Confetti Kielbasa Skillet —rsquo; The Garden Comes to the Pan

The Damiano Center on Thursday: wild rice soup, fifty gallons, the same recipe I have been making for twenty-some years now. The constancy is the point. People come into the basement of that building hungry and uncertain and what they find is a fifty-gallon pot of wild rice soup that has been there every Thursday of every year, and they find Linda Johansson, who has been there too, and the constancy is the message: you can come back. You can come back. You can come back. Lena (Anna's youngest, college freshman) is in college now. She calls me sometimes. The calls are about boys, mostly. I listen. I do not give advice. I am eighteen-year-old's grandmother. My credibility on boys is suspect at best. I tell her the kinds of things a grandmother is supposed to tell her: be careful, be brave, trust your gut, do not date the one who reminds you of someone you do not like. She thinks I am wise. I am, in fact, just old. The two get confused sometimes in the right direction. Jakob (Anna's middle, recently graduated) has a job. He hates the job. He is figuring it out. He called me Tuesday for advice. I told him: that is what your twenties are for. The first job is supposed to be unsatisfying. The first job teaches you what you do not want. He said, "Grandma, that is not super helpful." I said, "It is the truth. Helpful is not always the same as comforting." He laughed. He hung up. He kept the job for now. He will figure it out. I cooked Garden salad with herbs this week. Lettuce from the garden, tomatoes from the co-op (still too early for garden tomatoes), cucumber, radish, dill, chives, mustard vinaigrette. The Damiano Center on Thursday. I have served soup at this center for twenty-some years. I know the regulars by name. I know the seasons of the crowd. I know that the first cold snap brings new faces. I know that the days after holidays bring the lonely ones. I know that the worst weeks of the year are not the ones that feel the worst — they are the ones in February when the cold has worn everyone down and the city has run out of tenderness. Paul would have liked this dinner. Paul would have liked this week. Paul would have liked this life. I tell him about it anyway. The telling is the keeping. I have been told, by a grief counselor, by friends, by my own children at certain anxious moments, that perhaps the constant tell-Paul thing is not healthy. I do not agree. I think it is exactly healthy. I think it is, in fact, the structural beam of my emotional architecture. The beam is solid. The house stands. It is enough. Paul is not here. Mamma is not here. Pappa is not here. Erik is not here. They are all here in the kitchen, in the smell, in the taste, in the wooden spoon and the bread pans and the marble slab. The dead are not where the body went. The dead are in the kitchen. The lake from the kitchen window has been doing what the lake does for as long as there has been a lake. The lake has carried fish and ships and the bodies of drowned sailors and the names of Ojibwe villages and the granite-cold of melted glaciers. The lake does not notice the lives along its shore. The lives notice the lake. That is the deal. That has always been the deal. It is enough.

The salad was already made — lettuce and radish and dill from the garden, that mustard vinaigrette I could make in my sleep — but the week had been full enough that I wanted something warm alongside it, something that used the same logic: whatever is bright, whatever is ready, whatever asks very little of you and gives a great deal back. The Confetti Kielbasa Skillet is that kind of meal. It has been in my rotation long enough that making it feels less like cooking and more like tidying — the pan does the thinking, the colors do the rest, and by the time it’s done the kitchen smells the way a kitchen is supposed to smell. Paul would have had two helpings.

Confetti Kielbasa Skillet

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 20 min | Total Time: 35 min | Servings: 4

Ingredients

• 14 oz kielbasa sausage, sliced into 1/4-inch coins
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 medium yellow onion, diced
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 red bell pepper, diced
• 1 yellow bell pepper, diced
• 1 green bell pepper, diced
• 1 medium zucchini, diced
• 1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
• 1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, or to taste
• 2 tablespoons fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped
• 1 tablespoon fresh chives, snipped
• 1 teaspoon fresh dill, chopped
• 1 teaspoon whole-grain mustard
• 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar

Instructions

1. Brown the kielbasa. Heat a large heavy skillet over medium-high heat. Add the kielbasa coins in a single layer and cook without stirring for 2—3 minutes until the cut sides are deeply browned. Flip and brown the other side for 1—2 minutes more. Transfer to a plate and set aside.
2. Soften the aromatics. Reduce heat to medium. Add the olive oil to the same skillet. Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, for 3—4 minutes until softened and translucent. Add the garlic and cook 1 minute more until fragrant.
3. Add the peppers and zucchini. Add all three bell peppers and the zucchini to the skillet. Season with smoked paprika, salt, and black pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 5—6 minutes until the vegetables are just tender but still hold their color and a little bite.
4. Finish with tomatoes and kielbasa. Add the cherry tomatoes and return the browned kielbasa to the pan. Stir in the whole-grain mustard and apple cider vinegar. Cook for 2—3 minutes, stirring gently, until the tomatoes begin to soften and everything is heated through.
5. Herb finish and serve. Remove the pan from heat. Scatter the parsley, chives, and dill over the top and toss lightly to combine. Taste and adjust salt. Serve directly from the skillet alongside a green salad or crusty bread.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 370 | Protein: 17g | Fat: 26g | Carbs: 18g | Fiber: 3g | Sodium: 870mg