What Did You Have for Dinner?

[NYLIBUD]

Mmmmmmmm

[StevenGuthmiller]

2 hours ago, NYLIBUD said:

Mmmmmmmm

I would expect nothing less from "The Dude"!

 

Steve

[cowboy rich]

22 minutes ago, StevenGuthmiller said:

I would expect nothing less from "The Dude"!

 

Steve

THAT IS FUNNY

[NYLIBUD]

15 hours ago, cowboy rich said:

THAT IS FUNNY

Your right,but I didn't have a White Russian/A Caucasian with dinner. 

Edited August 9, 2018 by NYLIBUD

[SfanGoch]

Those are  great for washing down breakfast, especially pancakes.

[NYLIBUD]

6 hours ago, SfanGoch said:

Those are  great for washing down breakfast, especially pancakes.

I can see that,great drink when they're made right.Hmmm

[SfanGoch]

Hey, It's got Instant Breakfast beat by a mile. Personally, I keep Drambuie around for the occasional Irish Coffee in the A.M. and Brugal Rum for a rum and coke when the mood hits me.

Tonight's dinner was sliced up leftover pot roast with gemelli pasta and gravy. My kid and I were meatballed out. I made 48 meatballs and homemade sauce last week and there was no way we were gonna chow down on them every day. Jarred about 40 and stuck them in the fridge. Meatball heroes next week to take with us to Rockaway Beach.  

[StevenGuthmiller]

23 minutes ago, SfanGoch said:

Hey, It's got Instant Breakfast beat by a mile. Personally, I keep Drambuie around for the occasional Irish Coffee in the A.M. and Brugal Rum for a rum and coke when the mood hits me.

Tonight's dinner was sliced up leftover pot roast with gemelli pasta and gravy. My kid and I were meatballed out. I made 48 meatballs and homemade sauce last week and there was no way we were gonna chow down on them every day. Jarred about 40 and stuck them in the fridge. Meatball heroes next week to take with us to Rockaway Beach.  

Nothing better than a meatball sub!

Tonight we went to a picnic at a coworkers house that she puts on for all of us once a year.

Teriyaki chicken with potatoes.

Everybody brought a dish to pass.

The usual's.

Baked beans, potato salad........you get the picture.

 

Steve

[SfanGoch]

24 minutes ago, StevenGuthmiller said:

.you get the picture.

I'd rather get some of that yardbird.  

[StevenGuthmiller]

9 minutes ago, SfanGoch said:

I'd rather get some of that yardbird.  

I would have traded it all for a half of a meatball sub!!

 

Steve

[SfanGoch]

Not to brag...well, yeah, I am  , but my homemade pasta sauce and meatballs get get thumbs up from my Italian neighbors in the building. All of them say they taste just like what they ate at home. It's all about the garlic. I also get requests for my Whiting Grotta Azzurra with linguine and prosciutto balls. 

[PARTSMARTY]

On 8/8/2018 at 8:53 PM, NYLIBUD said:

Mmmmmmmm

Love it !!!

[StevenGuthmiller]

7 hours ago, SfanGoch said:

 I also get requests for my Whiting Grotta Azzurra with linguine and prosciutto balls. 

My whatta what?

 

Steve

[SfanGoch]

'At's a matta, 'at's a matta. hey! 'At's a matta for you!

[LDO]

No pics, but I made steak fajitas last night. The recipe was from an episode of Good Eats about steak. They were not very good. I don't know if I did something wrong or if I just don't care for his marinade, but it was still a bummer. If I try it again, I'll use something other than skirt steak. Maybe wait for ribeye to go on sale. I think I'll  look for a clone recipe of Taco Cabana's fajitas. I really like theirs. 

[Mike999]

Green salad with vinaigrette dressing.  Bourbon beef & peach shish-kebabs over rice.   (Don't be impressed, bought them at the store but slathered a little more homemade bourbon/hot sauce on them before cooking, just to perk them up.)  Dessert, fresh cherries and white grapes.

[SfanGoch]

1 hour ago, LDO said:

No pics, but I made steak fajitas last night. The recipe was from an episode of Good Eats about steak. They were not very good. I don't know if I did something wrong or if I just don't care for his marinade, but it was still a bummer. If I try it again, I'll use something other than skirt steak. Maybe wait for ribeye to go on sale. I think I'll  look for a clone recipe of Taco Cabana's fajitas. I really like theirs. 

 

Get chuck steak. Ask any butcher and he'll tell you it's one of the best cuts. It has more flavor than even a Porterhouse or ribeye. Marinate the chuck, about 1-11/2" thick. with red wine, Worcestershire sauce, fresh crushed garlic, salt, ground black pepper and sliced serrano peppers. The longer it marinates, the juicier and more tender it gets. I'll let it marinate for up to three days and it tastes great. Heat a lightly oiled pan medium-high and cook for six minutes on each side. When done, slice it thin and it's fajita-ready. You can save the marinade by freezing it or you can heat it up to make a sauce. 

[StevenGuthmiller]

32 minutes ago, SfanGoch said:

 

Get chuck steak. Ask any butcher and he'll tell you it's one of the best cuts. It has more flavor than even a Porterhouse or ribeye. Marinate the chuck, about 1-11/2" thick. with red wine, Worcestershire sauce, fresh crushed garlic, salt, ground black pepper and sliced serrano peppers. The longer it marinates, the juicier and more tender it gets. I'll let it marinate for up to three days and it tastes great. Heat a lightly oiled pan medium-high and cook for six minutes on each side. When done, slice it thin and it's fajita-ready. You can save the marinade by freezing it or you can heat it up to make a sauce. 

I use flank steak.

Any time I'm grilling a piece of steak for slicing.

It doesn't need marinating at all to be tender.

Slice it thin & it's great stuff.

 

Steve

 

 

Edited August 12, 2018 by StevenGuthmiller

[StevenGuthmiller]

Here's one that I'll bet none of you have ever seen or tasted.

I grew up in a very German family from a region of the country that is full to bursting with Germans from Russia.

The entire center of the country running all the way from central Canada, all the way to Texas has a lot of them.

Especially in South & North Dakota.

This dish is something the my mother simply called "Strudla & Ham".

A little bit like a savory version of the traditional German dessert, "Strudel", (which we never ate by the way) it is basically a very dense rolled dumpling (especially dense when I attempt them) with potatoes & ham.

This is very typical of the type of food that the German farmers from this area ate 100 years ago.

A lot of dough, potatoes, butter & cream.

When there was meat, it was usually pork, including vast quantities of "German Frying Sausage" which was always present.

It was served for almost every meal, including breakfast.

My grand parents would can it & there was always cold sausage in the fridge for a late night snack.

 

Any way, this was my poor attempt at recreating a dish that I haven't attempted in probably 20 years.

The Strudla were too heavy, & the ham & potatoes over cooked, but man it sure tasted like a great memory!

 

Steve

Edited August 12, 2018 by StevenGuthmiller

[SfanGoch]

You're gonna hate me, Steve.  

I live in the ethnic food capital of the world. If it can be boiled, broiled, baked or fried, there's a good chance I've eaten it. 

Did your ancestors emigrate from Germany or were they Germans who emigrated to Russia and then their descendants later came here? A whole lot of these dishes originated with the latter.

There used to be a great German restaurant in Middle Village, Queens called Niederstein's. It was the oldest restaurant in Queens (150 years old) and they used to have strudla mit schinken on the menu. It closed and was demolished in 2005. What replaced it? An Arby's, of course. Another late great German restaurant, located in the once heavily German neighborhood of Yorkville on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, was Cafe Heidelberg. Srtrudla with pork schnitzel  was available there; although, I never ordered it. I stayed with sauerbraten, Zigeuner schnitzel or tierbraten with spaetzle or beef rouladen.  

This dish is also a favorite of Serbs and Croats. There are a couple of good Serbian and Croatian restaurants in Astoria and at least the two my kid and I ate in have this dish. Did you coat the dough with Crisco or bacon grease?

[peteski]

59 minutes ago, SfanGoch said:

You're gonna hate me, Steve.  

I live in the ethnic food capital of the world. If it can be boiled, broiled, baked or fried, there's a good chance I've eaten it. 

Did your ancestors emigrate from Germany or were they Germans who emigrated to Russia and then their descendants later came here? A whole lot of these dishes originated with the latter.

There used to be a great German restaurant in Middle Village, Queens called Niederstein's. It was the oldest restaurant in Queens (150 years old) and they used to have strudla mit schinken on the menu. It closed and was demolished in 2005. What replaced it? An Arby's, of course. Another late great German restaurant, located in the once heavily German neighborhood of Yorkville on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, was Cafe Heidelberg. Srtrudla with pork schnitzel  was available there; although, I never ordered it. I stayed with sauerbraten, Zigeuner schnitzel or tierbraten with spaetzle or beef rouladen.  

This dish is also a favorite of Serbs and Croats. There are a couple of good Serbian and Croatian restaurants in Astoria and at least the two my kid and I ate in have this dish. Did you coat the dough with Crisco or bacon grease?

Quite few Polish dishes also show German influence (especially in western Poland, since it was under German occupation for quite some time).

 

[StevenGuthmiller]

1 hour ago, SfanGoch said:

 Did your ancestors emigrate from Germany or were they Germans who emigrated to Russia and then their descendants later came here? A whole lot of these dishes originated with the latter.

They were Germans that immigrated to Russia, and then came here.

 

1 hour ago, SfanGoch said:

There used to be a great German restaurant in Middle Village, Queens called Niederstein's. It was the oldest restaurant in Queens (150 years old) and they used to have strudla mit schinken on the menu. It closed and was demolished in 2005. What replaced it? An Arby's, of course. Another late great German restaurant, located in the once heavily German neighborhood of Yorkville on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, was Cafe Heidelberg. Srtrudla with pork schnitzel  was available there; although, I never ordered it. I stayed with sauerbraten, Zigeuner schnitzel or tierbraten with spaetzle or beef rouladen. 

The funny part is that most of these traditional "German dishes" did not exist in our household.

Hell, we rarely ate sauerkraut!

I never tasted sauerbraten or schnitzel until I was an adult in a German restaurant.

Even spaetzle was pretty much non-existent.

 

 

1 hour ago, SfanGoch said:

  This dish is also a favorite of Serbs and Croats. There are a couple of good Serbian and Croatian restaurants in Astoria and at least the two my kid and I ate in have this dish. Did you coat the dough with Crisco or bacon grease?

Neither.

The dough isn't coated with anything.

The ingredient list is extremely short.

The dough consists of flour, eggs, salt and water.

Slices of ham are layered in the bottom of a dutch oven, followed by a layer of cubed potatoes.

A little salt and pepper, some water & the strudla on top.

My mother told me that she would cook this on the stove top so I thought that I would try it this time.

I think baking it in the oven works better.

You know, a little bacon grease might not hurt, but then it wouldn't be the way my mother made it.

If anything, it would have been coated with butter.

 

Some day soon, I would like to make a dish that my family called "Kraut beere", (pronounced "grout bayla")

Supposedly it translated into something like "cabbage berries", but my grand parents thought that it was a form of the word pierogi, or "cabbage pierogi".

A lot of the people in these parts call them "kraut burgers" and use sauerkraut in them.

But we did not.

They were a lot like a pasty, but with only ground beef, onions and cabbage inside of a risen bread dough & baked.

I've never met anyone who didn't like them.

Even if you don't like cabbage.

 

 

Steve

Edited August 13, 2018 by StevenGuthmiller

[SfanGoch]

"Kraut beere" is actually krautbiroch, or bierocks. It is either Russian or Turkish in origin. The Turkish word is borek. It was brought to the States by Volga Germans, which is where your ancestors and other Germans in the upper Midwest came from. They're delicious. I get similar rolls from the Polish stores around here. Here's a recipe:

Krautbiroch
Dough: 2 cups warm water, 1/3 cup sugar, 2 packages yeast, 2 eggs, 6 1/2 cups flour, 1 tablespoon salt, 1/3 cup
butter
Combine water, sugar, and yeast. Stir and let set until dissolved.
Mix in eggs, 2 cups of the flour, salt, and butter. Beat for 1 minute. Add remaining 4 1/2 cups flour and knead
lightly. Let set 20 minutes. (May use 2 loaves frozen bread dough instead. Let thaw.)
Filling: 1 1/2 pound diced smoked ham, 1/3 cup onion, 1/2 teaspoon pepper, 1 quart rinsed, drained sauerkraut
(rinse well to remove sauerkraut juice).
Place ham, onion, and pepper in hot skillet. Toss until onions are soft. Add sauerkraut and stir until hot. Remove
from heat.
Pull off 3 inch ball of dough. Roll with a rolling pin into a 6-7 inch circle until 1/4" thick. Fill 1/2 side of dough with a
2 inches of the ham / sauerkraut mixture (like an apple turnover). Fold remaining dough half over filled half. Place
on greased cookie sheets and bake at 350 degrees for 20-30 minutes until golden brown.

You can substitute any meat in place of ham. 

Here's a recipe for old-style strudla. This is probably the way your mother used to make it::

Strudla
Dough: 4 cups flour, 1 egg, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon baking powder, 1 1/4 cups warm water
Mix ingredients and knead well. Cover and let stand 1 hour.
Base: Potatoes and/or cooked meat, 1/2 cup diced onion, 1/4 cup butter, bacon grease
Roll out dough paper thin. Spread with thin layer of melted bacon grease. Roll up loosely (as for cinnamon rolls).
Cut rolls into 1 inch lengths. Dice potatoes and place in heavy skillet with onion and butter. Cover potatoes with
water and bring to a boil. Layer strudla on top of potatoes in skillet. Cover when boiling and simmer 30 minutes.
Do not remove cover during cooking time or strudla will set.

If you want some more old-style German recipes , let me know.  

11 hours ago, peteski said:

Quite few Polish dishes also show German influence (especially in western Poland, since it was under German occupation for quite some time)

They sure were, Pete. I like cooking 14-17th century Polish dishes and try to get as many of the original ingredients as possible to maintain authenticity and the original flavors. A number of these dishes are "slesische" and "pommerische" in origin. I have a pretty good sized library of old European, North African and Middle Eastern recipes. 

 

[SfanGoch]

10 hours ago, StevenGuthmiller said:

The funny part is that most of these traditional "German dishes" did not exist in our household.

That's because these dishes weren't traditional after the late 17th and early 18th centuries in what would later become Germany. The Volga Germans maintained the old dishes and traditions brought by their ancestors when they first colonized regions in Russia. There was no cultural exchange with the old country and they sort of froze in time, a time capsule from the past, if you will.

[StevenGuthmiller]

28 minutes ago, SfanGoch said:

That's because these dishes weren't traditional after the late 17th and early 18th centuries in what would later become Germany. The Volga Germans maintained the old dishes and traditions brought by their ancestors when they first colonized regions in Russia. There was no cultural exchange with the old country and they sort of froze in time, a time capsule from the past, if you will.

It's nice to have this discussion with someone so knowledgeable about the subject Joe.

Hell, they're my ancestors & you know more about them than I do!

The word "bierocks" does sound familiar.

I seem to recall my parents & grand parents discussing where the term came from & I believe that was one of the words they came up with.

Of course, my grand parents didn't know any of this "history" stuff, they only knew what their parents and grand parents taught them, and at the time that my parents were young, an eighth grade education was fully educated.

It was all about survival on the farm.

 

The "krautbiroch" that my mother & both sets of my grandparents made were filled with ground beef, onions & cabbage.

The filling was mixed in a dutch oven and browned very well until the cabbage and onions were very caramelized.

Then folded in the dough, baked & then brushed with melted butter when they came out.

My mother later resorted to using frozen bread dough because it was very similar & much easier to deal with.

That's how I make them today.

 

As a kid, we were blasphemous and used to dip them in ketchup! 

My grand parents were appalled!

 

Steve