing the dough on it, and shaving strips of the dough into the water. The easy way requires using a spatzle maker. My husband's grandmother let me borrow hers when I mentioned I was making spatzle and it was awesome! You just pour the dough into the little box and slide it. Easy peasy! Either way, you boil the spatzle for three minutes and then remove to a warm plate. Drizzle melted butter on top.

The Black Forest Cherry Cake

7 oz plain chocolate, broken into squares

1/2 cup unsalted butter

3 eggs separated

1/2 cup soft dark brown sugar

3 tbsp Kirsch. Kirsch is a kind of brandy, which I did not want to buy or look for, so instead I found a substitute: apple juice. Yay!

2/3 self raising flour, sifted

1/2 cup ground almonds

For the filling and topping

2 1/2 oz plain chocolate

2 1/2 oz plain chocolate flavored cake covering. I think they mean frosting...

3 tbsp Kirsch

15 oz can stoned black cherries, drained and juice reserved

2 1/2 cups double cream, lightly whipped. To make whipped cream, just pour the cream in a bowl, add a few spoonfuls of sugar, and beat that thing with a mixer. Or buy it. Whatever, I don't know your life.

12 fresh cherries with stalks

Preheat the oven to 350 and grease a deep 8 inch round cake pan. Melt the chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl over simmering water. Funny story: as I put the batter into the oven, my daughter said "What this Momma?" and held up the stick of butter. I read over the recipe and realized I hadn't mixed the butter with the chocolate. I quickly grabbed the pan out of the oven, poured out the batter, melted the butter, mixed it with the batter, poured the batter back in, and put it in the oven. Don't do that...Remove the melted chocolate from the heat and leave until barely warm.

Whisk the egg yolks and sugar in a bowl until very thick and then fold in the chocolate and the Kirsch. Fold in the flour with the ground almonds. Whisk the eggs whites in a bowl until stiff and then fold into the mixture. Pour the mixture into the greased pan and bake for forty minutes.

Allow the cake to cool for 5 minutes and then turn out on a wire rack. Use a long serrated knife to cut the cake into 3 even layers.

Meanwhile, make the chocolate curls. Melt the chocolate and cake covering (frosting) in a heatproof bowl over simmering water. Cool for 5 minutes and then pour on a board to set. Using a potato peeler, shave off thin curls.

Mix the Kirsch with the reserved cherry juice. Place the bottom layer of the cake on a serving plate and sprinkle with 3 tablespoons of the Kirsch syrup. Spread one-third of the whipped cream over one layer and scatter half of the cherries. Place the second layer on top and repeat with another third of the Kirsch syrup, cream, and cherries. Place the final layer on top and sprinkle the remaining cream and syrup on top. Top with fresh cherries and chocolate curls.

So this is what my cake looked like in the oven

I was like "It'll be fine, it'll be fine!" It was not fine. You see that hump? Well, when I turned it out, it turned out it was concave. Yep, I had a chocolate cake bowl. So I did what any normal person would do: I filled it with cherries and whipped cream. Success! I am not good at baking, obviously.

Aside from that pretty big hiccup, the meal was fantastic! The spaztle had a nutty taste, due to the sesame oil, and I think I'll continue making it that way. The pork chops and sauce were super yummy! The sauce thickened a little too much but I still enjoyed it. The cabbage was also really good and I just remembered that I had some the next day and it was even better then. Maybe that's why you should let it sit a day...my cake turned into one big brownie and that's never a bad thing.