Stuffed Cabbage

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Stuffed Cabbage

Tis the season for a whole lot of cabbage.  I think that I have at least two more heads of cabbage awaiting some sort of similar treatment as you see herewith.  Cabbage causes Storkbite to loose her cookies so we can’t feed her too much even though she loves all cabbage, especially the fermented variety.  In this tasty dish I conjured my German roots and rolled up some nice augmented pork sausage in blanched cabbage leaves.  Follow along if this sounds good to you.  It was a homerun at our house.

First blanch a head of cabbage by cutting out the core from the stem side and dunking it in a pot of boiling water.  With each dunk a few leaves will fall off. Put the leaves in a colander and rinse them with cold water.

Assemble your filling in a seperate mixing bowl.  I used browned pork sausage (like Italian sausage, just slit the casing and squeeze contents into a bowl) combinded with 2 tbs. bread crumbs, diced onion, garlic and bell peppers.  Add a few pinches of salt and pepper and mix it all up.

Take the cabbage leaves one by one, add about 1/4 c. of filling to each leaf and roll up and place in your pan.  Cover it all in a nice tomato sauce (like Basic Sauce from my previous post) and bake in a covered Dutch oven for about 40 mins.

It was extremly satisfying, dairy free and consumed with reckless abandon by the entire family — including Storkbite.

Duck and Italian Sausage

Storkbite’s Papa and I got into an argument one night when we were at the park entertaining Storkbite.  He just couldn’t wait for me to make lentils and churn out some quasi-Indian food.  He stomped his feet all the way home, past all the grocery stores and restaurants that we could have ducked into and gotten prepared food.  I was determined to EAT at home that night and not let all my vegetables go to waste.  I came up with a delicious sausage dish.  On a day that I was more prepared, Storkbite and I found our self hanging out at the butcher sample cured meats, so bought our self my favorite - duck breast!  That was a splurge and well worth the investment because I whacked it in half and saved the other breast in the freezer for another day.

Sausage over Zucchini and Pappardelle

In the case I had a container of my very own homemade basic sauce and nice pappardelle noodles which are big and fat.  I just started up my grill pan and layered on the zucchini and sausage.  Once the noodles were done I put it all together - the layer of defrosted sauce, grilled zucchini strips, and the grilled sausage.  Mozzarella chunks over the top that got nice and melted really topped it off with some delicious richness.  This was completed in as long as it took to boil water and make pasta which translates to as long as it took Papa to give Storkbite a bath.  Once she was all cleaned up she sat at the table and enjoyed heaping spoonfuls to Mama’s basic sauce.

Duck, Duck, Goose

Wow, duck is my favorite and it’s so easy!  You get the breast and slice the fat side so it lays flat when you are searing it and give it a sprinkle of salt and pepper.  Simply put it in a really hot cast iron pan on the stove top. I like my Le Creuset red fryer.  Put it on the pan and leave it alone.  After it’s good and ready, flip it over.  Don’t over cook it because it’s good when it’s still bleeding.

On the side were some green beans almandine and buttered noodles.  Very simple and delicious - just saute your green beans with almonds, olive oil, salt and pepper.  With a nice glass of wine it was a great dinner.  Unfortunately I sent Papa out for the wine last minute and he brought back a very unsatisfactory bottle.  I guess I will have to remember to get totally prepared the next time.