Christmas Dinner

We are a happy family

The Dinner table on Christmas
Lovely Nana Beate, Valentina and Christine

Belated I am posting pictures from our wonderful Christmas dinner, which was attended by my wonderful mom Beate, my Papa Paolo and our friends Christine and Chris. I cooked a German Sauerbraten , Semmelknoedel (German Dumplings) and Rotkraut (German Sweet-Sour Red Cabbage) and a Lentil Pate (for Chris, who is vegan). Now Sauerbraten is something else: A 5 pound eye round roast gets marinated in red wine, red wine vinegar, sugar, cloves, mustard seed, crushed Juniper berries, garlic, bay leaves, parsley and lemon for 8 days!!! Every day I turned the meat in the marinade. By the end of the 8 days the meat turned really dark. The marinate is cooked with the meat in a clay pot for 3 hours and what emerges is a black, very flavorful kinda sweet and sour gravy, that is absolutely delicious over the dumplings. After wine and dessert we sat in the living room listening to old western/cowboy and obscur 1920's songs and sang along. Blissfully silly and relaxing!