This traditional German sweet and sour Sunday meal is started on Thursday with a reverse marinade. Reverse marinade means brown meat first, then marinade. This seals the juices in and keeps the meat from drying out. We use a flavorful cut of beef, sirloin or chuck, some butchers call these cuts “steaks” but the meat needs a marinade, so we call it beef. Served with steamed red cabbage, boiled young potatoes, cold applesauce and thick gravy made from the marinade.

Three pounds of juicy beef brisket flank meat in a rich filling gravy, six beef dinners, perfect for freezing.Sauerbraten means “ fried in sour” and is all about marinading pre roasted beef to sear in the tenderness and flavors and get the drippings to make a special Sauerbraten gravy with the marinade. Then, heating the meat a second time in the oven covered by this special sweet and sour gravy. This recipe is different from making a beef chuck sauerbraten or sirloin sauerbraten, because with those, we sear the juices in, but with brisket meat, which contains more fat, we melt the fat out first.

Ripe eggplants are sponges, they absorb the flavors they are cooked in. Tamarind is a perfect sweet and sour marinade, makes a tangy eggplant meat substitute for Sauerbraten, a german sweet and sour beef loin dinner. Delicious with mushroom cream sauce. Serve family style with small fingerling steamed potatoes, carrot slices, yellow squash and green beans. The left over eggplant peels make a great separate condiment when pickled with the condensed marinade, see recipe below.

Pork is delicious cooked in sauerkraut and white wine along with German spices like caraway seeds and juniper berries! If you like a little bit of sweetness, add half of an apple.

Ever get the sauerkraut in packages or jars at the store? Besides being, well, sour, it doesn't really have much flavor. In Germany, rather than eating as-is, we often stew or braise sauerkraut wine with German spices like caraway, juniper berries and cloves. Cooking also softens the texture. This recipe is straight from Germany from my mom, which I LOVE with my favorite German sausages! Even better if you have your own homemade sauerkraut :)

An easy, slow-cooked meal. Adding the sauerkraut to the pork provides a necessary braising liquid. The addition of the pear (or an apple) gives it a slight touch of sweetness. It’s German comfort food at its best.

Take the time to make delicious German pork knuckle, which is why restaurants often charge $15-20. It requires two days of marinating, two hours of simmering, and thirty minutes of roasting. When done, the skin is crispy and the meat falls off the bone. Pair it with homemade sauerkraut or German sausages for a restaurant-quality meal!

Sauerkraut can be very assertive but when cooked with other ingredients, especially meats the assertiveness tones down greatly. It becomes like the cabbage it once was with a little extra flavor. I hope you give it a try.

My wife is half German, so every late September to early October we celebrate Oktoberfest. We have made several dishes, such as German meatballs.This year, I wanted to use the slow cooker to mix cabbage and bratwurst. This is what was born from trial and error. Not that the errors were terrible, but not what I wanted.All of the ingredients blended together is simply amazing. Even better than I expected.#mycookbookEnjoy!

Braised Beef (again)I've been making braised beef often lately because it's easy to prepare, and I need to clear out some old meat from the fridge after not cooking for a while. I prepare it at night before bed, toss it into the slow cooker, and by morning it's tender. I separate the spices, continue to braise until it's perfectly tender, and it's ready to eat.This time, I'm using scraps of Thai Wagyu beef, some with fat and some without, with a bit of shank. It's deliciously tender and melts in your mouth. I enjoy it with a spicy dipping sauce (the meatballs are pork meatballs I had in the fridge).The quality of the beef makes a big difference. Market-grade beef can't compare to the tenderness of better quality beef like Thai Wagyu.

I recently bought a cast iron braser and used this recipe to break it in. Toward the end of the meal my wife looked at me and said, "It's a keeper". The roasted garlic is delicious smeared on a dinner roll instead of butter.

This is a spin on a classic family dinner. The wine that's in a lot of pot roast recipes has been swapped for a really good, well-aged balsamic, and partnered with a hit of grainy mustard for zing. The end result is a tender roast with a rich and flavourful gravy, without the alcohol (if that's a concern for you).