Italian Stuffed Cabbage

I had heard of Polish stuffed cabbage but not Italian, and when I first saw the recipe at Smitten Kitchen I knew I had to make it.  A meatball of Italian sausage is rolled up in savoy cabbage leaves, and slowly simmered in tomato sauce.  But the recipe wasn't exactly healthy, so I set about with some tweaks.  I swapped out the pork sausage for chicken sausage, low-carb whole wheat bread for white bread, and low-fat milk for whole milk.  But it wasn't right: the meat was too lean, so the texture and taste were a bit lacking.  I tried again and went halfway, using a blend of pork sausage and chicken sausage, and the result was healthier and heavenly.  

Production and cooking do take time, so set aside a lazy Sunday when you'll want to putter in the kitchen.  You'll need to carefully peel and blanch cabbage leaves, make the filling, and then cook the parcels for about an hour.  Another error I made the first time was buying a small head of cabbage; the larger the head, the larger the leaves, and the more likely the leaves will fully envelop the filling.  The whole wheat bread also isn't as soft as white bread, and chicken sausage isn't as soft as pork sausage -- I used the food processor to blend them, buzzing the bread into crumbs and chopping the sausage up finer.  Finally, I did away with the toothpicks on the second try.  They're not necessary, and I don't like the idea of biting into a stray one.

The serving suggestion of mashed potatoes on the side is perfect.  Although it took a bit of work to put this together yesterday, all I've got to do tonight is reheat.  Joe really loved these, and I'm look forward to digging into the leftovers come dinnertime.

Cast Iron Skillet Pizza

Have you ever heard of making pizza in a cast iron skillet?  We've owned a pizza stone for years, but when I saw this recipe I wanted to try it anyway.  I wanted to see how a skillet held up to a stone, and how storebought pizza dough compares to homemade.  Initially I waved away the idea of following the recipe by using storebought dough, but then I wondered what the quality of premade dough is like and if the convenience is worth it.

You can buy premade pizza dough in the refrigerated section of your supermarket's bakery.  When I saw whole wheat dough along with plain, I decided to add another level to my experiment.  Both pizzas are made the same way, with a quick sauce from scratch, fresh mozzarella, and crumbled Italian sausage.  When they were done, I topped them with parsley and shavings of Parmesan.

My verdicts:

1) Storebought dough is not as good as homemade dough, but it's not far off, and convenience counts for a lot.  Dough from scratch has to be made the night before, and there are resting periods in the refrigerator and at room temperature -- the storebought dough is ready to use when you bring it home.  The flavor of storebought is close to homemade, and the texture is a little doughier than homemade but not a deal-breaker.  If you want to go the from-scratch route anyway, I have only praise for Peter Reinhart's dough recipe.

2) I can't say the same for the whole wheat dough.  It rolled out nice and thin and didn't have the annoying elasticity of the plain dough, but I missed that elasticity and chew when eating the whole wheat crust.  It also had all the flavor of cardboard.

3) The cast iron skillet works great, producing a crust with a nicely crisped bottom.  If you have only a 10-inch skillet like me, a half-pound of pizza dough will work for this recipe or one pound will make two pizzas; scale down the other ingredients slightly as well.  If you're fighting kitchen clutter, you may opt for just your skillet instead of buying a pizza stone.

4) The pizza recipe is delicious as well.  I like the from-scratch sauce, and the small amount guarantees you won't have a soggy crust.  I like the use of fresh mozzarella, and even though it releases water after cooking the taste is superior.  I left out the arugula because I'm not a fan, but the parsley and Parmesan are nice.

If you've wanted to try making your own pizza, this is the easiest I've seen yet.

Frittatas!

This is my favorite new weekend breakfast/brunch item. I like frittatas because in spite of their fancy rep, they're deceptively easy. No flipping is required with this one (I often break my omelets that way!), and it puffs up beautifully. I skipped the mushrooms, not being a fan of them. I also substituted the sausage for spinach once for a friend who is a self-described "mostly vegetarian," and she loved it.

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/magazine/articles/2008/03/30/tortilla_and_frittata/?page=2

After some experimenting, I discovered it can easily be converted to a recipe for two, in case you don't have a crowd to cook for.

I simply use the smaller pan on the right (this one's about 6 inches across the bottom and 8 across the top), use 5 eggs instead of 9, halve the other ingredients, and cut the oven time down to 10 minutes. And it still comes out perfect.