It’s been a stormy weekend here…though the worst of the wind has passed northeast of us, thankfully. Yesterday there was a little tease of blue sky right before the next torrential downpour…
so it’s been that kind of weekend where you just want to hunker down by the fire and have some comfort food…(and in our case maybe sort through the piles of art that are in closets and other out-of-the-way places…).
I KNOW you all are perfectly able to read the NYTimes food section searching for the most comforting dish, but I was afraid you might have missed this one because of its total simplicity. You won’t be sorry…
ITALIAN SAUSAGE AND CABBAGE (I’ve made a few changes as I often do, based on the reader remarks and my own good sense)
1 cabbage (I used a combo of Savoy and regular green cabbage)
1 pound bulk Italian sausage (I had some from Otto’s in Portland hence my recipe search…1 cabbage, 1 pound of sausage)
Butter, salt and pepper
That is IT!!
- preheat oven to 300 degrees
- Boil some water
- Core cabbage and roughly slice
- Put cabbage in colander, pour boiling water on cabbage and stir…use one whole kettle full of water…[note…the original recipe called for parboiling the cabbage, but I don’t like to do that, and neither did most of the readers who commented…the boiling water did the trick of wilting the cabbage a bit and reducing the mass]
- Butter a baking dish.
- Put 1/3 of the cabbage in the bottom of the dish.
- Add 1/2 of the sausage (uncooked) and then salt and pepper and dots of butter.
- Repeat with cabbage
- Repeat with sausage and salt and butter
- Top with the cabbage and dot with butter
cover the dish with parchment paper…
cover the whole thing with foil…
Bake in oven for 2 1/2 hours. Yes, absolutely. Remove foil and paper for the last 20-30 minutes, turn to 375, and continue cooking to brown the top.
Crusty bread, sliced apples, a glass of wine…OMG. I forgot to get the glamor presentation shot, but you can see it was good….
Stay cozy!
On The Way 
This does look good! I’ve never done plain cabbage with Italian sausage,I have with sauerkraut then served it with mashed potatoes and bread. I like rye bread with it best.
Holy smoke….that looks so good. love cabbage, but have never thought of doing this. a must try. thank you.
Never tried this but looks like I may start 😀😀
I couldn’t quite believe it would be sooo easy and would still be good, but it is. Rye bread would be great Deb…
Thanks so much for showing me what to fix for my lunch ladies this Thursday. I needed something that would cook while I go to a chorus rehearsal just before lunch. I think I will do the rye bread with it – our bakery does a nice round loaf. And I have some nice red apples fresh off my friend Kay’s tree. (Actually tart apples cooked right in with the cabbage and sausage might be worth trying sometime, too.)
I was thinking maybe craisins for a spark of flavor might work too…I was on a panel discussion, popped this in the oven before we left and though it went longer than I anticipated…no problem…(and after two hours of that we were hungry!!)
What size is that baking dish? 9×13, or the next size smaller?
Thank you for posting this, Bonnie. While I use the Times’ recipes often, I had missed this one. And your cozy home photos make it look all the more inviting!