Do you have to watch out for the shot while you’re eating? Good way to crack a tooth!
Ate the last thing in the fridge today, which also happens to be one of my favourite meals: pork belly, warm Sauerkraut with juniper berries, boiled little potatoes and eaten with lots of sharp mustard.
No need to do any shopping today as we are leaving early tomorrow so we spent the afternoon in my regular brew pub, of course. Got a big bill, biggest ever, but also got to take home a big box of beer.
Really should get the packing done before I go to bed (in about 2 hours or so : ( )
2 weeks of (Franconian) food, beer, wine, fantastic breads and Lebkuchen I have been looking forward to all year, every year! I love Germany 
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WFD: Lamburgers with cumin, toasted and crushed Sichuan peppercorns, RPF, Kosher salt, peanut oil, thinly sliced red onion, thinly sliced jalapeno, cilantro leaves for garnish.
An unusual cooking technique ensues: the vegetables are seared for a couple of minutes then separated into 4 mounds around the skillet. The meat and seasonings are mixed and formed into 4 neat balls. When the vegetables are brown around the edges but still crisp the meat balls are smooshed into each of the mounds and seared for several minutes. The resulting patties are then flipped and seared to medium. This is from “Lucky Peach 101 Easy Asian Recipes” page 210, for them wot’s got it.
Having forgotten to write Potato Rolls on today’s shopping list I’ll have to find some other carrier for the lamburgers. Right now I’m thinking garlic naan might work, since IMO the garlic style doesn’t speak to any one ethnicity. I’ve used them for pizzas. If not, there’s fresh bakery crusty bread.
A couple of sides will be Gingered Carrots (lactofermented with nothing but: Carrot, Cabbage, Ginger, Celtic Sea Salt), Kimchi, and whatever else Himself would like.
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Found a small beef tenderloin for Christmas dinner at Wegmans. I also found some libationy-type Christmas presents.
Braised Chicken with Tomatoes & Honey was WWFD tonight. I had this in my Mastercook software as a Boston Globe 1997 recipe. But both recipes are adapted from the same cookbook, “The Sephardic Kitchen” by Rabbi Robert Sternberg. I used a 1/2 Tbsp. of grated ginger instead of a finger/knob of ginger, some defrost fresh chopped tomatoes (along with another single fresh tomato), and used 4 chicken thighs. This linked recipe’s cook time is 20 minutes longer than what I have in Mastercook (30 minutes). I went with about 35 minutes total, as the rice wasn’t done cooking.
Basmati rice and steamed green beans alongside. As well as a small glass of libationy-type liquid. 
http://www.globalgourmet.com/food/egg/egg0497/braisedch.html
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Last night was pizza and salad delivery. Easy after a busy week. Today we were up at the crack of dawn since I had to run to the store to get the stuff needed to make DH’s families’ traditional Xmas bread…everyone was coming to our house at 8:30 to start. Nine loaves of bread made (details in the baking thread) by 1:30. Dinner will be chicken piccata, served with some spaghetti dressed in evoo, parmesan, and a bit of sautéed baby kale and swiss chard from the garden.
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I made Ramen for the first time tonight. The results were good but could use some refining. The broth was chicken and shoyu, toppings were scallions, Enoki, bean sprouts, egg and chicken. I used soba noodles because they were all I could find fresh. Next time I might try the dried ramen noodles.
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Understand. Ive made sweetbreads when my wife was out of town. She is not a fan. Too bad
Spare ribs are another thing I make at times since she doesn’t eat pig
Yes. One of the breasts had a clear mark where there had been a pellet - easy enough to cut it off.
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There’s to be lamb “sharwarma”, using meat leftover from a roast some weeks back. It’ll be tossed in za’atar and warmed through in the pan in olive oil. There’ll be lavash bread, houmous, salad, assorted torshi (from jars). Dressing for the salad - a very simple one using Palestinian olive oil and lemon juice.
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3 Cup Chicken last night. Sesame oil, garlic, ginger, Thai bird chile, Shaohsing wine, soy sauce, and scallions .
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Ohhhh that looks delicious!
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WFD: Oven-Roasted Chicken with Sumac, Pomegranate Molasses, Chili, and Sesame Seeds.
Chicken is marinated for an hour in the fridge before roasting. Marinade ingredients: ground sumac, minced garlic, RPF, tomato puree, pomegranate molasses, salt. Drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with sesame seeds the chicken is then roasted till done.
Potatoes with Black Olives. Small red potatoes will be steamed, drained, then tossed with turmeric, minced garlic, EVOO. S & P, Kalamata olives. Tipped into a roasting dish to roast for 30 min., showered with cilantro leaves upon emerging.
For a bit of greenery a Small Tossed Salad with an apple cider vinaigrette
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First meal here in beautiful medieval Miltenberg: roast goose leg with braised red cabbage and plain dumplings. The other plate was matjes herrings housewife style with potatoes fried with Speck. Roast goose and duck meals are 2 of the festive meals from now through new year in most places in Germany. The herring dish is a firm favourite year round.
After a long train journey, which half of it was along the river Rhine, I arrived in Miltenberg after 6pm so dark it was hard to see much but from what I could see so far it’s beautiful. Every German medieval town I have been to is beautiful in its own way. Half-timbered houses are in different style in each place and all of them are so lovely.
Didn’t know the christmas market (a tiny one, it’s a small town) was right outside my lodging’s door. Had to walk through it with my rucksack to get to my lodging. Couldn’t walk fast enough to escape the gross smell of Glühwein.
That’s enough adventure for today. I’m very happy with my lodging, which is a flat in a medieval half-timbered house right in the middle of Old Town. Traditional restaurants with local beers on tap are all within a short stroll away. The only disappointment about the flat is the lack of a dishwasher. I have just done washing and sterilising everything I may be using for a week.
Do an image search for Miltenberg and you have an idea what it looks like during the day. I don’t know how some women walk round in heels on these cobblestone paths. (Albania wins the worst stone paths ever made, however.)
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I always thought the idea of xmas markets and Glühwein was better than the actual thing… it does look very pretty, tho, with all the lights - and it must be doubly gorgeous in such an old town! Jelly.
Cornish game hen for dinner yesterday. Yum.
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Spent the afternoon baking cookies for coworkers (Orange-Spice Chewies and White Chocolate-Cranberry Cookies) and watching the Patriots whomp the Titans.
So dinner needed to be the easiest-peasiest - and it was. Sketti and sawce to the rescue. Chopped onions and mushrooms were sauteed with minced garlic, a couple of Tbsp. of tomato paste, and then removed. A half lb. of ground beef was broken up in the pot, and a large sweet Italian sausage was squoze out of its casing and then cooked. Veggies were added back in, and I poured in a large 40 oz. jar of Rao’s Marinara (the first time I’ve tried Rao’s), a Tbsp. or so of Penzeys Italian herb seasoning, and a couple of rinds of Parm-reg cheese were all simmered until I got hungry.
Sketti cooked and into a bowl with sawce on top, and topped with grated Parm-Reg cheese. A crusty buttered roll alongside. A small libationy glass of wine alongside. Where’s the greenery, you ask? Why, it’s the Italian seasoning in the sawce, of course! 
Oh, and I would just like to inform ABC Television that for any fan of “The Sound of Music”, we do NOT need the Mitch Miller bouncing ball words shown at the bottom of the screen of the sing-a-long version of TSoM. We already KNOW the words by heart, thankyouverymuch!
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Miltenberg looks absolutely beautiful! I’ve been to Rothenburg Bavaria and thought that town was lovely, but where you are is wonderful. Hope you have a Great time!
Speaking of “squoze-ing” I slit a sauce casing lengthwise and it pretty much peels right off. Just a thought. You do realize, don’t you, that there are many people who wouldn’t think of that as “easiest-peasiest.” We live in a rarefied atmosphere, don’t we? (She says although we’re having Papa Murphy’s take and bake tonight!)
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Lol that’s a pretty bold slight of hand. Paisano is very sweet and yummy i use it for punch because it has no off taste. In my opinion there are many worse bottles to be had with trendy lables. Its mass produced and uncomplicated but i cant afford to indulge my inner wine snob always.
Working on my first ever puff pastry for a dessert for a holiday party tomorrow and inaugurating my copper rondeau with a pork and red wine stew mashed taters and sauteed chard on the side. Wish me luck with the puff this is taking forever it better work.
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