Christmas sweets all over the place – Issue #4/2011!
Pretty busy over the last couple of weeks,but we’ve decided we take a short break and release come yummy pictures of the typical Christmas sweets they sell everywhere at this time of year.
Christmas market in Strasbourg: it’s that time of year again!
We maintain a good tradition checking out various Christmas markets in both Germany and France around this time of year. One of our local favorites is Strasbourg in France, not far from the border, and as we went there to spend some quality time, we thought we should share visual impressions.
Indian Summer In Southwest Germany
Recently, on our way back home the narrow road took us through small villages on the other side of the hill not far from where we live, and I was fascinated by the warm and peaceful scenery. So we stopped and I took some pictures that hopefully let you imagine how it looked like.
Oktoberfest Theme
If you are in Germany or near Germany right now, and haven’t been to an Oktoberfest yet, take it into consideration. Held this year from September 17 till October 3, this annual beer festival celebrated on the Theresienwiese in Munich is a must-go.
Food-wise, this is where you meet the most outstanding examples of the German finger-food: typically, they serve pretzels of a huge size, various beers served in a Maß (a 1 liter stein), white Bavarian sausages with mustard, sauerkraut, dumplings, potato salad, and my all-time favorite in the German cuisine, the roasted pork knuckle (this is the one you see in the title image of this post).
If you can’t make it to the Oktoberfest this year, don’t be sad – you can take your own approach on preparing a roasted pork knuckle. Here’s what you need:
approx. 52 ounces (1 1 / 2 kilograms) pork back
2 teaspoons salt
1 / 2 teaspoon cumin
1 piece of garlic
1 / 2 teaspoon pepper
1 piece onion
2 tablespoons oil
1 1/4 cups (300 ml) meat stock or broth
10 1/8 (300 ml) beer
Rinse and dry the pork. You can make diamond-shaped cuts in the skin or skip that. If you do, don’t cut through the fat, or the pork will get too dry while roasting. Mix salt, cumin, minced garlic and pepper (in a mortar) and rub the pork with this spice mixture.
Preheat your oven to 350F (180C). Peel the onion, divide it into coarse pieces. Heat some oil in a pan and sear the pork briefly, then add the onion. Now add the broth and place the dish in the oven. Pork roast in the oven for about 2.5 hours. Turn over and over again, and pour broth and gradually beer (the roaster should always have some liquid on the floor). Shortly before the end of the cooking increase the temperature to 440F (230C) and fry the pork until crisp.
Remove, serve, enjoy!
The Justification
Yeah, calories, we know. But once you are in France, you get overwhelmed by the variety of the sweets, cakes, candies, pies.. And you struggle not to let yourself go and grab at least one of each of those. The next morning you realize that you did. In order to justify the purchase of at least 8 of those anti-diet weapons, you place them in front of the lens and photograph them. Voila!
