Friday night: German dinner under 500 calories

My dad is from a Polish-German family. (Random trivia: my maiden name translates literally to "duke" in German. So if I lived there, I'd be Ashley Duke. I always thought that was kind of cool.) He loves the food. There aren't a lot of authentic German restaurants where we live, so when we went to visit his family in Milwaukee, the first place he took us to was Mader's. (Mader's web site has an overview of the restaurant's history and a list of celebrities who've been there.) My sisters and I even got a picture in the Mader's throne.

Before I started cooking, I was an incredibly picky eater, and naturally I refused to give German food a try. At Mader's, I picked at a salad and didn't touch anything else. (When my dad suggested I try wiener schnitzel, I think my exact quote was "'Wiener'? Ew.") But my husband loves it even more than my dad does, so I agreed to make him a German dinner. And what could be more German than wiener schnitzel and kartoffel salat (warm potato salad)?

Kyle made his dinner extra German by drinking a homemade beer with it.

Considering I've never made anything like this before, I was really happy with how it turned out. I always thought of German food as lots of meats, heavy sauces, and strong beer, but this was actually really light, and the schnitzel had virtually no fat in it.

Ingredients for the schnitzel:

2 boneless pork loins, with the fat trimmed off (traditional wiener schnitzel uses veal, but it's expensive)

1 cup of plain bread crumbs

1 cup of crushed corn flake cereal (I put it in a ziploc bag and pound it with a meat mallet. A rolling pin also works)

2 eggs

vegetable oil

Directions:

1. Mix together bread crumbs and corn flakes in a bowl.

2. Crack eggs into a separate bowl.

3. Place a sheet of parchment paper over the pork loins and pound them flat, until they're about 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick. Don't worry if the meat looks nasty or has holes in it--once you bread and cook it, it won't matter.

4. Dip the pork in the raw eggs and coat it thoroughly. Then roll the pork around in the bread crumb/corn flake mixture, coating thoroughly.

5. Pour some vegetable oil in a sautee pan over medium-high heat. Place the wiener schnitzel in the pan and cook until the breading is golden brown. Flip it over and cook thoroughly on the other side.

That's it. It was super easy to make. Use salt and pepper or spices to taste. (Kyle and I got an awesome spice rack as a wedding gift, and I used Bavarian seasoning on the wiener schnitzel.)

Ingredients for the warm potato salad:

4 or 5 red potatoes

4 slices of bacon

1/2 of a white onion, chopped

2 celery stalks, chopped

1/2 cup white wine vinegar

3 tablespoons reduced-fat mayonnaise

1 tablespoon sugar

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon pepper

1 tablespoon dill, chopped (optional--traditional kartoffel salat recipes use it, but I didn't)

Directions:
1. Boil potatoes in a large pot for at least 20 minutes or until soft (if you can't stick a knife through them with ease, they're not done yet)
2. Cook bacon in a skillet until crispy. Remove it from the skillet and set aside. Add onion to the pan and cook it in the bacon grease for about 5 minutes, stirring frequently. Add vinegar, sugar, salt, mayo and pepper; bring to simmer. Set aside and keep warm.
3. Chop potatoes into slices. Transfer into a bowl and pour the dressing into it. Add bacon and stir until blended.

Overall, this dinner was easy and low-calorie. German is still not my favorite ethnic cuisine, but I was glad I gave it a try. Happy weekend, everyone!