I use raw cabbage and sweat it down in the bacon fat. I start by cutting the onions in thin slices and put them in the skillet first to get a little color. Then I toss in the sliced cabbage and some s&p, put a lid on it and stir it every now and then. The whole process takes about a half hour until the veggies are limp. Both the cabbage and the onions have enough natural sugars to caramelize.
The leftover elements of the boiled dinner are all just chopped up into chunks, slightly smaller than what you'd do for a stew. I add a healthy amount of black pepper and a few blasts of Louisiana hot sauce and simmer it for about 15 minutes or so.
Funny thing a cookbook...about a dozen years ago I was on the Food Network. It was a show named "Calling All Cooks." They were looking for amateur cooks with family recipes. I submitted one for paella. They sent out a film crew and during the show they had a scene with a cookbook I had put together of my mother's recipes (from memory). I had just made a half dozen copies at Kinko's as a legacy for my son, nieces and nephews. Well, every time the show aired, I'd have people from around the world tracking me down for the recipes. They'd say they couldn't find the cookbook on Amazon, etc. Well, that's because it was all of about 20 pages long and homemade. I still don't have any of it on a computer file.
That said, I do encourage all of you to do the same. It's a nice thing to do for the family to keep those kitchen memories alive. Plus, it makes a nice gift.
For anyone interested, here's my paella recipe from that show.
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/calling-all-cooks/paella-recipe/index.html