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Halushki: A Petcash family tradition

This basic recipe has been handed down at least from my grandmother to my mother and now my generation.

With the holidays approaching, it got us thinking about traditions. Maybe you have your own tradition or a family tradition that's been passed down from generation to generation. We're featuring some of ours.

I'm sharing a recipe for a dish I grew up eating. It's a comfort food that brings back a lot of good memories and feelings. It's simple. It's tasty. It's Polish, and it has a very Polish name.

My wife and I made "Halushki." It's a cabbage, pasta and sausage (optional) dish. This basic recipe has been handed down at least from my grandmother to my mother and now my generation. I'm pretty sure it goes back farther than these three generations.

My ethnic background is Polish and Slovak. My family is from the Pittsburgh area. Because we are so far from my family, we don't see them as often as we would like, and therefore don't get to enjoy my mom's cooking. My wife knows I love this dish, so she got the recipe from my mom.

While Halushki is not a specific part of my family's Thanksgiving or Christmas meals, it is definitely an important family tradition to be eaten around the holidays. My dad also said that, without the sausage of course, it can be part of a traditional meatless Christmas Eve dinner.

Here's the recipe:

HALUSHKI (SWEET CABBAGE HALUSKA)

Bowtie noodles, (or your choice of pasta or dumplings) cooked.

1 pound Kielbasa Polish sausage or your choice of sausage (optional)

1 medium head cabbage

1/4 Cup butter or margarine

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon sugar

1 teaspoon pepper (optional)

Boil your choice of pasta and set aside.

Chop or grate cabbage until fine. Put cabbage into a heavy skillet with butter and sugar. Cook over low to medium heat until lightly browned and tender. (Can also add one small chopped onion.)

Slice sausage into rounds and fry in separate frying pan until lightly browned.

Combine pasta and sausage into the heavy skillet with the cabbage.

Add salt and pepper. Stir.

Heat until warm.

Enjoy!

NOTE: If you choose to use dumplings, you can either make them yourself or buy frozen Gnocchi.

DUMPLINGS

2 cups flour

2 eggs

1/2 cup water

1/2 teaspoon salt

Combine flour, eggs and salt. Add water. Beat well until dough is gummy. Break into little dumplings and drop into boiling salted water. Boil two minutes. Drain, rinse with hot water. Add to cooked cabbage.

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