I’m a bachelor this weekend. The wife and daughter decided to head down to Grandma house since I had to work. That means a nice, quite house with just me, the dogs, the cats and the fish. It’s Labor Day weekend so for many it’s the last big BBQ of the season. Seeing as I’m solo there’ll be no big BBQ spread. Besides, I’m a year round griller. I don’t understand those people that pull the grill out on Memorial Day and put it away on Labor Day. Any day is a good day to grill, whether it is 80° outside or 30°. The grill did see some action though. I popped a few burgers on it for my dinner tonight, but that is about the only grilling I will be doing this weekend. That’s the bad news. The good news is this gives me a chance to post a recipe I made not too long ago, but haven’t had the time, energy or desire to post yet. Yes, I’m being a slacker, but I’ve been hooked on Stumbleupon recently and my computer productivity has dropped. I’ll get bored soon and be back to posting more regularly, I’m sure.

This is a great late summer, early fall pasta dish. Slightly caramelizing the cabbage brings a wonderful depth of flavor to the dish, but it still is light enough to not slow you down when it is still warm outside. It’s not the quickest pasta to make, but neither will you have to spend lots of time in the kitchen preparing this.

Pasta with Caramelized Cabbage
serves 4

2 cups coarse rye breadcrumbs (light rye works best)*
4 Tbl. butter
2 cloves garlic, finely minced

4 slices bacon, chopped (I prefer thick cut bacon)
1 small head cabbage, coarsely shredded
1 medium onion
8 Tbl. butter

1 pound long skinny pasta (spaghetti, angel hair, linguine, etc.)

In a large saute pan melt the first amount of butter. Add the garlic and saute 30 seconds. Add the breadcrumbs and toss making sure all the crumbs are well coated with butter. Continue to cook, stirring regularly until the breadcrumbs get crispy and have become lightly brown. Remove from saute pan and set aside.

Wipe out the saute pan then add the chopped bacon. Cook over medium high heat until crisp. Remove the bacon, leaving the bacon fat in the pan. Add the onions and saute for 3-4 minutes. Add the cabbage and season with salt and pepper. Allow to cook for 4-5 minutes before stirring, then stir a bit to redistribute the cabbage and allow to cook another 3-5 minutes. Continuing to cook until the cabbage is tender. The goal is to allow the cabbage to start to caramelize. Let it start to brown before stirring, but be careful not to let it burn. While the cabbage is cooking bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Once the cabbage is 3/4s of the way done go ahead and cook the pasta according the the directions. When the pasta is done strain the pasta reserving 1/4 cup of the pasta liquid. Toss drained pasta in with the cabbage, adding the remaining butter also. Toss to mix, adding the reserved pasta water, a tablespoon at a time, if the pasta seems a little dry. Season with salt and pepper. Divide between 4 plates. Sprinkle the bacon evenly of the plates of pasta then garnish with a very generous portion of the rye bread crumbs.

*Note: To make the rye bread crumbs place fresh rye bread, sliced, into a food processor and pulse until you have pieces just smaller than a pea. You will end up with a mix of fine breadcrumbs and the coarser ones. This is what you are looking for.

If you are like me then Ramen noodles played an intregal part of your college days. When the vast majority of my budget went towards beer and booze $0.19 packs of ramen was a godsend. Even after culinary school, when I was “paying my dues” in Atlanta, working for barely over minimum wage, ramen played a large part in regular diet. Not only was it cheap, allowing me to hit the bars more often (are you sensing a reoccuring theme here?), but it was pretty tasty, the variations were virtually limitless, and it allowed me to stretch my proteins much further.

Somewhere along the line, I was introduced to the Ramen Noodle Salad, and fell in love with it. Now I could even eat my ramen without cooking them!!! It was great! Since then, I have come across the salad at all sorts of picnics and pot luck dinners. Usually I am underhelmed by the dish and have to admt that I really only like the dish when the noodles have just been added and are still crunchy.

This version adds a bit of flavor to the mix by using green curry paste. Don’t worry, it is now easily found at many grocery stores with a half way decent Asian section. “Thai Kitchen” is the brand I most often come across in regular stores, although if you have a decent Asian market near you, check it out as you can often find it for about half the price of “Thai Kitchen.”

Ramen Noodle Salad
serves 4 as an entree salad or 6-8 as a side dish

1Tbs. green curry paste
1/3 cup rice wine vinegar
1/2 Tbs. sesame oil
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 tsp. sugar

1/2 head napa cabbage
4 each green onions
1/2 red bell pepper
4 oz. snow peas

1 can (11oz) mandarin oranges, drained
2 packages ramen noodles, reserve flavoring packet for another use
1/4 cup sliced almonds, toasted

For the dressing combine the first set of ingredients and mix well. Set aside. Core the napa cabbage, cut into thirds, lengthwise and slice thinly. Thinly chop the green onions. Remove seeds from the bell pepper and slice paper thin. Finally remove the strings from the snow peas by snapping off the stem end and pulling it down along the front of the pea, taking the “string” with it. Thinly slice the snow peas. Combine all the vegetables in a large bowl and toss with the dressing. Allow the salad to marinate for at least 10-15 minutes. Break up the ramen noodles and toss with the salad along with the oranges and almonds. Serve immediately so that the noodles are still crisp and crunchy.

While I often use this as a vegetarian meal, you can easily add grilled chicken or shrimp to make a heartier salad.

About 3 weeks ago I made my own sauerkraut for the first time. You can find the post about it here. For the last week, I have been checking and tasting it daily to see if it was ready. Today I decided it had fermented enough so I packed it up into smaller containers and refrigerated it. In hindsight, the next time I make sauerkraut I will let it go just a little further and get a touch more sour as I really like sour things, though my wife thought it had just the right amount of sourness. Either way I am very happy with the results. My homemade stuff is so much better than the store bought stuff, and it is so easy to make. I don’t know why it took me so long to attempt to make sauerkraut, but after this experiment I think it will become, at the very least, a yearly thing. Maybe next year I will make a larger batch and attempt to can some when it is done.

Of course, once the sauerkraut was ready I couldn’t wait to cook with it so I threw together one of my favorite dishes, Choucroute. Technically what I prepare is not truly choucroute as I use beer in my dish as opposed to white wine (usually Riesling) and I skip many of the traditional spices such as juniper berries, mace, nutmeg, etc. in favor of caraway seed, but choucroute sounds so much better than Sausages Braised with Sauerkraut. This dish can be made up pretty quickly, but I prefer to cook it slow and low for 1-2 hours as I find this long, slow cooking yields a depth of flavor that quick cooking just can’t achieve. (continue reading…)

I’m sure there was a time in my life when I didn’t like sauerkraut, but I can’t remember it. I do remember, in my distant past, not being overly fond of it, but I can’t remember ever disliking the stuff. That is not the case today nor has it been the case for many, many years. Topping my hot dogs and brats, served as a cold salad similar to cole slaw, or even as an ingredient in chocolate cake, it is one of my favorite ways to eat my vegetables. My favorite way to prepare sauerkraut though is to slow cook it with numerous pork products (sausages, bacon, salt pork, pork chops) onions, apples, caraway and beer. Pork and sauerkraut are a match made in heaven, as far as I’m concerned, the kraut’s sharp tang a perfect foil to pork’s fatty richness.

I realized, not long ago, that as much as I enjoy sauerkraut, I had never made it from scratch before. I knew that I would have to remedy that this year so this past week I headed out to our local farmer’s market to pick up some cabbage. At the stall of one of my favorite farmers there I found a giant head of cabbage, weighing in at 13 pounds. I had my doubts about a cabbage that big the farmer assured me that it was sweet and tender. Deciding to place my trust in him, I bought the cabbage for a whopping $2.50 and brought it home to turn it into sauerkraut.

Kraut making is a rather easy task. At it’s most basic you shred the cabbage, you salt the cabbage, you pack the cabbage into a container, cover it and let it ferment for a few weeks. That’s about all there is too it. Well…..almost. There are a few things to keep in mind, but trust me making sauerkraut is a pretty easy process. (continue reading…)

If you are asking yourself what a Runza is, well, you are not alone. Up until about 1 1/2 years ago I had never heard of them either. At the time, I was helping a couple of guys develop the menu for a sports bar. A gentleman came in hoping to book one of the viewing areas, for his group of Nebraska Huskers alumni, to watch the the Nebraska football games. He also wanted to know if we would be willing to menu Runzas during the games. I had never heard of them before, but I figured with a little research I could come up with the answer and a recipe. A quick search of the Internet provided me with plenty of information and a number of recipes from which I could create my own version of this “sandwich.” I found out that the Runza is dish consisting of dough that is stuffed with a ground meat and cabbage filling and then baked. This stuffing is usually made of beef and cabbage and a good dose of onion for flavoring, but it can also be made with pork and/or sauerkraut. It is of German-Russian origins and is very similar to the many meat stuffed doughs and dumplings of the area. It was brought here to Midwest by German immigrants and has slowly disappeared in most areas. It has remained popular in Nebraska, especially around the University of Nebraska, mostly thanks to a chain of restaurants called “Runza.” Runzas are one of those foods that people seem to become fanatical about and now alumni groups, from Nebraska, spread across the country make their own Runzas to serve during game time. In fact, many alumni view hosting a football viewing party and not serving Runzas as something akin to sacrilege.

I, personally, am not quite so enamoured by Runzas as some alumni are, though I do really like them. There’s just something about baked dough filled with meat that makes my mouth water. It must be my German heritage or something. One of the great things about these is that they freeze beautifully so go ahead and double or triple this recipe. Once made and before the rise and baking, freeze them. To do this I usually freeze them on a cookie tray lined with wax paper. After they are frozen I wrap individually in plastic wrap and stack them in the freezer. To cook them from frozen, remove them from the freezer, allow to come to room temperature and then follow the instructions for rising and baking.

One note about the recipe below: the garlic and the Worcestershire sauce are not traditionally part of the recipe. I find most recipes make a Runza that is a little bland for my taste so I’ve added these ingredients to up the flavor a little bit. If you want something more traditional do without.

Runzas
Makes 8-10

1 pound Ground Beef
1/2 head Cabbage, shredded or grated
1 each Onion, finely diced
2 cloves Garlic, minced
1 1/2 Tbsp. Worcestershire Sauce
Salt
Pepper
2 loaves Frozen Bread Dough

Allow bread dough to come to room temperature. Meanwhile make the filling by browning the ground beef along with the garlic and the onions. Season with salt and pepper. When done, drain off the fat and add the cabbage and Worcestershire. Cook until the cabbage is tender and all the liquid has evaporated. Check for seasoning and add more salt and pepper as needed. Chill thoroughly before moving to next step. Roll out each bread dough to about 1/4 inch thickness and cut out rectangles of 4″x8″. Place about 1/2 cup of filling in the middle of each dough then fold over the short sides followed by the long sides totally enclosing the filling. Place on a greased tray, seam side down, and allow to rise for 30 minutes. Preheat the oven to 375 and bake the runza for approximately 20 minutes or until brown. Allow to cool and rest 5 minutes before serving.