hide under a blanket of this: colcannon with leeks

Today kind of sucks. It's grey outside and I feel sluggish. Spending the rest of the day under a heavy wool blanket pulled over my head is pretty tempting right now. Instead, I'll write about this dish I made a couple of weeks ago. Just looking at it is almost enough to pull me out of the doldrums....almost.

Colcannon also known as bubble n' squeak is pure comfort food...potatoes and cabbage and a nice amount of butter to make the lumps go down easy. I decided to play with the good ol' Irish standby of Colcannon and its close relative Champ (which is potatoes mixed with chives or green onions) which have the onion-y bite that I love. For the onion-y bits, I used leeks instead seeing that it's a good, solid winter vegetable and can be found cheap and plentiful this time of year in local markets. I also never peel potatoes because I love that extra texture (and nutrients!) from the skin. Plus, since I used red potatoes, the jackets make the dish extra pretty.

Now, this should be a side dish served alongside of some sausages or roast chicken. But not for me. I like a mound of this served in a bowl, no other supplements needed. Like I said before, this is comfort food and for me, eating this along while watching some trashy television (like ANTM, for instance) is like being huddled under a giant woolen blanket. It's good company for the blahs.

colcannon with leeks
4 red skinned potatoes, cut into quarters
1/2 head of green cabbage, sliced
1 leek, (white and pale green parts only), cut into slices
1 c whole milk
4 T butter
salt & pepper

In a medium pot, boil up the potatoes. Meanwhile, combine milk, cabbage, leeks, half the butter, salt and pepper into a large pot and bring to a simmer. Cook until the cabbage is soft, about 15 minutes. When the potatoes are fork tender, drain well and add to the cabbage mixture. Mash with a potato masher, adding in remaining butter and more salt & pepper if necessary. Dim the lights, turn on the television and hunker down with a ol' big bowl full.

peasant fare: cabbage

St. Patrick's Day has come and gone and normally I don't do much for the holiday. I'm not Irish nor do I fancy to drink gut-rot green beer. However, I am a fan of cabbage and hey, isn't that something that ties my own Eastern European peasant roots with the Irish? Usually I stick with eating cabbage raw or lightly stir-fried but since it's March and still a bit rainy, I decided that braising some cabbage would be the way to go.

My dad was always a big cheerleader for cabbage. There were only a few things he would cook and everything was always based on his Lithuanian ancestry: potato pancakes, kugelis (a potato style baked pudding) and cabbage. When my dad would be at the stove, inside the huge stock pot was a mess of shredded cabbage, bacon, chopped apples and some top secret liquids that made everything tangy and sweet and pretty damn tasty. This isn't my dad's recipe, but it's pretty close, I think. I didn't add any apples, but I know from experience that they'd go well in this dish. It's great to eat immediately (and I've been known to drink the tangy cabbage liquids with a spoon right from the cooking pot) but it also gets better with age. If you want to make this vegetarian, substitute vegetable broth and add in some smoked paprika to replicate the smoky taste from the bacon.


braised red cabbage
1 head red cabbage, shredded
5 slices of bacon, diced
1 onion, sliced thin
3 T brown sugar
3 T dijon mustard
1/3 c apple cider vinegar
2 c chicken broth

1. In a large dutch oven, fry bacon until crispy. Add in onion and fry until wilted and soft. Add in shredded cabbage and toss the mixture around so that the cabbage picks up all those good bacony juices.

2. Add in the brown sugar and mustard and stir well. Add in the cider vinegar to help deglaze the pot and then add in the chicken broth and cover the dish. Simmer for about 1 hour.