This week I have been insanely bored. I am not sure why, just having one of those weeks where I am going stir crazy for no reason…does that ever happen to you? For a couple of days I thought I was going to get to take a last minute cruise up the New England to Canada. We found this amazing deal where for like $200 you could take a 4 day cruise. How awesome is that? I mean, if you go on a normal vacation one night in a hotel will cost you $200, and you have to pay for food! SO I was super stoked thinking I would get a mini cruise vacation. But…that fell through. What was my fallback you ask? I went out and bought a puzzle. You know you are getting older when you see a puzzle as a viable source of entertainment. Oh the summer blues…I wish you would just go away…
When I get the bored blues sometimes I try to shake them by mixing it up in the kitchen. My favorite way to do this is to take a bunch of random ingredients that I don’t have any plans for and see what weird concoction I can make. Now I will admit this is not always a successful endeavor and sometime the things I make are a bit funky…don’t worry, I won’t elaborate on my mishaps in this post…but sometimes I come up with some tasty, if not slightly weird, dishes!
Toady’s dish is one of those success stories. I have had some cabbage sitting in my fridge forever. When I was at the grocery store I was lured by its beautiful puprle color and talked myself into getting it saying that of course I would find some use for it. The problem with impulse shopping like that…is rarely does it ever work out. I don’t usually cook with cabbage. I think I must have some weird bias still leftover from childhood. So the cabbage just sat in my fridge. In addition to my cabbage I also had some leftover bacon. Leftover bacon?!?! how does that happen you ask. I’ll tell you…I had planned on making a big Sunday breakfast, but we forgot that we had a baby shower to go to, so my big cooked breakfast turned into grabbing a piece of fruit as we ran out the door and presto…leftover bacon!
So now I had cabbage and bacon. I though hey…bacon makes everything better. So why not saute some cabbage and bacon together! Brilliant!!! I also threw in some balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper, and much to my surprise it was delicious! I even had my picky taste tester give it a try and he approved as well. He actually liked cabbage!!! I won’t lie I have made this at least three times since and it is delicious every time. Cabbage…I may have misjudged you…
Ingredients
1 head purple cabbage, shredded
1 lb bacon
2-4 tbsp balsamic vinegar
salt, to taste
lack pepper, to taste
Instructions
- Cut the bacon into 1 inch cubes.
- Fry the bacon in a large skillet over medium high heat until crispy. Remove bacon from the pan and drain all but 1 tbsp of the bacon fat. TIP: Retain the remaining bacon fat so that you can add it back to the pan if needed.
- Reduce heat to medium and add the cabbage. Saute for 5 minutes. Add the balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper and continue to cook for 20-15 minutes, until cabbage is wilted and soft. Stir occasionally so that the cabbage does not burn or stick to the bottom of the pan. (Add more balsamic vinegar or bacon fat if needed).
- Once the cabbage has reached the desired tenderness serve warm.
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