A German Food Weekend

We were going to the Oktoberfest, but I had misplaced a financial document that had to be located in the very messy home office, so instead we went to the German deli and picked up a pound of bratwurst and some good rye bread.  I buy sauerkraut (imported from Poland or Germany) at Ocean State Job Lot for chump change.  We had a huge can and the makings of a meal.  So much kraut was leftover, that I dug around in the freezer and found two pork steaks (or were they boneless ribs?) and two sausage (provenance unknown) and fried them up and braised them in wine and added to the kraut.  Cooked two big potatoes with jackets on and let cool, then chopped them up and fried them in canola oil with lots of chopped onion.  Better than the first night.  We ate the leftovers tonight.  Also sliced, using the Cuisinart, a couple cukes and made a salad with onion and a sliver of yellow pepper.  Salt, pepper, and sour cream and mayo thinned with a little of the white wine I put in the kraut and the sausages.  And dill.  Cukes play nicely with dill.

Sauerkraut needs to be massaged a bit when you take it out of the can.  If it's overly salty, rinse it.  You can add back the liquid with wine or chicken broth or a combo of both.  I always cook a couple strips of bacon, chopped,  a bit of onion and then add the kraut and the wine to that.  Toss in a bay leaf, some caraway seed, grate an apple if you feel industrious, and sprinkle with a little paprika.  I always dump a tablespoon of brown sugar, but if the apple is sweet, you may not need this.  Cook as long as you like, and keep adding wine the kraut becomes dry.  It just gets better and better.   Nestle the cooked  meats (short ribs would work if you aren't into pork)  into the kraut.  Slice the rye bread thinly and provide soft butter.  This is a meal that will live in your memory and it rids the freezer (night two) of odd bits of meat.  Never will remember where that sausage came from.  An adult child, perhaps?  Who knows? 

Gute Essen. 

the Cheeseparer, who found the missing document at the bottle of a pile of paper, as expected.  Luckily, it was in the first pile.  Is your home office messy?  How do you keep it tidy?  Inquiring minds would like to know.