German Fest Recipe Tutorial: Fried Cabbage with Bacon and Onion

Last but not least, and again, another flop with everyone in my household but me is another side dish. I happened to love this and can definitely envision it in a bierock type wrap.

And here’s a view of my mother-in-laws home town, Weinheim Germany.

Village of Weinheim, Germany (photo courtesy of Google Earth)

A beautiful view of the bustling little hamlet (Photo Courtesy of Aleta Sanford)

The house my mother-in-law was born in in Weinheim. (Photo Courtesy of Aleta Sanford)

A castle in Weinheim. Not sure what castle it is, but it’s gorgeous. (Photo courtesy of Aleta Sanford)

OK… Enough sight seeing! Onto the yummies. This recipe is super, super simple and REALLY yummy. I think next time though, I’m going to half the recipe as it won’t get eaten before it spoils otherwise.

Cut your cabbage and onion ahead of time. Beware of strong onions that smell a lot like methane.

Cut your bacon up and fry it in a pot. I love bacon.

Add your onions and garlic to all the fun happening in the pot and cook until your onions are caramelized.

Add your cabbage and fry for 10 minutes.

Add your spices. Cover. Reduce heat and fry stirring occasionally for 30 minutes.

Then serve with your favorite German dishes and know that if you’re honoring someone special, they’re probably looking down and smiling, so proud of what you’ve accomplished.

Photo Courtesy of Aleta Sanford

Fried Cabbage with bacon, onion and garlic

6 slices bacon, chopped

1 lg onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 lg cabbage, cored and sliced

1 tsp salt

1 tsp black pepper

1/2 tsp onion powder

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/8 tsp smoked paprika

Place bacon in large pot and cook until crispy. Add onion and garlic and cook until onion caramelizes.

Stir in cabbage, cook 10 minutes. Season. Reduce heat to low. Cover and simmer 30 minutes.

German Fest Recipe Tutorial: Spaetzle

OK. I’m a spaetzle novice. First time I made it was last year and it was a box of spaetzle that was probably a year or more old. It wasn’t all that whoopy. So I gave it another chance and made it on my own.

Now let me give you one piece of advice… Think ahead when making this dish. If you don’t have a spaetzle maker, you might think of investing in one. You can find them at most major stores and of course, online at places like Amazon.com or even Walmart. A potato ricer would also work. If you don’t have either of those things, then a gallon sized zippie with the corner cut out will work just as well. That’s what I used.

Get your stuffs together.

Season your flour with salt and pepper (Salz and peffer).

Mix your eggs with your milk.

Add it to your flour and mix in. You don’t want it super runny if you’re using a press, but since I’m not… Yeah, this’ll work I guess.

Fill your press… Or zippie….

This just doesn’t look right.

Start adding your spaetzle to boiling salted water, taking it out as it starts floating to the top as it’s done.

Drain. This really doesn’t look appealing, but trust me. It is.

Spread your spaetzle out in a greased dish and top with shredded Swiss cheese. Bake until bubbly.

While it’s baking, caramelize some onions in olive oil (don’t use as much olive oil as I did… I am a bad judge of olive oil amounts LOL)

Take it out of the oven, sprinkle on your caramelized onions and enjoy!!!

Spaetzel

1 1/2 c flour

3/4 tsp salt

Pepper to taste

3 eggs

3/4 c 2% milk

2 c shredded Swiss

3 tbsp butter

1 onion chopped

Preheat oven to 375 degrees

Add flour, salt and pepper in large bowl. Beat eggs and milk in separate bowl, add to flour once combined.

In a large pot of boiling water, press batter into the water. Remove when they start floating and drain.

Layer spaetzle in bottom of dish and cover with Swiss cheese.

Bake 30 minutes

Melt butter (or use olive oil) in large skillet over low heat. Add onions and cook until golden brown. Sprinkle over spaetzle.

German Fest Recipe Tutorial: Jaeger Schnitzel

Next up is the main course of our meal. No one really cared for the gravy part of this, but oh well. I loved it.

Get all ingredients for your schnitzel together.

He also puts some seasoning in the flour. Some garlic and onion powder, smoked paprika, salt and pepper. The bread crumbs are just plain.

Break your eggs into a separate dish.

Put a little milk in there and whisk it all up.

Lookit that egg bath!

What you don’t see is that Mr. Good Witch has pounded the snot out of some pork chops.

Flour up your beaten pork.

Dip it in the egg wash.

Cover it up with the bread crumbs.

Fry them up in a skillet with about 1/4” of hot oil or Crisco. It only takes like 2-3 minutes a side.

Rest them on some paper towels while you make the gravy.

Throw down some button mushrooms in a bit of olive oil until they’ve released their juices and get all yummy looking.

I mean, c’mon… These look fabulous. But take them out of the skillet and set to the side.

Put some margarine in the same skillet and sprinkle your flour to the grease to make a roux and cook for a couple of minutes.

Then add your beef broth and whisk it in. Add your mushrooms back in and let simmer for about 15 minutes or so.

Doesn’t that look fabulous?!

Throw down the schnitzel and cover with the mushroom gravy and voila! Jaeger Schnitzel!!!! Y’know, this was the first time I had ever had schnitzel, let alone Jaeger Schnitzel, and I was thoroughly pleased. It was sooooo flipping yummy. I’m pretty sure my mother-in-law would have tipped her glass and dug in.

Photo Courtesy of Aleta Sanford

Jaeger Schnitzel

4 boneless pork chops

1/2 c flour

1 tsp salt

2 (or more) eggs beaten

3/4 c bread crumbs

5 oz button mushrooms sliced

3 tbsp butter

3 tbsp flour

1 14.5 oz can beef broth.

Schnitzel

Place pork chops between waxed paper and pound until 1/4 inch thick.

Dip chops into flour, egg, then bread crumbs.

Fry schnitzel for 2-3 minutes until deep golden brown.

Gravy

In separate skillet, heat tbsp or so of olive oil and add mushrooms. Cook until they have released their juices and most has evaporated. Transfer mushrooms to a bowl.

In same skillet, melt butter, add flour. Whisk to combine. Cook until golden brown, at least 3-4 minutes.

Slowly add beef broth and whisk together. Return mushrooms to skillet. Bring gravy to simmer, reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

German Fest Recipe Tutorial: Apple Cake (Apfelkuchen)

As I said on my Facebook page, the last couple of days have been pretty hard for our family. We celebrated my dear sweet mother-in-law’s 67th birthday yesterday, and today we celebrated the four year anniversary of her leaving us. I decided to show my love for her through something she loved so much and loved to share with her kids and everyone around her… Food.

Photo Courtesy of Aleta Sanford

I can’t remember a time (up until the very last) when she wasn’t in the kitchen, whipping up something fabulous. Whether it was one of the many yummy desserts she made or a pot of her famous potato soup, she loved cooking. She even made my wedding cake (and the other three cakes we had)!

She was an amazing woman. She danced in the ballet prior to having kids. She traveled all over Europe and then landed in the US to raise my wonderful sister-in-law and my terrific husband.

Photo Courtesy of Aleta Sanford

And she loved her grandbabies. Absolutely adored the ground they walked on. And they loved their BooGoo. Loved everything about her and still do.

Photo Courtesy of Aleta Sanford

Anyways. I’m going to get pigfaced here before I even begin.

One of the first German foods my mother-in-law made me was her Apple Cake (or Apfelkuchen). I am not a big apple fan. I just never really liked apples. I’m a weirdo, ok?

OK Get all your ingredients together and preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Grease up a spring form pan and put it on a cookie sheet with sides. Trust me, you’ll need that pan.

You’ll also need a couple of key ingredients. One is Dr. Oetker’s Vanilla Sugar, which you can get on Amazon.com and you’ll also need what the recipe calls Lemon Essence. You can get it at Amazon.com also, but I found that a very SMALL amount of lemon extract will do the same.

Beat your margarine (mutti always used margarine in recipes, never butter) and sugars until combined and fluffy.

Scrape the sides of the bowl and add your eggs, one at a time and beat on medium speed for 30 seconds after each addition. Also add your lemon essence or extract.

OM NOM NOM

Add your flour, alternating with milk.

Ahhh my good ole mixer and me.

And beat a little more.

Pour your batter into the prepared pan and glory in its wonderfulness.

Get your apples ready. Or peel one and then have your hubs push you outta the way to finish them “The right way”.

He’s so damned cute. What you can’t see is that his tongue is sticking out lol.

Fan out the apples in a decorative fashion, or just push them in wherever. Doesn’t really matter. Well it would to my mother-in-law lol.

Melt some butter and stare at it longingly.

Then pour it over the batter and apples. EHRMERGERD.

Put it in the oven. And wait. The waiting is horrible. Because soon your house will be filled with apple-y goodness and your mouth will start watering.

Take the cake out of the oven and pop the ring. Let cool (or serve warm, it doesn’t matter)

Cut it into wedges and sprinkle with powdered sugar and consume mass quantities.

This is seriously the most fabulous cake ever. Serve it with a good cup of German coffee and enjoy.

Please let me know if you try this recipe. It would mean a lot!

Recipe

Apple Cake

Topping

1/2 c butter or margarine

3 cups apples, peeled, cored and sliced

Cake

2 sticks butter or margarine

1 c Sugar

1 pinch salt

1 pkg Vanilla Sugar

2-3 drops lemon essence or extract

3 eggs

2 c Flour

2 tsp baking powder

3-4 tsp milk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease spring form pan and place on cookie sheet.

Beat softened margarine. Add sugar, vanilla sugar, salt and lemon extract. Add one egg at a time, beating for 30 seconds after each egg.

Add dry ingredients to liquid ingredients alternating milk and flour until all is combined.

Spoon into pan, arrange sliced apples on top and pour over melted margarine.

Bake 45 minutes until golden brown.