The perils of cooking off the cuff

The end of the CSA season is full of crucifers--cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower and brussels sprouts--and root vegetables, especially carrots and beets.

For weeks, when I was too busy to shop and cook deliberately, I kept seeing yummy-looking kielbasa sausage in the farmers' markets, and thinking, "I remember my mom making kielbasa with sauerkraut. That sounds cozy. The first thing I'm going to do when I get some time to cook is make kielbasa with sauerkraut."

So while math class was going on in our home last Tuesday, I found a recipe for sauerkraut in The Art of Simple Food and started a batch. Making sauerkraut didn't turn out to be nearly as hard as I thought it would be. You chop up cabbage and work salt into it with your fingers until it starts to release its liquid. (It says 3.5 tsp. for a whole cabbage. I used a half. You can put in a teaspoon of caraway seeds, too.) Then put the cabbage a non-reacting 2 qt. container. It's supposed to create enough liquid to cover itself, but if it doesn't you add brine made from 1 c. filtered water and 1 T. salt., and then put a weight in the top of the container to keep the cabbage submerged. And then you cover it with a dishtowel leave it for a week or more. I used some glass storage jars that I usually keep hot cereal in for the container, and for the weight I used a water bottle. After a couple of days, I had nice purple water spilling over the top of my container!

Then I went to both local farmers' markets to look for the kielbasa. No one had it. Finally I figured out where I had seen it, but it was all gone. They promised a "date with the pig" later in the winter. But now I had sauerkraut started! No kielbasa at Whole Foods, either. Two days later, I found some at a local gourmet market.

So then I asked my mom for the recipe, only to find that she had no recollection of it whatsoever! (Obviously it was not a treasured family tradition, except with me.) But by this time I was committed, so I found a nice Choucroute recipe in the NY Times. I didn't necessarily want all the meat this recipe called for, but the base looked delicious!

Last night I tasted the sauerkraut. Not quite sour yet. But while looking for the kielbasa recipe, I had found the very same Ligurian walnut sauce I used to like so much when I stayed in Cortona 26 years ago. Only this recipe added broccoli rabe, which I happened to also have on hand. And about this time of year I really start craving dark greens, so why not? (Some stands are still selling greens, raised in a greenhouse, no doubt.)

Bob had another idea: He took the two cups of white wine I was saving for the kielbasa, and poured it to go with the farfalle and walnut sauce. After all, it did say "perfect for cream sauce and pasta" on the back.

(I'd insert a photo of the walnut sauce and pasta here, except that we ate it too fast, and besides, it looks just like the photo in the NY Times recipe, except that I used farfalle.)

This afternoon I finally read through the entire kielbasa recipe. Hmm, two hours was just too long to wait to start cooking after Bob came home with more wine, and I just didn't happen to feel like dashing out to the store to get some. So I substituted a dish that used carrots and beets instead. I've got pounds and pounds of beets and carrots, and more on the way tomorrow.

So, I still haven't made kielbasa with sauerkraut, but I guess that's what happens when you cook by the seat of your pants! But really, I wouldn't have it any other way, because I like cooking when everything comes together, seasonally, with what I've got on hand.

Maybe tomorrow.

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December 18: We finally ate our sauerkraut and kielbasa, and though perhaps not quite worth all the fuss I put into it, it was quite good!