Cabbage Strudel

This is where the Caramelized Balsamic Onions came from (I love this book!)

Ingredients: 

• Olive oil
• 1 lb bulk sweet sausage*
• 1 small/medium green cabbage – shredded
• 1 onion – sliced up small
• 2 carrots – shredded
• 1 t salt
• 6 oz feta cheese
• 1 t caraway seeds (I usually add 1T but I’m having an emotional affair with caraway flavor)
• Black pepper
• 3/4 C bread crumbs
• Phyllo dough
• 4T butter – melted
• 3 T bread crumbs

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375
2. Cook the sausage in a large and drain off any grease (mine didn’t have much). Place in a large heat safe bowl.
3. Pour some olive oil in a large skillet over med-high heat. Add cabbage, carrot and onions. Saute briefly, not looking for melting deliciousness, just taking the raw edge off. The cabbage should be brighter green than when raw. Add this to the sausage.
4. Add the feta, caraway, salt, pepper and bread crumbs. Mix up really well. 

You can eat it at this point, in fact I recommend trying it so see if you need more pepper/salt/carraway

The next part is where it gets involved. It’s pretty similar to making Baklava. 

1. Spread out a layer of Phyllo dough (keep a damp paper towel on it, this stuff dries up quickly!)
2. Brush with melted butter and sprinkle with bread crumbs. 
3. Repeat. I usually do about 5-6 layers
4. Spoon a ‘log’ of your cabbage/sausage mixture into the center.

Gently fold in the sides and ‘glue’ together using some melted butter.

Bake for 30-35 minutes until golden and crispy.
Allow to sit for at least 1/2 hour after removing it from the oven.

Keeping it real.
The amount of filling you get varies with the amount of cabbage and such.
You’ll get anywhere from 2-4 rolls.
This filling would also be yummy for stuffing squash or just eat it out of the bowl

I also made one in layers like a pan of baklava, it was good but for some reason it just wasn’t as good. Sad because it’s a lot faster!

*The original recipe is vegetarian. I added the sausage because I mixed up 2 recipes and I thawed the sausage and blah blah blah. We really liked it with the sausage so that’s how we make it now.