Catching up

We're back in the US.

I figure it's unlikely that I'm going to get around to detailed postings about the cooking on this trip, so I'll summarize:

1. Andreas and Elke were moving into their new house in Hergenrath, Belgium; one night I did an Southeast Asian meal for the gang: a big pot of tom kha gai, a cabbage/lime slaw, chicken leg quarters with a lemongrass caramel, and sticky rice. The chicken and caramel thing actually turns out to be pretty good for a large group (and would work well for parties), because after browning the chicken pieces, they braise in the caramel sauce. Using leg quarters, this isn't a particularly time sensitive operation. A note to my future self: my standard short-grain rice prep trick may work with Japanese sweet rice, but it doesn't work well at all with Thai sticky rice.
2. At Andrea's father's request, for Christmas Day I made "Rheinischer Sauerbraten", also known as "balsamic-braised pot roast" from How To Cook Meat. I added a marinading step with some bay leaves and a couple other spices, but I mainly did this to make it more of a "real" sauerbraten (which everyone knows has to marinade for a long time). After pureeing the sauce, I added some additional raisins before reducing it so that there would be visible raisins in the sauce. To accompany the roast I made red cabbage with apples and some spaetzle (from a bag, I wasn't about to make spaetzle for six from scratch).
3. Another meal at Andreas and Elke's: Andrea wanted "something with rice, and vegetables", so Andreas and I collaborated on an improvised geschnetzeltes ("Belgier Geschnetzeltes" :-) using pork strips and a tomato-cream sauce with zucchini, mushrooms, bell peppers, onions, garlic, and fresh parsley. Andreas tossed a whole habanero in the sauce while it was cooking, which was excellent. We ate this with rice.
4. To ring in my birthday, we made a feuerzangenbowle on the night of the 28th so that we were ready to start drinking when midnight turned. It had been way too long since I had feuerzangenbowle.
   
5. For our last night at Andrea's parents, I did kofte filled with feta cheese and served them with tzatziki, rice pilaf, and a green salad.

That's pretty much all I can think of right now.