Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Getting Caraway'ed with Kielbasa

Yeah, sorry about that blog title. Sometimes it takes me twice as long to write the title as it does to cook the meal, write the entry and take the pictures. And that's still the best I can do!

I had thoughts of starting the grill back up tonight but instead I opted for simplicity. I'd like to imagine that my shot at simplicity is from some Mark Bittmanesque wish to return to basics instead of some Nate-esque wish to not have to start up the grill.



For salad I tossed some escarole with tasso, Marcona almonds, feta, lemon juice, and olive oil. Jen's plate was completely bare except for a small pile of perfectly diced tasso. I thought that perhaps she did not like the tasso but it turns out she had reached her "meat limit" for the day.



It's been a long time since I've made one a one pan meal. If you're a reader of the blog you'll know that these are my favorite dishes because I'm lazy and hate doing dishes it is a rustic celebration of food which takes us back to our culinary roots.

Tonight I sauteed up some crushed garlic cloves, sliced onion, cabbage, and Yukon Gold potatoes in a little olive oil. I tossed in some red pepper flakes and caraway seeds. That went far in using up a lot of items from the crisper.

At the end I sliced up some Polish kielbasa (which I've been craving for the past week or two) and stewed it together for a bit. I contemplated adding a beer to the pot but I didn't have a beer in the fridge that I felt I could waste on cooking so I left it as is.



For beer I begrudgingly poured out the Golden Delicious from Captain Lawrence Brewing Company. It's beer that's aged in apple brandy barrels. I figured an apple taste would go quite nicely with the pork on the menu tonight. It turns out I was right!

The reason I was resistant to have this beer was because they didn't list the alcohol by volume. I even checked the website and it lists the ABV as "NA." I find this to be quite unacceptable especially since I've had one snifter and I feel like it might as well have been filled with pure apple brandy instead of merely beer aged in apple brandy barrels.

I guess that's the price I pay for being enough of a pretentious jerk to drink my beer out of a snifter.

Lesson learned.

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