The second year we lived in Germany, I took some evening cooking classes where we were taught a selection of the traditional dishes served during the Christmas holidays. Our instructor told us that her family served Schweinefilet im Blatterteig (Pork Tenderloin in Puff Pastry) on Christmas Day. Our family always cooks a big turkey for Christmas Day and we weren’t…
One fall day back in 1986, Dave and I came home to our second floor apartment in Kurzell to find a plastic wrapped plate with slices of what looked like onion “pizza” placed in front our apartment door. Beside the plate was a small flask of Neuer Wein (new wine.) Our German landlady would often leave baked treats in front…
On Saturdays, when we lived in Germany, one of things we used to do for fun was get in the car and drive through some of the small villages surrounding Lahr. Then when we got hungry we’d stop for lunch at one of the local Gasthauses. My favourite lunch menu item to order was called Jaegertoast. This is my interpretation…
Spaetzle is a German type of egg noodle that is as likely to be served as a side to the main course than say mashed potatoes would be in North America. It didn’t take long after we were posted to Germany for it to become a favorite dish to add to our meals so it was a must that I…
When we were posted to Germany, we always looked forward to October because that meant Oktoberfests which almost by definition means good food, good beer and good cheer. Dave is the beer drinker in our family, but there was one little gausthaus called The Adler Klaus in Lahr that served the only kind of beer that I’ve ever actually liked. …
Everyone in our family loves mushrooms. We love them raw as snacks. We love them sliced and fried in butter or mixed into stir fries. Fresh mushrooms are great to have on hand to add to all sorts of recipes. But as our kids went off to university and college, we found that sometimes a package of mushrooms didn’t get…
Today, Dave and I made a trip down to Costco to pick up some basics that we were starting to run low on.  Costco is right off of Exit 269. Since Red Hen Fabrics is just at little farther along at Exit 265, I decided we might as well make a stop there too. I took along the Smiling Sunflower…
Last month, for my Christmas on a Budget Series, I wrote about Building Traditions by repeating memory building activities year after year. One tradition that I started when our children were little was to make them a new Christmas ornament every year to hang on the tree. The idea was that by the time they left home, they would each…
If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you might remember these Quilt-As-You-Go blocks and the roll of binding that I sent off to Jan Mac of Oz Comfort Quilts to be made into a quilt for those who were affected by the horrible flooding that occurred in Australia earlier this year. If you click over here, you can…
In the previous post, I described how we make our own homemade stock. Now I’m going to show you how we preserve that stock for future use by pressure canning it. (<-affiliate link) A note before we get started: Despite what our grandmothers may have done or the canning methods they may have used, modern canning methods require all low…