Tag: Side Dish

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Carrot and Macaroni Salad

Carrot and Macaroni Salad is basic. You would expect to find it or a variation thereof on dinner tables across the Midwest, or on buffets at Church suppers, or as the dish someone brings to your house after you have suffered a loss. Looking into the noodley-creaminess with flecks of bright orange, you expect to be somewhat underwhelmed, but comforted by the flavors.

Jump to Recipe

Let’s discuss expectations.

View of Carrot and macaroni salad

We all have them, even when we think we don’t. When we feel delighted it’s because something met or exceeded our expectations and disappointment is caused by our expectations not being met. Frequently, it’s not even our expectations that matter, but it’s the expectations others have of us.

Why do I bother explaining this when people are simply looking for a recipe? It’s because Carrot and Macaroni Salad defies expectations.

In previous posts about gelatin, we have discussed how my gelled dessert experience was nearly ruined by old ladies who sadistically topped fruity desserts with a thick, creamy layer of…mayonnaise.

Carrot and Macaroni salad has a similar creamy surprise, except in this case, you expect the creaminess to be mayonnaise and instead it is mayonnaise combined with an entire can of sweetened condensed milk and a 1/4 cup of sugar. It is tempered a little with the addition of onion and vinegar, but not much.

This dish dares you to make it.

“It can’t be that bad,” you say to yourself as you whisk together the dressing.

“This is a lot of vegetables,” you reason as you chop.

“Everyone likes pasta salad.” you reassure yourself as you set the dish on the table.

You may even call your mom for reassurance before dinner is actually served.

“Oh, I remember that salad,” she might say, “I’ll be interested to hear what you think of it.”

You prepare everyone. “This is one of great-grandma’s recipes. Nana says she’d like me to take a picture of everyone as they try it. This is going to be fun. Even if someone spits it out, everyone needs to try it because Nana really wants pictures.”

(I did not include the family pictures in this post, but I did send them to my mother)

Your daughter takes her first bite. She has fewer preconceived notions about what pasta salad should be than anyone else. She smiles. You snap the pic.

Next is your husband. You manage a picture of his grimace as the first bite touches his tongue.

Neither of your sons attempts to hide their reactions. Nana is getting great footage.

Finally, it’s your turn. It is in that moment that you wish you had a dog.

The cloying sweetness invades your mouth and coats your tongue.

“At least I cooked the noodles well” you think as you bite down into a perfectly cooked macaroni.

The carrot is less sweet than the dressing and provides a pleasing crunch. Green pepper’s astringency strips the top layer of frosting from your tongue allowing the flavors of onion and vinegar to penetrate.

It’s like a barn dance in your mouth. Your chews emulate the stomping of feet and the flavors swirl like a do-si-do.

The side of your mouth tilts up as your brain processes, but only one side.

It is not the worst thing you’ve eaten. It’s somewhat palatable and you even understand what the recipe originator was trying to do. However, it doesn’t conform to more modern ways of vegetable prep. It’s heavy.

After dinner that evening, as we cleaned the kitchen. “Hey, what container should I put the salad in?” one of my boys asked.

“The garbage can” my husband and I replied in unison. “No one is going to eat that.”

The Recipe:

Carrot Macaroni Salad Recipe

Carrot-Macaroni Salad

A sweet pasta salad with vegetables
Print Recipe Pin Recipe
Course Side Dish/Salad
Cuisine American

Ingredients
  

  • 16 oz Cooked Pasta Whatever shape appeals to you
  • 2 Cups Mayonnaise NOT Salad Dressing
  • 1/4 Cup Vinegar
  • 1/4 Cup Sugar
  • 1 Can Sweetened, Condensed Milk
  • 2 large Carrots grated
  • 1 large Onion finely chopped
  • 1 Green Pepper finely chopped
  • salt to taste
  • pepper to taste

Instructions
 

  • Combine mayonnaise, vinegar, sugar, and sweetened condensed milk into a large bowl.
  • Add remaining ingredients and stir to combine.
  • Serve immediately or refrigerate to allow flavors to meld.

Notes

Keyword Carrot, Pasta, Salad, side dish

For much better side dishes, try Unexpected Side Dish: Sour Cream Lima Beans, Pistachio Salad, and French Potato Salad for an Elegant Picnic

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Spinach Cottage Cheese Souffle Salad

As we move into the Christmas season, the biggest challenge I run into is managing expectations.  I want those perfect moments. The Christmas card should have all 3 children looking in the same direction.  The plates of cookies and candy should rival those in the pages of magazines.  The tree needs to be the perfect mix of nostalgia and our personalities.  It’s hard to get everything just right.

The kids have their own expectations. There needs to be enough time for all the snowman building, sledding, and cookie making. They submit their list of presents (via Google Docs this year?!?). There are movies that need watching. We got Die Hard over with early so we can concentrate on White Christmas and Christmas in Connecticut and other great classics, like the Mistletones.

At some point I stand back and look at my imperfect family and wonder what I was thinking. The kitchen is not going to be really clean again until Boxing Day. The kids are not going to get everything they want. The tree is going to be lopsided and the needles will fall off because no one will remember to water it no matter how many times I ask.

That doesn’t even start with the hormones and overtiredness. We all end up with whatever virus is going on and everyone is in a hurry to finish up everything before the end of the year. At the point I really look at my family, I remember that expectations can make or break experiences. It is inevitable that when our expectations are overly high, we come away disappointed. When our expectations are too low we devalue ourselves. The reality of us being ourselves makes our Christmas perfect.

Learning to manage my expectations helps when making some of these recipes, like the ones I made at Thanksgiving.

Just before Thanksgiving, I had a conversation with my brother about my blog and Thanksgiving dinner.

“I’ve got all of these great-grandma recipes to make which means they all have to be photographed.” I said to him.

“You know what the problem is,” he said to me. “All of the recipes you have been making are good. I never get to try the really terrible ones.”

“Believe me, you wouldn’t want to be here for things like the Iowa Egg Foo Yung.”

He insisted that he would.

I took him at his word and promised something like tuna egg foo yung. However when it came time to deliver, I couldn’t pull the trigger and ruin my perfect dinner with something that would perhaps smell as bad or worse than the the other egg foo yung recipe.

But the expectations were set. I combed through my recipe database looking for the perfect recipe to disgust and delight my big brother. Nothing with tuna. Nothing with nuts. Dessert was out of the question. I finally landed on a Jell-O soufflé salad.

Do you know about these? My great-grandma had a pamphlet of them. There are some amazing ideas in there. I chose the Spinach Cottage Cheese Soufflé Salad.

I would like you to take a minute and really think about what I am about to describe to you. Think about the flavors and textures in your mouth.

Lemon Jell-O whipped with vinegar and mayonnaise until it is light and fluffy. Got it? Now add raw spinach, onion, celery, salt, pepper, and a generous scoop of cottage cheese. I’m guessing your first thought isn’t “yum”. And by now you have seen enough pictures to verify that it looks somewhat like curdled vomit.

Our expectations were not high and rightly so. We all dutifully helped ourselves to small portions of the light greenish chunky slime. We sat at the table and stared at each other daring each other to take the first bite of the dish that resembled old scrambled eggs.  My brother took the first bite.  My sister-in-law was next.

“It’s not that bad,” she declared.  

I took a tentative bite.  She was right.  It wasn’t that bad.  To be fair, my expectations were really low.  This is not in any way endorsing Spinach Cottage Cheese Souffle Salad as something you should ever attempt to make or eat.  It tastes and feels vaguely like if you vomited after eating cheese and whipped cream then sprayed lemon pledge on your tongue.  Oddly I had expected worse.  Chopping the spinach finely helped reduce any grittiness.  The celery added a nice crispness to the dense and airy congealed mess.  The onion added a hint of pungency.

Had I made Spinach Cottage Cheese Souffle salad expecting great results, I would’ve been sorely disappointed.  As it was, it was less disgusting than I expected.  I’m almost looking forward to making some of the other Souffle Salad recipes, although I think a gross Jell-O Salad dinner party may have to happen in order to get the recipes made in one shot while my inhibitions are still lowered.

The Recipe:

If you liked this you may want to check out Japanese Chicken, Peach Cottage Cheese Loaf, and Tricky Orange Dessert.

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Garden Fresh Green Bean “Paprikash”

We’re having a weird weather year in the garden.  I still had rhubarb after other people reported that theirs bolted.  Despite being eaten by the stupid groundhogs, my peas are flourishing right now; it seems late in the season for that.  Friends of mine have posted about their gluts of cucumbers and zucchini.  My vines are growing and flowering, but that’s about it.  One thing that we have almost enough of is green beans.  It’s a good thing we  like them, but we get bored of the usual ways to make them.Over the weekend, we road-tripped with some friends.  We like to play tourist in our own state.  Last time we did this, we ended up in New Glarus at the brewery.  Not one to shirk at tradition, we decided to follow that trip up with a visit to  another brewery, a winery, a church, and a flea market just pausing long enough to dip our feet into the Mississippi River.  For dinner we stopped at another brewery/brew pub and had fried green beans as an appetizer.  They were delicious, but not something I really feel like making at home.

As usual, I consulted the recipe files.  I would like you to imagine me wearing a deerstalkers hat and smoking a pipe as I rummage through card catalogs full of files saying important things like “hmmmm” and “I see” as I dig.  The reality of it is much less romantic.  It’s me sitting on the couch with my computer open searching for key words in my picture files like “green beans”.  It was pretty handy that I labeled all of the recipes when I scanned them in.

As usual, great-grandma delivered.I found this rather unusual, but fairly delicious recipe simply named “Green Beans.”  It’s not sexy looking and the sauce is rather thick, but it’s an interesting new-to-me take on green beans.  I decided to refer to it as “paprikash” because the ingredients for the sauce are what you would use if making chicken paprikash.

Do you remember that scene in “When Harry Met Sally”?  Nope, not that one.  Although that one is good, too.

The one to which I am referring is when Harry and Sally are in the museum and he decides they are going to talk funny for the rest of the day. I can’t hear the word “paprikash” without thinking about that scene.  It makes me smile.  (But how weird is it that we live in a world where that clip is so easily accessible?)

If you are using fresh beans, it may take a little longer than the 5 minutes specified in the recipe to get them cooked to however you like your green beans cooked.  If you are using canned, it will take less.  (Although why you would when it’s bean season, is beyond me, but everyone gets to make their own choices.)  I suppose if you wanted to get fancy, you could bake these and put some buttered bread crumbs on the top.  

Other than complaining about not liking green beans (which they decided once they saw the rather garish clash of colors in this dish), this was a dish that we will make again.

The Recipe:

Green Beans

4 TB Butter
3/4 cup diced onion
1 TB Paprika
2 TB flour
1 cup Sour Cream
1/2 tsp. Salt

Cook onions in butter about 4-5 minutes.  Add paprika and flour and stir to coat.  Add sour cream and salt.  Simmer another 4-5 minutes.  Add green beans and cook 5 minutes longer.

If you are still looking for more green bean recipes, check out Deviled Green Beans, 4 Bean Salad, and Bean Salad.  

Want to see what else I’m doing?  Follow me on Pinterest or Facebook.

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Blueberry Salad Mold for My Mother-in-Law

Food is my love language.  If I love you or am trying to impress you, I will cook for you. When I was first trying to date the man that is now my husband, I made him homemade pizza dough for his birthday.  A few days later, I invited him over for dinner and impressed him with jerk chicken.  He was maybe more impressed that I was under the sink replacing the faucet when he arrived, but he knew pretty quickly that he wasn’t going to let me get away.

I pay attention to people’s food preferences and dietary restrictions.  My Mother-in-law loves blueberries which means that when she’s coming to visit, I scour all of my recipes for the perfect blueberry dish to make for her. Usually it is some sort of dessert, but sometimes it’s as simple as homemade blueberry applesauce.

The last time they visited, I started menu planning a couple of days in advance to make. When I know guests are coming, I scour great-grandma’s recipes for something impressive to make.   A lot of times these recipes require some planning ahead and the Blueberry Salad Mold is no exception.

I decided to honor my Mother-in-law further by putting this salad into a copper mold that I found for a steal at the thrift shop.  It’s a fair question to ask why this would honor her.  You see, my Mother-in-law is the queen of thrift shopping.  Where there are bargains to be found, she is there.  Road trips with her mean stopping at every known thrift shop along the way, or so we tease her.  I’ve never been with her as she’s stopped, but I’ve heard stories.  Anyway, isn’t this a pretty copper mold?  

It has a little round loop on one side for hanging and I have the perfect spot for it.  Right above my sink with another piece from my Mother-in-law.

Back to this salad.  It’s sweet (obviously), a bit tart, and creamy and delicious.  As per usual, the kids were hesitant to try it because they are kids.  But it turned out to be a perfect accompaniment to the meal.  If I’m not careful I’m going to have to start rethinking my aversion to all things Jell-O.  There are still plenty of concoctions I’ve made that aren’t as pretty as they should be, like Frosty Lime Salad and Cooked Cranberry Salad, but even the strange ones like Zippy Beet Salad are not as bad as I originally expected.  And we all have to admit the Tropical Delight Salad was a hit.  

Someone please reassure me this doesn’t make me lose my cred. 

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Bean Salad: The Bean Stalks at Midnight

I know, I know, we’ve been down this territory before.  How many damn variations of bean salad can there possibly be? But look at how pretty this one is.

You see those pretty bits of red?  And that gorgeous green.  Everything glistening with the dressing.  It’s a lovely bean salad made even more lovely by being served in my grandma’s dish.  These are the things that I really like.  A simple salad, beautiful colors, plenty of fresh veggies, flavors that mix and blend.

Can I just go down this sentimental path for a second?  I am writing this blog post about my great-grandma’s recipe, photographed in my grandma’s dish, while sitting in my other great-grandma’s chair.  My daughter is sleeping in a bed with her head resting on a pillowcase that my mom made.  Just think about how absolutely special that is.

Back to beans…and peas.

I absolutely did not use canned peas in this recipe.  I can’t stand canned peas.  Canned peas are terrible.  For my taste, they are overly sweet and mushy.  I opted for thawed frozen peas.  They have a little more tooth to them and the color is nicer.

Pimentos. If you have never bought these before, they are in the pickle/olive area of the grocery store and come in a little tiny jar.  I had no idea that these were also called cherry peppers, I assumed that was something different.  (The church ladies at our old church made the best canned stuffed peppers out of these.)  I did a quick internet search because I wanted to confirm that these grew upside down, but got lost and never did find that answer.  If someone knows, let me know.

Flavor.  Basically this can be as fresh or as processed as you feel like.  My half and half mixture was pretty decent.  The recipe says that the recipe keeps for weeks.  If you are using fresh/frozen beans, I’d err on the side of caution.  Regardless, I don’t think this salad will last that long.  It’s not the Mixed Veggie Salad.

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Unexpected Side Dish: Sour Cream Lima Beans

I got a text from my friend telling me she lost her car keys.  Clearly this is one of those weeks for her where nothing goes quite right, but that’s her story to tell, not mine.  As I was reflecting on her lost keys, I started to laugh.  Initially this could seem like a very insensitive thing to do, but out of nowhere I remembered something I hadn’t thought about in years. Frying Bacon My mom used to lose her keys all the time when we were teenagers.  It was a regular occurrence.  I don’t remember when she started to pray to St. Anthony, but it became the default.  Whenever something went missing, my mom would ask if we’d prayed to St. Anthony.  (Except it was common enough that we just called it “talking to Tony”)(We aren’t even Catholic).  More often than not, the answer would be “no”.  To which she always reminded us that we should be doing that and perhaps we shouldn’t bother her until we had.  This is not to imply in anyway that my mom was not sympathetic to whatever it was we had lost.  She was, but she didn’t have time to keep track of all of our stuff on top of everything else she had to do.  And besides, like I say to my kids all the time, “if you put your stuff away properly…”  We all know how it goes and if you don’t, come be my Yoda and teach me how to improve.  Anyway, back to my mom’s keys.  She would seriously lose them all the time.  It wasn’t because she wasn’t organized, but we know how women’s purses are.  And when you are in and out of the car and it’s winter and kids and chaos and life.  Even if I didn’t get it then, I do now. Sour Cream Lima Beans before BakingIt was around that same time that my sister and I had the opportunity to go to Italy.  I am still grateful for that opportunity.  While there, we visited Padua.  (St. Anthony is from Padua.)  During the visit to the church dedicated to St. Anthony,  (who is the patron saint of all sorts of lost things.) we stopped at the gift shop.  We already had in mind what it was that we wanted as a souvenir.  Arriving home we couldn’t wait to present our dear mother with her very own St. Anthony keychain.

I’d like to be able to say that she never lost her keys again.  But I doubt that’s true.  Also, I am not sure that she didn’t lose the St. Anthony keychain.  She’ll have to confirm for me.  Regardless, we tried.Sour Cream Lima BeansMy friend texted back later to say that she did find her keys.  I tried telling her about St. Anthony.  She said that Lutherans don’t do that.  (I’m going to take credit for invoking the name of St. Anthony for her.) Lima Beans baked in Sour Cream

So what does any of this have to do with side dishes?  Sometimes you don’t even know that you’ve lost something, but when it’s presented to you, you realize that you were missing it all along.  And sometimes it’s in unexpected places.   Like old newspaper clippings pasted inside an old, red Freshman Handbook.  DSCN2861This recipe grabbed me from the first time I saw it.  There is nothing in it that I don’t like.  Rosemary, maple syrup, mustard, bacon, sour cream and lima beans.  Yes, please!  But that’s not a guarantee that the recipe is not going to fail.  (See Sweet and Sour Bean Combo and “Japanese” Chicken if you don’t believe me.)  And sometimes, the recipes leave something out.  (Christmas Sugar Cookies, for example)  This recipe didn’t disappoint.  It was maybe just a little dry.  This could easily be combated by adding more sour cream or thinning it with milk.  It was such a nice change from regular baked beans.  The creaminess and the bacon together was a bit like a carbonara (speaking of Italy…).  Sour Cream Lima Beans

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The Best Broccoli Casserole You’ve Never Made

Broccoli is my kids’ favorite vegetable…pause for the sharp intake of breath from the crowd…I know, right? Broccoli Casserole farI know what you all are thinking.  First of all, you are totally impressed that my kids eat veggies at all. Secondly, you wonder what I did to get this behavior from them.  Third, you assume I’m lying.  Want to know something else?  My kids eat and enjoy most veggies.  The youngest impressed my grandma by sucking down asparagus as one of her first foods.  The diapers were gross and smelled weird, but that’s not what we are going to talk about.  These are those brag-worthy moments.  There are lots of things that my darling little angels are good at, but one of the things they are best at is trying new foods.  Instead of taking complete credit for it, I’m going to rely partially on genetics and partially on my boredom with eating the same foods over and over.  This is the part where I remind you that we have the rule for the kids about needing to try everything and if they refuse, they have to eat twice as much as I would normally make them eat.  (We are talking teaspoons of food, not full servings.  Enough to get the idea of it without overfilling bellies and causing children to puke.  We aren’t monsters.)  This is also the part where I highly recommend subscribing to a CSA.  Broccoli Casserole meltyAh…I bet a bunch of you are unfamiliar with what a CSA is.  CSA is Community-Supported Agriculture.  It’s an opportunity to purchase a vegetable “subscription”.  With our last one from High Meadow Farm, we got a box of farm fresh vegetables every week.  This meant that we ate seasonally.  In the spring, after a long winter, my body craves as many greens as I can possibly hold.  Luckily this is the time when greens are best.  I got to eat spinach sauteed with balsamic vinegar, garlic, and sundried tomatoes as often as I wanted.  My breakfast consisted of eggs and greens most days.  We had salad at dinner every night.  Then there were the beautiful French radishes.  We liked them sliced with a little salt, sauteed, or mixed with some spring onions and spices to make a “salsa” type condiment.

I could go on and on about how wonderful the vegetables were throughout the entire growing season, but that isn’t my point.  My point is that we had a lot of stuff that we didn’t know how to use.  Veggies that I never would’ve put in my garden.  We tried them all.  When we had too much of something that we could preserve, we’d do small batch canning or freezing so that we could have good veggies in the deep winter.  It helped broaden our horizons to the possibilities of flavors and textures of vegetables.  It helped us get our 5 servings a day without issue.  It cut down our overall grocery budget for the summer because I didn’t have to buy much more than meat and staples like flour.  This also meant that in my garden, I could focus on things that I knew my family would eat or things I wanted to use for canning.  Broccoli Casserole TopMy kids are great veggie eaters.  The only qualm I had about trying this recipe out on them was the blue cheese factor.  Blue cheese can be somewhat polarizing.  I’ve always loved it and would chose blue cheese dressing for my salad over anything else.  The kids are slightly less sure of it.  Let me assure you, unless you are using the stinkiest of cheeses, a single ounce of blue cheese combined with the cream cheese, the milk, and the heavy flavor of broccoli goes mostly unnoticed.  It’s a background flavor.  If you are still unsure, use a different cheese. Broccoli Casserole Saltine top

The broccoli casserole is a beautiful thing.  It’s creamy and melty and has the same sort of comfort factor as broccoli cheese soup.  Broccoli casserole is a great side with a grilled steak or other grilled meat (or mushroom if you don’t eat meat).  The oval crackers the recipe mentions is like a TownHouse cracker.  You can use whatever sort of cracker appeals to you.  If you want to raid your kids’ goldfish stash, those would be great on top also.  This is a weeknight recipe.  Broccoli CasseroleCheck out my post about Skillet Potatoes Au Gratin for another weeknight side dish.  If you need a quick dessert idea for the middle of the week, you might want some unbaked cookies.

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Marinated Mixed Veggie Salad

You know how every once in a while I make something and you think to yourself, “Why in the heck did anyone make that in the first place?” and then you think “And why did she feel the need to repeat it?”.  Just remember, I’m trying some of these things out so you don’t have to. (Not that you’d really want to sometimes…)

Now before you get too excited, this recipe is not an actual failure.  It’s just another so-what recipe and I’ve been sitting on it for a while.  Let’s see what I can do to make this a lot more exciting for all of us.Marinated Mixed Veggie SaladIt was a dark and stormy night and all the frozen vegetables were sitting around the campfire… Nope, too scary.

I slowly bent into the freezer and grasped the bag of veggies with one hand.  I turned my head to look over my shoulder and asked the man standing behind me, “Is this what you wanted?”  Has the potential to get really inappropriate.

 

Once upon a time, in a land of frozen vegetables, Princess Corn was lonely, so she invited her friends Peas and Carrots.Seriously?

Why do Jolly Green Giant vegetables taste funny?  Because he stands over his corn and peas…

Yeah, maybe not. Maybe just a few helpful suggestions:

  • If you don’t want to fully cook your vegetables, at least thaw them before adding everything else.  Just trust me on this one.  Like I said, I did the research for you.
  • More substantial and different textured vegetables may work better.  Think things like California blend instead of just regular mixed vegetables.  Or some of the blends that include beans.
  • Better yet, use some fresh veggies and forget about the frozen ones.
  • There is a lot of dressing on this salad.  You can cut the recipe in half unless you feel like soup.
  • Unless you like mush, don’t used processed cheese.  And even thinking about what my great-grandma may consider cooked vegetables, it may be mush regardless of the cheese.
  • Add anything with any texture at all to this.  Bacon crumbles, perhaps?
  • If the recipe is followed, you will have about 11 servings too many of this salad.

This recipe, as I made it, is all sad trombones.  It may not even be as interesting as that.  It will probably nourish your body to a degree, but it will do nothing at all for your soul.  Maybe it’s good diet food?  You’ll get bored enough eating it that you’ll lose your appetite all together?  Having already tried the 4 Bean Salad, I can see how different versions of this salad could easily sing. This one is completely tone deaf.Marinated Mixed Vegetable Salad

 

 

 

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Sauerkraut In A Hurry

I have this friend that has an amazing German heritage.  Her family speaks German and sometimes when trying to talk “secretly” in front of people they will speak in German.  Her grandma forgets that I understand German also, which is why I found out that her grandma lost her teeth on the way to the birthday party.  “Ich habe meine Zahne verloren!” She exclaimed upon entering.  I tried to stifle my giggle, but tend to have a very expressive face.

I wish I had made this dish when she was coming over, but instead I made it when my brother was here.  We also have amazing German heritage, but our celebration of the culture has a lot more to do with sausages and beer than it does language.  (That might also be the Wisconsin background.  It’s pretty indistinguishable, really.)  Regardless, it’s an excuse we didn’t even need to eat brats and sauerkraut.

You are going to have to excuse these terrible pictures.  They are from the time where I was still learning how to use the basics of my camera.

DSCN2627

The sauerkraut here is not something you do in a hurry, regardless of what the recipe says.  To get it to the point where I felt it was done, it took at least a half hour, maybe longer.  Maybe their idea of a hurry was different than mine?  I mean, they are making Jell-O salads that take all day.  These are not things that a working mom can do on a limited schedule.

Ok, so taste.  Have you had a French choucroute garnie? Because it’s like that.  I’m sure that doesn’t help a lot of you.  Here’s what Wikipedia says about it.  If you don’t feel like clicking over, it’s sauerkraut, sausages, potatoes, onions, and beer all cooked together for a nice long time and best served with mustard (not the yellow stuff, the good stuff).  The long cooking time mellows the bite of the sauerkraut and everything sort of melts into each other.  This has amazing similarities to that dish, but much quicker.  It’s kind of like sauerkraut for beginners.

When you have time to make this “in a hurry” dish, you may want to put on your leiderhosen, put on some polka, make some spaetzle, and indulge.  Even if it wasn’t my brother’s favorite, I thought it was pretty darn good.Sauerkraut in A Hurry