Kielbasa and Cabbage Skillet

April and May are the months of many many birthdays for me, in fact today is my friend Bethany's birthday and tomorrow is my little brother's birthday.  All these birthdays make for very active weekends.  Among celebrating and working all weekend I will be going to Purrington's Cat Cafe for the first time this weekend by request of Bethany, followed by an amazing Ethiopian meal cooked by her old neighbor.  This past weekend my boyfriend and I finally watched The Jinx, if you like real life crime stories this is an amazing HBO documentary series about a rich and corrupt man from New York.  In other completely unrelated news did you know that Multnomah County Library offers free English classes?  It is a wonderful resource for people in our community that have English as their second language, check out the classes here.  Onto the food, I was looking for a healthy way to make dinner and use up our head of cabbage, so I adapted this recipe and it was delicious!

Serves 4

The Ingredients

1 package (14oz) Kielbasa 

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

1 head cabbage, coarsely chopped

1 large sweet onion, cut into large pieces

3 cloves garlic, minced

2 teaspoons sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

3 teaspoons rice wine vinegar

2 teaspoons dijon mustard

The Process

1.  Heat olive oil in a large nonstick sauté pan over medium-high and add kielbasa. Cook, without stirring for 1 minute. Then stir occasionally for about 3 minutes. Transfer to a plate with a slotted spoon.

2.  In the same pan with some of the rendered kielbasa fat, add the cabbage, onion, garlic, sugar, salt, and pepper. Stir to combine and cook for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

3.  Mix in the vinegar and mustard; add the sausage back to the pan and cook for another 2 minutes to heat through. Taste and adjust seasoning, if necessary.

4.  If you want more flavor add a dash of rice vinegar and more mustard to your individual plate...I did:)  You can also serve this over mashed potatoes if you want a heartier meal.