September approaches. The temperature is dropping (from 110 to 100 — 'dropping' is generous, but the trend is correct). Caleb's third birthday is in November. The book publishes in April. The RecipeSpinoff post goes live next week.
Everything is converging. The blog, the column, the website, the book — all of them running simultaneously, all of them requiring words, all of them eating my brain and my time and my morning writing hours.
I'm managing. Barely. The schedule is tight: Monday and Wednesday mornings are blog days. Tuesday mornings are column days. Thursday mornings are RecipeSpinoff days. Friday mornings are book promotion prep. Afternoons are Caleb, cooking, dinner at 1800.
The machine runs because the rhythm holds. Wake, coffee, write, daycare pickup, play, cook, dinner, bath, bedtime, write more. The rhythm that saved me during deployment. The rhythm that Mom maintained for thirty years.
Rhythm is the infrastructure of a productive life. The military taught me that. The kitchen confirmed it.
Ryan has been talking about what comes after Twentynine Palms. His orders end next summer. The next duty station is unknown — it could be anywhere. Pendleton again. Miramar. East Coast. OCONUS (overseas). The uncertainty is the constant.
'Wherever we go,' I said, 'the kitchen comes with us.'
'And the crockpot.'
'And the crockpot. And the cast iron. And the binder.'
'And Caleb's apron.'
'And Caleb's apron.'
The inventory of what travels. The list of essential items. The same list Mom has been making for thirty years: the things that go in the car, not the truck. The things that ARE home.
Made Mom's beef barley soup tonight. The September soup. The transition-from-summer soup. In the desert, September is still hot, but the soup says 'fall is coming' and the body believes it even if the thermometer doesn't.
Fall is coming. The next duty station is coming. The book is coming. The RecipeSpinoff debut is coming.
Everything is coming. And I'm standing in a three-square-foot kitchen, stirring soup, ready for all of it.
Bring it.
Mom’s beef barley soup is the September anchor — the ritual that tells my body fall is allowed to start even when the desert thermometer disagrees. But the recipe I keep coming back to on the nights when the schedule is tightest and the writing ran long is this glazed kielbasa: it goes from cold pan to the table in under twenty minutes, it makes Caleb clap, and it has followed us from base to base without complaint. It’s on the short list — the things that go in the car, not the truck — because wherever we land next, dinner at 1800 still has to happen.
Glazed Kielbasa
Prep Time: 5 min | Cook Time: 15 min | Total Time: 20 min | Servings: 4
Ingredients
- 1 lb kielbasa, sliced into 1/2-inch rounds
- 1/4 cup brown sugar, packed
- 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
- 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
- 1 tablespoon soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
- Fresh parsley, chopped, for garnish (optional)
Instructions
- Mix the glaze. In a small bowl, whisk together the brown sugar, Dijon mustard, apple cider vinegar, soy sauce, garlic powder, and black pepper until smooth. Set aside.
- Sear the kielbasa. Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the kielbasa slices in a single layer and cook without moving for 2–3 minutes, until the cut sides develop a deep golden-brown crust. Flip and cook another 2 minutes on the second side.
- Add the glaze. Pour the glaze mixture over the kielbasa in the skillet. Stir to coat all the pieces evenly. Reduce heat to medium and cook for 4–5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the glaze thickens and clings to the kielbasa and the edges begin to caramelize.
- Rest and serve. Remove the skillet from heat and let sit for 2 minutes — the glaze will tighten further as it cools slightly. Garnish with fresh parsley if using. Serve over white rice, egg noodles, or alongside roasted vegetables.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 340 | Protein: 13g | Fat: 23g | Carbs: 18g | Fiber: 0g | Sodium: 980mg
About the cook who shared this
Rachel Abernathy
Week 282 of Rachel’s 30-year story
· San Diego, California
Rachel is a twenty-eight-year-old Marine wife and mom of two who has moved five times in six years and learned to cook a Thanksgiving dinner with half her cookware still in boxes. She married young, survived postpartum depression, and feeds her family of four on a junior Marine's salary with a freezer full of pre-made meals and a crockpot that has never let her down. She writes for the military spouses who are cooking dinner alone in base housing and wondering if they're enough. You are.
