Oktoberfest Weekend

Overall, this weekend was a success! We had a TON of good food, lots to talk about, and I went to St Cloud with my friends for Monday so that I could go shopping. The pup is doing much better after her long stay in the vet's kennel, and is currently attacking my ankles trying to get me to play with her. John picked her up on Friday and she stayed with Gramma Yost for the weekend.

This weekend we cooked garlic mashed potatoes, beer brats, and beer cheese fondue for Friday night, ladies (Leah, Michal, and I) each making a crock pot. Worked out well! Dan brought a keg of hard cider, John picked up a pony keg of firebrick, and we had a total of 12 people show. People were remarking that it was a 'small' gathering, which was kind of funny.

On Saturday we had apple pancakes for breakfast (freshly picked), and we had a light lunch of cheeses, crackers, braunschweiger dip and summer sausage. Ben brought some HUGE heirloom tomatoes from his garden and we fixed those up with balsamic vinegar and mozzarella also. Wonderful stuff.

Dinner is always the main affair for the weekend, and we ladies pulled it off again this year, cooking almost all day on Saturday. The menfolk played croquet and other games outside. Red cabbage, sauerkraut, german potato salad, garlic cheese spaetzle, acorn squash, and beef and beer stew were all on the buffet this year. We had some leftovers, but I'm chalking that up to the smaller group. After dinner, Leah treated us to honey cookies, black forest cake, pecan pie and pumpkin pie. Everyone ate waaaay too much.

Chuck made vendetta eggs for breakfast on Sunday, which is always a crowd-pleaser. Everyone snacked on leftovers throughout the day, we played croquet on the front lawn and had a few glasses of cider during the afternoon. I left earlier than some, and so I hear they kind of overdid it on the booze after the ladies took off...

Also in attendance, not yet mentioned, were Adam, Nate, Lewis, Al, Dagan, Ben's dogs Arthur and Desmond. I'm sure there will be some pictures (both delicious and bawdy) on my Flickr page eventually. We will definitely do this again next year!