Oktoberfest

     So, lots of people comment after we have our feast about what we made, how it tasted, and where we found the recipes. I thought I'd get my butt in gear and started blogging about it so I could answer the questions, and hopefully convince some of you to try our favourite recipes.

This week's theme: Oktoberfest

Because it was, well, October, we thought it fitting to go German.  On the menu was braised cabbage, German potato salad, soft pretzels, an onion tart/pizza, applesauce, spaetzle, and schnitzel. Did I forget anything? Most of the recipes came from the internet, mine came from a friend familiar with all things German. She wrote out recipes from Luisa Weiss' "My Berlin Kitchen", and Classic German Baking.

Zwiebelkuchen filling:

1 1/2 cups smoked bacon (300 g, I used pork butt, best to get a whole piece and dice it) 1 tsp canola oil 6 big onions (1 kg) Caraway seed (I didn’t use because I don’t like the taste) 2 cups of gryère cheese (I added some mozzarella, the recipe calls for Emmentaler) 1 cup cream 1 dash nutmeg

As I said, I took her list of ingredients and spread them on the store bought pizza dough. I cooked it at 400 for 30 to 40 minutes. It was perfection. Most of the other recipes I am seeing for it call for sour cream instead which would give it a totally different flavour. Hmmm.

The tart/pizza was epic. It's too time intensive to put into weekly rotation, and I even cheated with frozen pizza dough. I discreetly disposed of the bag before my sisters got to my house. Ha! The potato salad (Kartoffelsalat), however, will now be part of my repertoire. Well, at least the "sauce". 

2 pounds of yellow potatoes

Sauté..

2 tbsps butter

2 yellow onions

Deglaze pan with...

1/3 cup white wine vinegar

Simmer and reduce...

2/3 cup broth

1 tbsp dijon mustard

salt

pepper

Boil potatoes, peel, dice, and put in a serving bowl. Take remaining ingredients and make sauce and simmer. Pour over potatoes and toss. Sprinkle with fresh parsley. MAKE DOUBLE THE SAUCE. That's my best advice :)

The Feast

    So, I've been posting pictures on Facebook and Instagram of our family dinners, which my kids call "The Feast" for a couple of years?! I get lots of feedback about how great the food looks and lots of questions about recipes, etc. I decided to fire up the old blog so that I can add some recipes and some details about what we are doing. 

    After living in Brooklyn, NYC for over 15 years, my husband, two daughters, and myself decided that the time was right to move back to Nova Scotia, where I am originally from. One of the main reasons for the move was to be closer to my sisters, who live in Halifax. After we had been here for a couple of months, we decided that the Sunday dinners  a traditional we wanted to keep. The thought of a  roasted chicken or pot roast EVERY Sunday seemed like it might get old pretty fast. That's when we hatched the idea to start playing around with food from around the world. 

    We wrote down a big list of countries, and put them in a hat. Some were countries already known for being foodie destinations, some weren't. It's all part of the fun! Every Sunday after we eat, we let one of the kids pull a name from the jar, and then we spend the week deciding what each of us will cook. I love to set the table in colours and textures inspired by the region we are cooking. We also love exploring our city to find the ingredients we need. Turns out, there isn't an ingredient we haven't been able to find yet! Sometimes we have to go to the "fancy" grocery store, and sometimes we have to find a tiny specialty shop we didn't know existed. 

    I've decided to start the blogging side of things a little more, so I can write in more detail about the recipes we tried. Which ones worked, which ones didn't, what we would change, and which recipes would be added to the weekly rotation for my family. 

    There are so many benefits to this weekly traditional! Getting together with my sisters and their kids, learning new cooking techniques, introducing the kids to new flavours, and the list goes on!