When my husband and I were first married, I did not know how to cook very well. While my mom is quite possibly the best cook ever, I feel like I was too involved in extracurricular activities and hanging out with friends to care for her to share her wisdom with me while I still lived at home. So when I was first married, I really didn't know the first thing about cooking and didn't even know whether or not I liked to cook, or was a good cook. Thankfully, I married the kind of guy who doesn't really care one way or another whether or not I'm a good cook. He would rather eat sandwiches everyday so I'm not in the kitchen all night making dinner, which is very nice! But I was soon to discover that I LOVE cooking and that sometimes I tend to spend too much time on one gourmet meal. At least I used to. Now meals are all about simple and fast, to me, these days with kids J

Anyway, when we were first married, we moved straight to the New Jersey shore so my husband could sell alarm systems and the only job I could find that would hire me for the summer was part time at a retail store in the mall. My husband worked long hours every day, so I came home and out of boredom got really into watching cooking shows every day like Top Chef and Rachael Ray, and just anything on the Food Network channel. I would go to this little market every day to buy fresh ingredients for whatever it is I wanted to make that night for dinner. There were plenty of fails and burnt meals, but that is definitely where I got a good start at learning to cook and started to have more successes than fails. I was never too scared or intimidated by any meal. I tried anything and everything that sounded good.

For some reason I can totally still remember this one day I was watching Rachael Ray and she made these Kielbasa sausage pigs in a blanket. They looked so amazing and I HAD to make them. They turned out amazing and had so many flavors, yet were pretty easy to make. I have since made them many times over the years because I really love this recipe.

I was just in Milwaukee last week, and we had to get brats while we were there! I had a really amazing polish sausage with sauerkraut and loved it so much I was trying to think of what recipe I could try that could compare. Then I thought of this recipe again! It really fits the bill for a delicious, gourmet pigs-in-a-blanket recipe that is perfect for summer barbeques with friends and family. Oh, and what do you know, this is just in time to celebrate National Pigs-In-A-Blanket day on April 25 :)

POLISH DOGS IN A BLANKET

Ingredients:

· 4 tablespoons EVOO Extra Virgin Olive Oil, divided, plus additional for drizzling

· 2 pre-cooked kielbasa (about 1 pound each), each cut into 2 pieces about 8 inches long

· 1 large onion, thinly sliced

· 1/4 cup spicy mustard

· 4 tablespoons white or cider vinegar, divided

· Salt and ground black pepper

· 1 tube refrigerated pizza dough

· 1 cup shredded yellow or Cotswald cheddar cheese

· Caraway seeds, to garnish

· Coarse salt, to garnish

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400F.

Place a large skillet over medium-high heat with 1 turn of the pan of EVOO, about 1 tablespoon. While the pan is heating up, cut a slit in each of the kielbasa pieces so that you can open them up like a book. Place them cut side down into the pan and cook until they crisp up, 4-5 minutes (you'll have to do this in batches).

While the kielbasa are crisping up, place a medium-size skillet over medium-high heat with 1 turn of the pan of EVOO, about 1 tablespoon. Add the onion, mustard and about 2 tablespoons of vinegar to the pan with some salt and pepper. Cook the onion until tender, 5-6 minutes.

With your kielbasa crisped and onions ready, dust your counter with some flour and roll out the pizza dough so that it's a couple of inches larger than its original dimensions. Cut the dough into quarters by slicing it first widthwise, then lengthwise. On one quarter of dough, lay a piece of kielbasa cut-side-up across it on a diagonal. Stuff the kielbasa with some of the cooked onions and a handful of shredded cheese. Pull the two free corners of the dough square around the kielbasa to wrap it up then transfer it to a baking sheet. Repeat this process until you've wrapped of your kielbasa.

Drizzle each roll-up lightly with EVOO and sprinkle the tops with some caraway seeds and coarse salt. Bake them until golden brown, 15-18 minutes.

Add Recipe to Cook'n