Welcome to my kitchen

My name is Darlene,  I work full time and still wanted to be able to put good affordable meals on the table.  I have always had a love of food and cooking.  I am not fancy like many other cooks setting up blogs. What makes me different is I want to share how we really eat, live and enjoy life.

I want to start out by saying that I have no apologies for how I cook.  In our current society where people are looking for low calorie, gluten free, and organic, I cook old school.  I want to say that a good 60% of what I make is fresh,  40% is between going out (an indulgence I love!) and using some premade items. I also like to

Lets get started!

A couple weeks back a cousin of mine posted on Facebook that she was going to make Grandma's stuffed cabbage recipe.  It was nothing like I make it so lets start with there.

Grandma's Stuffed Cabbage Rolls

Ingredients

2 pounds ground beef
1.25 pounds ground pork
(we will only use half this meat and make a meatloaf of the rest)
1 medium onion - chopped
 1 Tablespoon Paprika
Small head of cabbage
2 - 28 oz cans of tomato sauce
2 cups drained sauerkraut
1 cup Uncle Ben's Rice (I like Uncle Ben's because it is consistently a good rice that won't get sticky)
Salt and Pepper
Olive Oil

heat your oil and add half the chopped onions, sauté till translucent

add the tablespoon of paprika.  YES it will be dark, but don't panic, remember we are mixing it with other stuff!

 

Our onions - let cool down in a dish.

 

Lets prep our cabbage while the onions cool down.....

 

 

You will need to start a pot of water to boil.

 

 

 

with a sharp knife you want to remove the core.  Now this is hard to see in this picture but I like to go down about half way thru the cabbage and I also will trim inside so when head is in the water the leaves will separate easily. 

 

You want to set the cabbage to boil and pull apart the leaves as they start to separate.  I will pull off the leaves and leave them in the water.  Your leaves will start the separating after 5 minutes or so. You do not want to over cook your cabbage, it needs to be pliable to roll.  Once they start to separate they will go fairly quickly.  I want to add that you want to look at the leaves as they are cooking and start pulling them out once they are tender but not over cooked.

Here is my stack of the larger leaves.  The smaller ones I have in the pan in the back.

Trim down some of the hard vein to make it easier to roll.

allow to cool and lets prep the meat.



add one cup of the uncooked rice, the onions, salt and pepper to taste.  Remember we are only using half of the total amount of meat.


LET'S ROLL!!

 

lay out the cabbage leaf, add a small amount of the meat mixture and just roll up.

 

 

 

With your finger push the ends of the cabbage into the center to the roll, like this then do the same on the other side.  Continue with all the leaves.  If I have extra meat I will make little meatballs to add to the pot, you will have extra cabbage.  You will chop it up and put it into the pot.  (nothing wasted here!)

Mix together in a stock pot

1- 28 oz can of tomato sauce
2 cups of the drained sauerkraut
and remaining chopped cabbage

Place all your cabbage rolls in the stock pot. and then I add the other can of tomato sauce, cover and simmer on low for 1 to 1 1/2 hours. 

I love to serve mine with parmesan cheese and garlic bread (oops got a little toasty!)