Fumbling Toward Culinary Talent: Sausage & Cabbage Soup

This is a two-part recipe because I first made a veggie stock as the base for the soup. 

Here are the ingredients for the vegetable stock:

• 4 carrots, chopped in large chunks
• 1 medium yellow onion, quartered
• half of a green pepper, chopped in large chunks
• 1 whole bag of frozen broccoli
• 10 whole peppercorns

I put all of that in a stock pot and covered it with water. The water came up to about two-thirds of the way up the stock pot. I simmered that for approximately two hours, and it reduced by at least a half. I cooled it for a while and then strained the goods. 

Here is the next set of ingredients:

• 3/4 lb. of smoked sausage
• half of head of green cabbage, thinly sliced
• 32 oz. of store-bought chicken stock
• Healthy smidge of Boquet Garni
• Good smidge of Penzey's Northwoods seasoning
• Some garlic powder
• Some thyme
• Salt and cracked black pepper

I took three-quarters of a pound of smoked turkey sausage, sliced it thinly, and then browned it in a cast iron skillet. Once browned, I transferred the sausage to a plate covered in a paper towel and then cut up the cabbage. After all that's done, dump in the chicken stock, sausage, cabbage, and seasoning and then simmer it all for about 30 minutes.