Spaetzle!

This past Saturday I tackled a traditional German meal from scratch, and my results were quite successful. The weekends have been the hardest since Matt left and I've found it helps pass the time if I have a project to keep me busy. Making Spaetzle (and a delicious Sauerbraten to go with them) took up lots of time and energy and as a bonus lured some company my way! The conversation went something like this-

Me: I'm making Spaetzle today, what are you guys doing?

Dad: Coming for dinner!

And they did, which was lots of fun and I'm thankful that we took advantage and had a family dinner while I'm still living close enough for impromptu dinner invitations to be possible. Dad and Claudia are especially fond of Spaetzle so their approval meant my hard work paid off.
Spaetzle are a type of Swabian noodle, it's a basic flour/egg/water dough that you beat to death and squeeze through a Spaetzle press. I'm not exaggerating on beating the dough to death, I thought my arm was going to fall off before I got the right consistency. I had some minor complications with clumping, but nothing that would effect tastiness. Here's a batch boiling after I managed to force it through my press:

I also made a Sauerbraten, which is a type of German pot roast that cooks all day long and makes the kitchen smell wonderful. Someday I hope they will invent scratch n' sniff computer monitors and cameras so that you could truly appreciate this:

Now before you start feeling sorry for Matt that he missed out on my home cooking, don't worry... thanks to our football team he had a pretty good Saturday night too! Go Cats!