Pretzel Bread

Flash back to New Years Day 2012 (or 2011? It's since become a tradition). Tara and Jen hosted a feast featuring Jen's Grandmother's sauerkraut, slow-cooked pork, and homemade pierogies. Tara had just been gifted an awesome bread machine from her brother and sister-in-law, and was on the prowl for a solid bread machine recipe that would coordinate with this very Eastern European and German themed meal. Was this event perhaps foreshadowing the creation of Ms. Schnitzel?

Now without even getting into how incredible this holiday meal was, let's just focus on the present moment. Pretzel bread. But, oh please make pierogies from scratch sometime! There may even be a recipe in store for you down the road! Wink, wink.

This, our friends, was a winner:

http://likeabubblingbrook.com/2010/06/how-to-make-authentic-pretzel-bread/

The bread machine makes it oh-so-simple. EXCEPT…

The first time Tara made it, she was not familiar with her bread machine settings and set it to a baking mode with the intentions of catching it after kneading and rising, but before it started baking. Well, we know how these things go when preparing for a feast. You get distracted by little odds and ends like, say, helping to make pierogi dough and filling, shaping those adorable little dumplings, etc. Furthermore, she made a full recipe rather than splitting it in half. The end result? A very large, very TALL loaf of bread. Still delicious, but no festive braid and so much bread that after six people had at it and divided the leftovers, there was still much bread to be had.

Moral to the story? Know your dough setting, listen to the recipe when it suggests cutting it in half for a smaller crowd, and if you're super stressed or don't have a bread machine, go ahead and knead it by hand! Just make sure to let it rest in a warm place under a towel until it has nearly doubled in size.

Once the dough has risen, split it into roughly 3 equal sections. Stretch it, roll it in your hands, and stretch it some more until each piece is like a thick rope. Then braid it like you're a schoolgirl. Slather it with a pastry brush and the water/baking soda concoction (don't skip this step, it gives it that shiny brown pretzel exterior!), sprinkle it with coarse salt (we used kosher), and pop it in the oven.

This bread is as delicious as it looks. The pictured loaf is a half recipe. We were concerned that it might be overcooked at the full baking time, but kept an eye on it and it turned out great at about 10 minutes shy of the time recommended? We would think if making the full recipe you would still want to split it into two loaves, otherwise it might be too long to fit in the oven...

And hey, why not serve it with some Cheddar-Beer Spread?! Oh, yeah.

Apple Pancakes

Breakfast for dinner, anyone? Or just looking for that perfect Sunday morning pancake recipe to serve to weekend guests or your sweetheart? However you choose to enjoy them, you can't go wrong with these delicious, hearty yet fluffy apple-filled treats.

As a tinge of chill begins to lend a crispness to the fall air, the leaves change colors in places where leaves change color (jealous!), apple-picking and cider house visits segue into hayrides and autumn bonfires, and your belly is ready to move past the salads and grill-outs of summer to the warm comforting foods of fall and winter... Go pick those apples people! Or just pick them up at the store, that's what we did. Apple orchards are probably not in abundance in LA.

Remember this cool contraption from the sauerkraut recipe? Gotta love it.

This is a pretty basic pancake recipe, but with some distinctly German touches - namely, the sour cream sauce and apple combo. It was so good that Tara has decided this sauce may well replace syrup in her life for all pancakes from now on. Due to dairy restrictions, she is thinking maybe a plain non-dairy yogurt might be a good replacement with coconut oil instead of butter? 

Sour Cream Topping

We decided to cut the sour cream sauce in half, which turned out to be the perfect pancake to sauce ratio. Unless you want to double the pancake recipe for a crowd or use the sauce for other creative purposes, we suggest you do the same. Also, with all the ingredients out in front of us, trying to decide how the honey would blend in to a cold sauce, Jen suggested switching to maple syrup (perfect for pancakes, right?) and it was brilliant! It blended completely and added a wonderful hint of maple flavor. Make sure to get the real stuff though! No Aunt Jemima, you know what we're saying? Well, you could try it but in that case we're not making any promises....

We attempted to bring the egg and milk up to room temp as much as possible so the melted butter didn't clump up. Oh, and check out the bit about the "rotary beater"?! Does anyone else remember those? It's little moments like this that remind us that these recipes were originally published in 1960. Pretty cool.

We used a whisk. Otherwise we mixed and griddled as directed, with Tara's master flipper skills evading that ultimate pancake tragedy of which we're sure we are all familiar. 

Soooo, we all loved them. They were simple to make and satisfying, sweet but not too sweet. We suggest you try them. Like, now. 

Get flipping!

Hot (or not) Potato Salad

German Potato Salad. This was inevitable. We've all tried it somewhere at some point and have opinions, right? Sometimes it's warm, sometimes not. Sometimes it has bacon, or is creamy, but most of the time it has a pucker-your-mouth vinaigrette that makes you rethink your days of American deli potato salad. Varying adaptations of this dish might even help to shape our ideas of German food in general.

If you've tried the right one, it's pretty hard to dislike.

We hope this blog is starting to open up ideas for a cuisine that you may or may not have tried before, and who knows? Maybe German potato salad is a new thing for you. If so, this recipe is a good place to start. Potato salad crosses international boundaries with endless variations, and who doesn't like it?

 

This variation has bacon. If you're into that kind of thing...

We were so impressed by the variety of pretty vegetables:

This was part of a larger meal, and we all loved it. If you like a more tart German potato salad, we might suggest cutting the sugar in half - this one definitely had a sweet edge to balance the vinegar. But for the love of God, make the bacon gravy. Sooo good. We used apple cider vinegar and were worried that it would be too much. Not at all. We promise, go for it.

Schnitzel Notes:

* We cut the smaller potatoes into quarters and the larger ones into chunks that matched, which reduced the cooking time. We brought the water to a boil with the potatoes in it and after 10 minutes at a boil checked diligently every minute until tender. It really is crucial to get this step right, too crunchy or too mushy and your potato salad is... well, you know.

* We didn't measure the parsley, just chopped up a bunch and threw it in - at least 1/4 cup. Extra greens never hurt anyone, and it helped make the salad very pretty. 

* Our bacon was fairly lean (for bacon), so we just left all of the fat in the pan to make the roux.

* Serve warm, room temperature, or cold.

Sauerkraut With Apples

Mmmmm! Who doesn't love a heap of warm sauerkraut with their weiner? Especially with apples?! Seriously.

Sauerkraut With Apples from Grandma's Cookbook was a fairly simple recipe to throw together, and you simply have to check out this cool contraption of Jen's which took it to a whole new level of quick and easy:

 

Would you believe she scored the #1 selling sauerkraut of Germany at Big Lots?? At least that's the claim on the jar... It's nice because, unlike some jars of kraut you find around these parts, it only contains real ingredients - the things that are supposed to be in sauerkraut - and even a little wine.

In case you weren't aware, we are at the beginning of apple season (yes, apples are indeed a seasonal fruit even though it's easy to find them year-round), so we've taken advantage of that for a number of recipes. We're talking apple pancakes, apple strudel, as well as this apple sauerkraut... Is your mouth watering yet?

Just a few simple steps and this kraut will be sitting prettily on your table to serve alongside whatever main dish suits your fancy - first butter and onions, then kraut, then apples, then broth, some cider vinegar, thicken it up with a bit of flour and some potato, and you're good to go! 

The one thing we did, as in the Breasts of Chicken Paprika, is we boiled our organic free-range chicken broth down to the amount called for rather than buying conventional condensed broth. Scroll on down to that recipe if you'd like to see our method.

Guten tag, and happy Oktoberfest!

Cheddar-Beer Spread Part 2

 

Sprechen Käse! 

It's day 4 of Oktoberfest, and we've been working hard to bring some good stuff to your table. For instance, tonight we sampled beers from three of the six breweries sponsored by Oktoberfest in Munich! Yes, hard work. We took one for the team. Check back Thursday for official reviews!

So close your eyes, relax, roll back in time... a few weeks ago we posted about this amazing Cheddar-Beer Spread. Oh, it was sooo good. Remember? Well, we encapsulated half of it in time for a later date, and that day has come. 

If you've never worked with paraffin wax, it is completely edible and not as scary as it seems.  You melt it, pour it, even mix it with chocolate if you want to make buckeyes... Well, some around here have Ohio roots.

When Grandma's Cookbook instructed us to "Seal top with melted paraffin. Keep refrigerated for several weeks", we looked at each other with big question marks in our eyes, and then decided to try it!  But we needed the overnight fix too. So... Check out our first post for initial impressions.

 

Without much direction from the recipe, this crazy experiment worked! The following reviews are all from people who tasted the initial product and the end product:

Rob: "It takes me back to a train ride in Bavaria, with mountains and castles in the distance."

He liked it better aged.

Adrienne: "The perfect snack.  Some cheese was made for wine, this cheese is made for beer."

She liked it better aged.

Jen:  "The perfect balance of flavors, the original had more potent individual flavors."

She liked it better aged.

Tara: "Drier on top after aging, make sure to stir it up! Flavor mellows with age."

She loved it both ways.

If you want to try aging it, just cut off a chunk of paraffin wax, melt it in a pan over medium-low heat, pour a layer a couple inches thick over the top to seal it, and pry it off after 3-5 weeks. Voila!