Recipe of the Day - Bavarian Beef

Joacim and I  REALLY like German food, so I thought I'd try to make something like sauerbraten (for those that don't know, it's kind of a sweet/vinegary beef thing).  I ran across this recipe a few weeks ago but realized that I could only make this on a weekend where I could baby it, and I'm glad it did.  Lots of work, but WELL worth it (AND I had another reason to use my new cast iron pot)!
I had a small but VERY lean pot roast that I browned in olive oil (seasoned with salt and pepper before)

When the roast was brown on all sides, I removed it and sauteed a large onion in a little more olive oil until they were golden, but not really translucent. The recipe only calls for a tablespoon of oil TOTAL, but I didn't find that to be enough, so I added another. I stirred the onions quite a sop up the nice beef drippings too.

When the onion was done, I put the roast back in, added a bay leaf, a little more salt and pepper, some carraway seeds and about a 1 1/2 cups of water. I let the liquid come to a boil, then reduced to simmer, covered, for an hour.

While THAT was cooking, I decided to make some homemade bread. I have this WONDERFUL cookbook called Artisan Bread In Five Minutes a Day, and there's a recipe in it for a deli rye, which was perfect for the Bavarian Beef.

Mixing the water, yeast, salt and caraway seeds

 After the rye and unbleached flour had been added.  Let it sit for 2 hours in a covered (but not airtight) container.

 And here's my little helper

 And while everything ELSE was cooking/rising...I made some homemade croutons.  I'm obsessed with croutons lately, but the ones you buy in a store are not so great nutritionally speaking (not that any crouton is , probably, but if I'm gonna eat 'em, I'd rather know what was in 'em.).  I had some stale ciabatta bread that was going to go to the trash or the birds, but I decided to make the croutons out of it.  I cubed the bread, added some salt, pepper, and garlic-infused olive oil and tossed.  Then I added a little parmesan cheese on top.  I put some parchment paper on a baking sheet (cause I'm lazy and hate washing baking sheets) and baked them at 400deg for about 15 minutes.

And here they are after they're done. And they're YUMMY.  I let them cool completely and put them in a ziploc bag.  They should keep about a week or so (but probably not that long since I'll eat them all before they have a chance to go bad :)

Ok, back to the main dish.  After the hour was up of the meat and onions cooking, it was time to add the sugar, vineagar and cabbage.  I took a small head of red cabbage, quartered it, and l.placed it on top of the meat, then covered it back up and cooked it for 45 more minutes.

And in the meantime, Izzy and I had a little tea party

Once our tea party was over, she decided to snuggle with Joacim

(He was actually holding the blanket up for her like a fort)

Back to the dish again.  After the 45 minutes were up, I checked on the cabbage, and it just wasn't cooked enough, so I took out the quarters, cut them into smaller strips and added them back into the pot to cook for awhile.

And now the bread...yummy yummy rye bread.  The loaves aren't even or symmetrical, but who the heck cares when they taste THIS good!

It's a very heavy, dense bread, but soooooo good

Here's everything after it's all done.  I think I ended up cooking the cabbage for another hour after I sliced it, and it STILL was crunchy, which is perfect.  You definitely don't want to overcook it.  Now, I'm not much of a food plater (meaning I wanna get it on the plate and eat it), but I'm going to start working a little more on the photography aspect of this to make the photos more appealing.

I thought it was DELICIOUS!!!  Highly recommended...but there was one thing I forgot!  The Gingersnaps!  The recipe called for adding 1/4 cup of crushed gingersnaps to the remaining liquid, to make a sort of gravy.  I was amazed at how thick it got just by adding the gingersnaps.  Now I haven't eaten the gravy on the meat yet (saving it for tomorrow's lunch) but it smells so good1

A little more playtime with Pappa.  I don't normally use a flash for photos, but there was no other way to catch the static electricity in this little lady's hair.  It's sticking STRAIGHT up!

And then a little snuggle (and sleep) for me :)  Great day