Holiday Meals

I'm a planner. This is helpful in Germany during the holidays, since stores are closed on days when big family meals are scheduled. If you forgot to buy carrots for the carrot casserole or a baguette to go with the soup, you're out of luck. There was one year when Schweinebraten (pork roast) was on our plan for New Year's Day, and minutes after the stores closed on Silvester, I realized I'd never bought the roast! I vowed I would never let that happen again.

More on this meal shortly...

Sometime back in November I made a list of meals we'd cook during Christmas, and we assigned them days, padded in between with "leftovers." I made three shopping lists and checked them five times each: one for Mustafa, our Tuesday vegetable guy who was willing to deliver on Friday evening, one for pre-ordered meat from our butcher, and one for the supermarket, which I try to avoid like the Pest during the holidays.

Our refrigerator is not large enough to hold vegetables, milk, cream, cheese, and wine for an entire week (especially because of the quantities of cheese we I require), so we loaded up a cooler to put in the garage. Luckily it's just cold enough for that to work.

Our first unceremonious meal was Toast Hawaii - basically a glorified grilled cheese sandwich. Despite its name it's actually a German concoction of toast, ham, pineapple, and cheese. It's a nice alternative to frozen pizza and, like pizza, also produces no leftovers. This was key.

Toast Hawaii

On Saturday evening we made beef stir-fry with tenderloin and fresh vegetables. This is the only meal I make without a recipe - I just wing it and somehow it works. M did the meat to make sure it was done perfectly, and he also found some good ideas for the sauce, in which we used Wokgewürze from Ankerkraut. I'm notorious for making way too much stir-fry, but this year I judged well and we didn't have leftovers. We were still on track.

Beef stir-fry

Sunday evening was Christmas Eve. Our traditional meal is Raclette, which we think works well for a relaxing evening. Boiled potatoes, fresh mushrooms, ham, cheese...and lots of other snacks to nibble on while waiting for the cheese to melt. The meals are getting better...

Raclette - I'm somewhat embarrassed to say that this was not
too much for the two of us. The ham is sliced really thinly.

Raclette also yields no leftovers. We discovered a few years ago that Raclette cheese is good for nothing except Raclette (hence the name??). It's got a peculiar smell, which tends to permeate the contents of the fridge if not sealed well. Since there's no sense in keeping it for anything, we toss the leftovers. However, because of my careful notes from previous years, we order just the right amounts for the number of people at the table. Raclette, for us, is a perfect Heiligabend dinner.

Then things got weird.

Our plan for Christmas Day was Rehrücken mit Kräuter-Nusskruste, Rosenkohl, und Kartoffelgratin (Saddle of venison with an herb-nut crust, brussels sprouts, and potato-gratin). We had bought a frozen Rehrücken from Metro, and I had found the recipe in Lukullus, the little magazine I pick up from the local butcher each week. M was even willing to try the brussels sprouts, which I inexplicably love.

I did nearly nothing all day except read, M worked on a project he'd been saving for the holidays, I took a nap... At five o`clock we headed into the kitchen to get started on the meal, and discovered...the venison was supposed to have marinated for 3-4 hours. Oops. We scrambled, tossed around our options, and went with a different recipe for half of the meat that didn't require marinating. M also remembered an alternative recipe for brussels sprouts he had seen on our noon show, which looked much more tempting to him because it included bacon.

This recipe only uses the green outer leaves,
so we still had the rest to use for the original recipe the next day.

Although I'd had my heart set on the Kräuter-Nusskruste, this meal was delicious! We'd never made venison ourselves, but this recipe is a keeper. We had a few pieces left over, plus half of the potatoes and most of the brussels sprouts.

Our original plan for the second Day of Christmas was leftovers from Monday, but this turned out even better. We went back to the first recipe, marinated the meat all afternoon, and made the herb-nut-crust. M cooked the meat expertly yet again, and both of us liked this recipe even better than yesterday's. This is the photo you saw at the beginning of this post.

The meal we've settled on for the future is the brussels sprouts recipe from Monday, the potato-gratin, and the venison from Tuesday. Then it will be a perfect meal.

On Wednesday we really had leftovers - the rest of Tuesday's delectable venison, I finished off the sprouts, made fresh broccoli for M, thought about a salad, and we split the last two spoonfuls of potatoes. Almost nothing was wasted.

For Thursday I'd planned gefüllter Lammbraten (stuffed lamb roast), found in another Lukullus magazine. The beauty of not having guests for the holidays was that we could experiment with new recipes to potentially use in the future without worrying about something going wrong and guests going hungry and wishing they hadn't come. We usually make lamb stew, but we wanted to try something new. If it didn't work out, we could always have venison leftovers.

It turned out just fine and was very flavorful,
though less photogenic than the venison.

For Silvester we'll return to a favorite family tradition - fondue and "Dinner for One." I pick up the beef & pork tenderloin from the local butcher in the morning, M makes the fondue soup in the afternoon with roasted beef bones, soup meat, Suppengrün and one Nelke (clove), and while the soup is simmering he makes the Sahnedip. My daughter will be drooling by now...This cream dip is good for dipping vegetables in, spreading on a baguette, and dolloping on the cooked tenderloin. We used to do several dips, but now we don't bother with anything other than the Sahnedip.

This was a few years ago.
We'll only need two plates this year.

Fondue is a great meal for Silvester because it stretches out over a few hours, you're forced to eat slowly, clean-up isn't bad, and it's healthy. Healthy-ish.

We watch the British short comedy "Dinner for One" and giggle like fools every year, grumble about those who shoot off fireworks before midnight, go outside at midnight to toast with glasses of Kessler Sekt while watching the sanctioned fireworks (and M prowls around watching for burning missiles landing on our roof), and then we go to bed because we're too old to keep going.

On New Year's Day we eat the leftover soup with any remaining bits of tenderloin for lunch and have cheese and crackers for dinner.

And that was our meal plan for this holiday season. It's back to spaghetti, casserole, and frozen pizza for the first few days of the new year.

We hope you enjoyed your holiday food fest as much as we did, and we especially hope you had as little stress as we did! Even when something went wrong, we just found a way to deal with it. Easily done when you're only two people...

Lastly, we wish you a Happy New Year and a pleasant, happy, and above all peaceful 2018.

My Mom's Visit

This month's Highs and Lows post is being supplanted by the following because 1.) I didn't have any lows this month - seriously, not one! - and 2.) most of my highs had to do with my mom's visit from the U.S..

While my dad is trekking and sight-seeing in the Himalayas, my mom popped over for a visit with us for almost two weeks. She arrived a week ago today, and one of the nicest things about her visit is that nothing is rushed. She has no "official" reason for being here - no cruise or other European vacation, no official exchange business, no parties to attend.

What this means is that my mom has spent some days seeing my life and what I do from day to day. This often includes hours of "down time" - she's taking a nap as I write this. We've been relaxing to the point of being dull some days, but everything we have done has been really enjoyable so far! There's more to come next week, but here's what we've done in the last week.

Good Meals

M and I have enjoyed cooking together for her.

Maultaschen in Brühe

Rouladen in the making

Rouladen mit Nudeln
(This is an older picture with Spätzle, but for my mom we made homemade noodles with our pasta press)

Spargel Überbacken
White asparagus with ham & cheese in a white wine-butter sauce

Züricher Geschnetzeltes und Rösti - one of our favorites

Forewarning if you ever plan to visit us: this is not a low-fat household and we don't know what to do for vegetarians. We cook everything from scratch, though, and buy as much from local farmers as possible. But it's all about the meat.

Bounty from Wisconsin

My mom brought a whole bunch of things I'd asked for, plus one surprise - a Marguerite Henry book I fondly remember from my youth, Five O'Clock Charlie! This was a gift from the son and daughter-in-law of my grandmother's sister. I associate this book with memories of my mom's Aunt June, because I always found it on her shelf and read it cover to cover when I visited.

Other items pictured: cutting boards in the shape of Wisconsin, refrigerator magnets and tea towels of Wisconsin and Sheboygan, Nestlé semi-sweet chocolate chips, a scarf my dad bought me in Argentina, a silicone pot scrubber, and Baker's string cheese (there are no words for how much I love this string cheese, bought fresh from the factory near my hometown (and then frozen for the overseas journey). The Wisconsin-themed items are for when I have occasion to give a gift and want to give something from the homeland.

Esslingen

On Monday we drove to Esslingen (I drove!!) to have a lunch meeting with friends who are in charge of the Esslingen-Sheboygan exchange and then met for ice cream and a chat with the Sheboygan, Wisconsin exchange students who are spending five months in Esslingen.

Kaffee und Kuchen

On Tuesday we drove to the Spargelhof in Bondorf where I always buy our asparagus - picked that morning - and in the afternoon we met six of my (former) students from Syria and Eritrea at a café in Horb for coffee. I was definitely looking forward to introducing them to my mom, and we had a lovely afternoon!

Moms Geburtstag!

Wednesday was my mom's 74th birthday, and she was treated to a lazy morning while I went to M's office for the English lesson. In the afternoon we picked up my Schwiegermutter from the Bahnhof, and in the evening we all four had a wonderful dinner at Straub's Krone.

 P.S. No, that is not a missing apostrophe in "Moms Geburtstag". In German possessives do not take apostrophes.  

our mums
friends since 1987, 19 years before their kids got married!

creme brulee with a birthday candle

American vs. British English

My mom and Schwiegermutter came with me to my Englisch-AG (where I teach conversational English at a school for students with mild learning disabilities), and we did several activities focusing on the differences between American and "proper" English, as I often call the two languages. It often seems true that Americans and Brits are "separated by a common language" (George Bernard Shaw)!

Ancestors' House in Nöttingen

On Thursday I drove my mom and Schwiegermutter to Nöttingen, where we met the couple living in the house my great-great-great-great grandfather built in 1797. They are such warm and gracious people! They had prepared for us delicious homemade cakes as well as a CD full of information about the village and the house - including details about the renovations they've done. The house is under Denkmalschutz, and when they gave us a tour they pointed out the parts of the structure that are original. They helped us visualize what the house and rooms looked like when Jacob Jung lived there.

a painting of the house done by a relative of the current owners

Damenreitstunde

My ladies' riding lesson is on Friday mornings, and my mom was kind enough to come along and snap a few photos despite it being a bit cold. This was nice for me because I could finally have some pictures of me with Mallory, the little horse I ride most often.

Syrisches Essen

On Friday afternoon we were invited to the home where several of my Syrian students live, and they cooked for us several Syrian dishes: Taboule, Freekeh, and a dessert. The food was delicious, and the Deurabisch (Deutsch-English-Arabisch) conversation was very interesting! We talked about religion, customs in Germany, Syria, and the US, their journeys from Syria to Germany, and their hometowns. They showed us on Google Maps where they used to live (much of which has been destroyed by the war). Several of these men lived in villages outside of Damascus just a few kilometers from each other, but they first met when they arrived in this tiny German village back in September 2015.

Pre-Mom's-Visit Highs

The following highs happened before my mom arrived...

• meeting one of my students twice for several hours so that he could tell me his story - of his life in Syria before the war and his journey from Syria through the Balkan route to Germany. His complete story is too long for a blog post, and since I will be talking listening to my other students and some of their friends as well, this may well be the start of a new project!


• our sixth Kochkurs at Straub's Krone, this time focusing on Spargel, Wildkräuter, and Rhabarber.

That's it for April! I hope you had a good month as well!

March Highs and Lows 2016

March is a pretty blah month, but April brings the promise of spring, and this post means April is about to begin. From the weather reports, today is supposed to be the warmest, nicest day so far, and in the near future.

HIGHS

• every day teaching my students at the Hermann-Hesse-Kolleg continues to be a high!


• two riding lessons on the darling Mallory, who has moved into a new flat (stall) with an outside view. Apparently not everyone likes to ride her because she's SO fast - she's often "auf der Flucht" (fleeing), as the instructor says. But I feel like I know her pretty well by now, and I do really enjoy riding her.


• our Denglisch Kochkurs at Straub's Krone with two other Stuttgart expat bloggers, Traveling Hopefully and Kaffee und Kuchen. I think we learned even more this time than usual, and definitely prepared more dishes that we can and will do ourselves at home. In fact, we've already done a few of them! 


• trying (and succeeding at) these two dishes we learned about at the Kochkurs:

Kässpätzle (with bacon-wrapped pork tenderloin)

Apfelküchle mit Hausgemachter Vanillesoße

• making a beef roast (cooked for 3 hours in a bath of wine and broth) on Sunday because we needed some meat to accompany our leftover Spätzle - fried the second day in a pan with butter.

• attending a Lenten church service because I learned that one of my students would be singing and then speaking to the congregation. He had asked me for help writing out what he wanted to say to them, and I wanted to go to support him. (ähm...I haven't been to church in quite a while...) He sang two hymns in Arabic - a capella - and he has a beautiful voice! The songs were very mystical and melodious. I could have listened for hours. The worshippers applauded him warmly for his words of thanks to the community at the end of the service, and one of the woman invited him to come to choir practice! On Easter Monday he and another of my students sang with the choir during a service.


• trying my grandmother's coffee cake recipe a second time (see "lows" for the first attempt) with M's help on a weekend and not completely failing.


• attending a Lichtstubenabend in our neighboring town to learn about the various Denkmäler such as Feldkreuze and other monuments in and around the town.


• making Maultaschen with M - and succeeding! We made everything from scratch, including the pasta dough, which we rolled out with our new pasta press.

The pasta needs to be thin enough so one can read a newspaper through it.

• Easter dinner! M and I were alone this year because my Schwiegermutter went up North to spend the week with M's sister and family, but we M still made a delicious meal. Lammkeule (leg of lamb), roast potatoes, and Kohlrabi französisch. This is why we don't go out to eat a lot (other than to Straub's Krone) - because the meals we make at home are our favorites and we enjoy cooking together!

LOWS

• In the Landtagswahl for Baden-Württemberg, the third most popular party (of the 10-12 viable parties) was the AfD. This is not quite the nazi party (NPD), but they are extreme right-wingers who, if living in the U.S., would probably be voting for Trump. It makes me extremely sad that even in our little village of 2200 residents - where I feel happy, comfortable and safe - the third most voted-for party was the AfD, who are vehemently anti-refugee and anti-foreigner. Actually they're probably not against all foreigners - just those who look and sound like foreigners.


• trying my grandmother's coffee cake recipe for the first time and failing miserably. The dough went into the trash instead of into the oven.


• Donald  Trump, and everything about him, especially the people who are cheering for and following him.


• reading about the Refugee Program Integrity Restoration Act passed this month in the House Judiciary Committee. "Despicable and cowardly" one politician against the act called it. I agree. If this passes and becomes law, I will be ashamed. The "home of the brave" will then be a complete farce.


• saying "auf Wiedersehen" to my Syrian and Eritrean students, as their class ended today. Even if I teach again when the next round of classes starts again, I am sure I will never have another group of students like this one. They made such an impression on me, I learned so much from them (even if I still cannot confidently say "the United States of America" in Arabic despite their repeated attempts to teach me!), and I will miss them immensely. I do have a way to contact them each through email or Facebook, and I hope we can meet occasionally.

I wish you all a happy start to April!!

November Highs and Lows 2015

Hello again, friendly readers. We come to the end of another month, and that means I recap my highs and lows of the last 29 days.

The obvious low was the terrorist attack in Paris on Friday the 13th. I am so sick of people killing each other, especially in the name of God. People of all religions consider their god all-powerful and all-knowing, right? I am no theologian, but I am very confident that a GOD does not need puny humans to do His work for Him. If He wants people to die (which I am unconvinced He does), He has the power to take care of that Himself. I do not believe He wanted Catholics to kill Protestants and vise versa generations ago, and I do not believe the Christian God or the Muslim Allah want their followers to kill each other - no matter how much nutball humans twist the holy books.

But on to happier things. I love November in Germany. It begins with my birthday and ends with Christmas markets!!!! The air is crisp and cool, the leaves are raked, I've unpacked my winter clothes, and my warmest winter Federbett is on my bed. I burrow into that thing like a hibernating hedgehog.

HIGHS

• Of course we went to Straub's Krone for a birthday buffet lunch.

Starters - there are samplings of 13 different dishes on my plate. All delicious!
The one at 6:00 is cow tongue.

I actually chose the vegetarian option that day:
Tagliatelle mit  Steinpilzrahmsoße / Tagliatelle with Porcino-Cream-Sauce

and the dessert samplings

• I made the Quittenchutney from our Kochkurs to go with pork tenderloin, and it turned out ok!

ingredients for quince chutney

• I also baked a Rührkuchen (pound cake) from scratch. Yeah I know, big deal. Who can screw that up? But after my apple pie failure (see below), this was very satisfying.

• spending a weekend in Breisach with a fabulous and fun branch of M's family for the 80th birthday of their Oma (M's father's cousin).


• meeting fellow American expat blogger Adventures of La Mari, her husband, and their Mops at the Hohentwiel ruins in Singen. So much fun!

Abner, the Mops

fabulous ruins

• participating in the first annual Worldwide Read a Terhune Book day. Albert Payson Terhune was one of my favorite writers when I was a child. He is most famous for writing stories about collies and is responsible for my adoration of the breed.

• dinner at our neighbors' house. I cannot believe I didn't take any photos, at least of the food! It was delicious - venison pate, salad with Pfifferlinge, Zweierlei venison, the most delicious Rotkohl I've ever tasted, mashed potatoes, poached pears, and two different kinds of gluten-free brownies I baked and brought for dessert.


• joining the Freundeskreis Asyl Horb and getting involved (finally) with local efforts to help the refugees. This was in response to my second "low" of the month (see below). In the last 10 days I have met Syrian refugees in the area, worked with a class of 15 or so who have just started learning German, had coffee with refugees and other volunteers which is a weekly thing, and offered to help translate the Freundeskreis website into English as soon as it's up and running (few refugees arrive here knowing German, but some know enough English that a translation could be helpful).


• watching this late night clip, and this one, and especially this one. I am starting to think that the best way to catch up on American news is to watch the Daily Show and the Late Show.

LOWS

• my first attempt at baking an American-style Apple Pie. It might look almost ok, but it was a total failure and, in fact, inedible.

• coming across several Facebook posts by Americans I know ("liked" by other Americans I know) crying out to refuse Syrian refugees in America or their particular U.S. state. I came to the realization that such people are simply terrified of the "what ifs," and there's no reasoning with fear. That doesn't mesh well with the whole "...home of the brave" business, or with the spirit of joy, love, and giving at Christmastime, or with the notion of coming together and sharing bounty at Thanksgiving, or with the Golden Rule, but fear is a crazy, debilitating thing.


• reading about the various GOP (Grand Ole Party = Republican) presidential hopefuls and their visions of the world. What in holy hell is going on over there, folks? The pyramids were built to store grain? Muslims should be rounded up, registered, and perhaps have some kind of marking put on their clothes to identify them? Rabid dogs? Bad peanuts? Admitting only refugees who practice the right religion? And all this time, they're squealing like halfwit children in a poopy sandbox over 10,000 refugees in one year (more than 4 million Syrians have been displaced by war since 2011). 

Other Moments

• While in Breisach, M and I went into a vinothek to purchase a bottle or two of wine to enjoy that evening. We were assisted by the owner, who was incredibly helpful and friendly. She asked what we like, broke open a few bottles for us to taste, suggested others... M considered out loud going up the hill to get our car so we could transport several bottles home. The owner said if we buy at least 2 cases, she'd drive them up to our hotel after closing. Tempting! Then she happened to mention that shipping is free starting at 5 cases. €310 later, we walked up the hill to our hotel with our two bottles of wine, a Corkcicle wine chiller, and a fancy red wine pouring thingy, happily anticipating the arrival of the rest of the wine the following week.
  
  
  

• A new friend (who is my daughter's age and decided right about the same time I did to jump in and get involved with the Freundeskreis Asyl) and I sat in on a German intro class to observe, and the teacher included us in every activity. It was really enjoyable! The students were all refugees from Syria between the ages of about 20 and 55, and as with every class, some students learn faster than others. The faster ones helped the others with either quick explanations in Arabic or telling them what to say. They struggled, they laughed, they volunteered to go to the board for a writing activity, they listened, they took notes, they gave their best efforts, and they were clearly proud when they did or said something correctly. Some had studied outside of class, and others hadn't. If there was a difference between that class and every class I have ever taught, I didn't notice it - except that they were all adults and classroom management was not an issue! I loved it.

I hope you all had a good month, too, with more highs than lows, more love than fear, and more joy than pain.

Kochkurs: Wild, Kürbis, & Quitten

This weekend M and I attended our fourth cooking class at Straub's Krone, and this time the main ingredients were wild game, pumpkin, and quinces. Once again we had a great time, and even I am becoming more comfortable taking on various tasks (though if I had my druthers I'd keep my participation to observing, listening, and taking pictures - and eating!).

The menu for today was:

Wildterrine mit Quittenchutney & Blattsalaten

Wild Game Terrine with Quince Chutney and Salad

Kürbiscremesuppe mit Kürbis Apfel Frühlingsrolle

Pumpkin Cream Soup with Pumpkin-Apple Springroll

Rehrücken im Pfannkuchen Pilz Mantel, dazu zweierlei* Rosenkohl

Saddle of Venison in a Pancake-Mushroom Jacket, with Two Variations of Brussel Sprouts

Kürbismousse mit Quittenkrapfen

Pumpkin Mousse with Quince Doughnuts

*Zweierlei is another brilliant German word that has no perfect equivalent in English. When you see "zweierlei" on a menu followed by an ingredient, that means what you'll find on your plate is that ingredient prepared in two different ways. This was "zweierlei Rosenkohl", and we had loose blanched brussel sprout leaves as well as brussel sprout puree.

As always we began with Martin Straub (the Chefkoch) going through the menu explaining what we'd be doing as well as telling us what substitutions can be made, answering our questions, and elaborating on his instructions. One of the participants this time was on a gluten-free restricted diet, so Martin explained the changes he'd made for that: rice cakes in place of breadcrumbs, gluten-free flour and where to buy the good stuff, etc.. I took notes ("If Quitten are steinhart, add Wasser & cook longer") because I can't remember anything unless it's written down. Since both languages are swirling in my head, my notes come out in messy Denglish.

Then it's time to don our aprons and plunge in! Martin knows me well enough by now to suggest easy tasks for me, which I appreciate. I took care of the brussel sprouts - a tedious, repetitive job which was perfect for me. It's not that I'm helpless in the kitchen, but when I'm part of a cooking team, I lack the confidence to do unfamiliar things. I'm often afraid I didn't understand exactly what I am supposed to do, and that freaks me out. Martin knows that M, on the other hand, can do pretty much anything in the kitchen with confidence. So when M is taking care of a task, Martin can tend to his other students. 

This is a 1- or 2-man kitchen, and there were 7-8 of us in there!
For schnibbling we stood at the outside of the counter.

We spend about two hours doing every preparation step that can be done first, under Martin's guidance. He asks, "Ok, who wants to cut the meat (wild boar)?" and someone steps up. "Who wants to start on the pumpkin?" and so on. Even if you have never worked with pumpkin or quince before (as M and I have not), he'll explain very clearly what you need to do.

I seriously have no idea how he keeps that all straight. When he's doing it himself and with his crew, ok - but with strangers? With strangers he has no idea whether they know what to do or not? And he never loses his cool or gets upset - it's not like cooking with Gordon Ramsay! If someone screws something up, he either says "Ok, let's do it again", or he shows us how to fix it. The cooking class started at 10:00 and ended around 16:00. I have a hard time keeping my patience for 45 minutes teaching the Englisch-AG!

M dealt with the pumpkin for the mousse and the soup.

The butternut squash next to him makes me think of Jerry from the Veggie Tales.

Two of the other participants peeled and cut the Quitten. I had never in my life heard of Quitten, even when translated into English - quinces. I was certain we don't have those in the U.S., but when I was in Wisconsin in June I visited a friend and we wandered through her garden. She has a quince tree! 

I have to say, the Wildterrine was really tasty, but the Quittenchutney topping was amazing!

Wildterrine mit Quittenchutney & Blattsalaten

M is pretty sure we're going to make this at home next time we have guests - if we have them when Quitten are in season.

That's yet another thing about Germany that is special - since they care where their produce comes from, far preferring local produce to stuff brought in from other countries on trucks, they pay attention to seasons. Fall is pumpkin and quince season in Germany, and they happily order dishes with either. But they would be quite sceptical if they saw those on a menu in March. 

Pumpkin is a huge thing here. Nearly every German restaurant adds a special Kürbis menu in the fall, and there's even an annual 9-week long pumpkin festival in Ludwigsburg, which you can read about on the Stuttgart-based blogs Traveling Hopefully and Kaffee und Kuchen. In Wisconsin the only thing I ever heard of anyone doing with (canned) pumpkin was baking pumpkin pie to serve at Thanksgiving. Otherwise we carve jack-o-lanterns out of pumpkins for Halloween, some roast and eat the seeds, and after Halloween - hopefully before the pumpkin has started to rot - it gets thrown away or tossed into a field.

But back to the cooking class...

The saddle of venison was cut from the bone and freed of the fat and sinews, and then browned. The bones were also fried up to be used for the sauce.

"noch ein bisschen Rotwein" = dump a bottle of wine over it
while your students stand there drooling...

Then the venison was wrapped in its pancake jacket, then in a tin foil wrapper like a bonbon.

Most of my photos show Martin doing the steps because I'm never sure how the other participants feel about having their pictures taken, and I try to avoid getting in their way with the camera. Martin often does an example, and then we students take over. Martin is used to my camera by now (though I have a photo from our first Kochkurs of him giving me an exasperated look which clearly said "Enough with the pictures!"), and he knows what I'm doing and pays me no heed.

So we did lots of preparations, managing not to trip over each other too much, and eventually the starter was ready. It was, of course, time for a glass of wine, and Martin had chosen a Rotling - a mixture of red and white. 

We toasted to the fact that no one had yet injured him- or herself or screwed anything up beyond saving, and sat down to enjoy our starter. We chatted, shared some stories, asked Martin lots of questions while we ate.

When we finished we brought our plates to the kitchen where the whirling dervish that is Martin's kitchen assistant had washed everything we'd touched up to this point, and we carried on with the next steps.

Since we now have a Thermomix at home, I was able to confidently use Martin's to mix the brussel sprout puree and then the pumpkin soup. Seriously, all that means is I put the cooked mush into the mixer and pureed it, added some salt, pepper, and nutmeg (Germans put freshly grated nutmeg in just about everything), mixed it again, and poured it into a bowl. Others had done the hard work.

pumpkin cream soup with pumpkin-apple spring roll
The dark bit in the soup is a splash of pumpkin seed oil and pumpkin seeds.

I haven't ever liked anything pumpkin, and still these were both delicious. I would definitely like to do the spring rolls at home, though M would prefer them to also have some meat in them.

Right. I'll bring this post to a close with the rest of the dishes.

main course
venison wrapped in pancake with zweierlei brussel sprouts

Admittedly by this time we were stuffed, and dessert was yet to come. I must say that I'm proud to have been in charge of both versions of brussel sprouts without having screwed them up. M actually saved the loose blanched leaves without even knowing it until 5 hours later when I admitted something I'd misunderstood, but that will remain our secret.

Pumpkin Mousse with Quince Doughnuts

This Kochkurs was every bit as enjoyable as the others we've done. We meet nice people, we learn lots of great tips that help us in our own kitchen, and we eat some truly excellent food that we wouldn't have tried cooking just for ourselves. We don't always cook at home what we've prepared in these classes, but that's not the point for us anyway. We have some new ideas, we've got all the recipes, and we have learned plenty. 

I asked Martin if he thought he could do a cooking course in English or Denglish, and he thinks he could do that. I've offered to translate the recipes and instructions, so bloggers in the Stuttgart area, you may be hearing from me soon! :-)  

You can read about our second Kochkurs from March this year here.