Stuffed Cabbage Rolls

 

Makes 8-12 cabbage rolls.  Serves 4.

 

2 T butter

½ cup diced onion

1 tsp garlic minced

Dash of salt and pepper

15 oz can diced tomatoes

15 oz can tomato sauce

2 T brown sugar

1 T apple cider vinegar

 

 

1/3 cup rice

2/3 cup water

 

1 pound ground pork

½ cup onion

1 tsp garlic minced

1 tsp salt

1 tsp lemon pepper

2 T parsley

1 egg

 

1 head cabbage

 

Small sauce pan to cook rice. 

Large sauce pan to cook tomato sauce.

 Large skillet to blanch cabbage leaves.

8x12 pan or dutch oven

 

Bring rice and water to boil in sauce pan.  Turn down heat to simmer and cover with lid.  Cook over medium low heat for 20 minutes.  Turn off and let cool somewhat.

 

While rice is cooking, melt butter in a large sauce pan.  Add onion, garlic and brown for five minutes, until onion is glassy.  Add salt, pepper, the juice from the diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, brown sugar and vinegar to the onion mix and cook over low heat while assembling the cabbage rolls.  Stir occasionally; cover and turn heat off if it starts getting too dry.

 

Pour the rest of the can of diced tomatoes in the bottom of a casserole dish.

 

Once the sauce is simmering, turn attention to cabbage.  Using a sharp knife cut the core of the stem out.  Carefully peel back the leaves one at a time, trying not to tear them.  8-12 leaves will be needed, depending on size.  Cut the major vein out from the bottom, in a wedge shape.    In a skillet, start about an inch of water boiling with 1 tsp salt.  One at a time, add the cabbage leaves to the water,  waiting for them to wilt down into the water.  Turn over after a minute or so to make sure all parts of the leaf get blanched.  Move the limp leaf to a plate before adding the next leaf to the water.  The leaves can make a relatively neat stack to wait for the next step.

 

Mix the ground pork, the cooked rice, ½ cup of the tomato sauce mixture, the rest of the onion and garlic, salt, lemon pepper, parsley and an egg together.  Pour half the remaining tomato sauce mixture over the tomatoes in the bottom of the dutch oven or 8x12 pan.

 

 Divide into approximately equal amounts – enough for the number of cabbage leaves you have blanched.  One division of pork mix gets placed into each cabbage leaf center.  Fold the rest of the leaf around the mixture and secure with a toothpick. Place each cabbage roll seam side down on the bed of tomato sauce in the pan, or stack if needed. 

 

Pour the rest of the tomato sauce over the cabbage rolls.  Cover the pan with the lid or with foil.  Bake at 350 F for an hour.

 

The rest of the cabbage will probably make good cole slaw.

10 April 21 Going old school for a while

 So. Ravelry is useless to me now. I'm not going to go into it just now. The stress of this past year was not eased in any way by their nonsense.

At least for a while I'm going to old school blogging, as are some of my acquaintances. Blogroll anybody or blogrings? 😆

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J and I got jigsaw puzzles for Christmas this year. We started them the week between Xmas and New Year's. Then I started bring more up from storage. Still cranking on them.

[id: Mystic Woods, a Springbok classic puzzle, handed down by a friend of mine, is a picture of a foggy evergreen forest with mossy and lichen covered rocks in the foreground. Spots of color are supplied by random fall leaves, small trees, fern and bushes]

11 July 2020 Cinnamon Shortbread

1 c butter
3/4 c brown sugar
3 tsp cinnamon (I like using the Ceylon cinnamon for this if you can get it)
1/2 tsp vanilla powder (or 1 tsp vanilla extract)
sprinkling of nutmeg
2 c flour

Cream the butter. Add the sugar and blend well. Sift dry ingredients together. Mix into butter/sugar, at low speed. The result will tend to be crumbly. Press evenly into a lightly greased 9x13 pan.

Bake at 350 F for 20 minutes, or until lightly golden at edges.

Allow to cool for 10 or 15 minutes, then score deeply into squares or diamonds approximately 1 to 1.5 inches across using a sharp thin knife. Cut apart when completely cool.  The problem with not scoring it while still warm will be that it will crumble and make messy edges when completely cool.

Store in a sealed container, if your family allows you to get that far.

8 May 2020 Chili con carne and Cornbread

1 pound ground beef and
1 pound ground lamb or 1 pound pork or 1 pound veal  (each will give a different flavor, obviously 😀)
1 can fire-roasted tomatoes  whirred up in the blender with 1 can (8oz )tomato sauce
2 or 3 T ancho chili powder
1/2 tsp cumin
1/4-1/2 tsp chipotle chili powder
Add beef broth
1 can pinto beans or black beans

Brown meats, drain grease, add tomatoes and spices  to a covered skillet for about an hour.  Stir in beans and cook for another five-ten minutes until hot.

Serve with cornbread.


gluten free Cornbread

1 cup coarse cornmeal
1/2 cup gluten free flour or Bob's Red Mill Paleo Baking Flour (my favorite go-to)
1 scant Tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 Tablespoon brown sugar or honey if you must have sweetening
2 eggs, beaten
2/3-3/4 cup Milk
1 Tablespoon butter

Put six inch cast iron skillet in oven and heat oven to 400F.

Stir together dry ingredients.  Add beaten eggs and stir briefly (about 5-6 times).  Stir in milk, just until all the dry ingredients are mixed into a slurry (about 20 times).*

Take the skillet out of the oven and melt the butter in the hot pan.  Swirl the butter around to coat the bottom and sides of the pan.  Pour the batter in and return the skillet to the oven.  

Bake for 15 minutes.  Use a toothpick or other tester to make sure the cornbread is cooked through.



*Baking powder will start to form gas for leavening as soon as it gets wet.  Over-stirring will cause the gas to escape making your cornbread flat.

6 May 2020 Banana Fritters

There are recipes you try, and you go... ok.  that was a thing.  and you never try them again. Then there's the other kind.

This one is the other kind.

This recipe originally came from the Pearl S. Buck Oriental Cookbook, but it's been adjusted over time. I use a minimum of 1/2 banana for each person and 1/2 banana more, rounded up to make even numbers of bananas. Unless of course the bananas are smaller or larger than usual, or I feel like more bananas (usually), or...

The rest of the ingredients are based on "how many bananas?"

2 T flour per banana,  all purpose wheat, or Paleo flour, or half oat flour/half almond for gluten free
1 tsp sugar per banana
a sprinkling of cinnamon or nutmeg.
1-2 T butter

Mash the bananas together coarsely, then stir in dry ingredients.* 

Heat a cast iron skillet**, and melt  butter. Drop spoonfuls of mix into the skillet (I like approximately 1 T at a time, but more is fine.) Brown on one side, flip and brown the other. 

Serve as is, or if you want to be fancy, sprinkle with powdered sugar.

*Bananas do vary in size.  You want your batter to be not gooey and not stiff.  If it is really gooey, add another T flour/tsp sugar at a time, to get it just past the gooey stage.

**You can use a non-stick skillet, I have done so successfully, but I find that the banana batter cooks better  on a well-seasoned cast-iron.  It doesn't tend to peel the surface off the fritter when you flip it when using cast-iron.

5 May 2020 Sourdough waffles

If you want waffles for breakfast, start the night before with

STEP 1:

1 cup sourdough starter
1-1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup warm water

Measure out 1 cup sourdough starter from your supply.  Stir together (4-5 minutes) with flour and water.  Cover bowl and let proof for 8-12 hours.  It will be ready when it is foamy and full of large bubbles.  It can be used any time after this for about four hours - it may move on into many tiny bubbles, which is an ideal state.

Return 1 cup of sourdough starter to your supply.  You should have about 1-1/2 cups batter.


STEP 2:

2 eggs
2 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1/4 cup melted butter
1/4 cup milk

Separate your eggs.  Beat egg yolks lightly and stir into batter.
Stir in sugar and salt.
Stir in melted butter and milk.
Whip egg whites until they form soft peaks.  Fold into batter gently.

Heat waffle iron.  I use about 1/2 cup batter per approx six inch waffle.  You want enough to cover about 2/3 the iron surface before closing the lid - it will spread out to fill the caps, and you don't want enough to squish out and run down the sides.

Bake until golden brown.  This is a waffle that goes well with sweet or savory toppings.

4 Feb 2018 Oatmeal banana waffles - gluten free.

I've been making waffles for 20 years and have given up following a recipe.  This one turned out well.

1 cup oat flour
1 cup rolled oats, run through the blender until they're textured oat flour
1/2 cup almond flour
1 T brown sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

2/3 cup sour cream or yogurt
1 cup milk
3 eggs, separated
1 large or 2 small mashed bananas


Stir the dry ingredients together; in the blender will work since you already have it out.  Stir the egg yolks and other wet ingredients together.  Stir the dry ingredients into the wet.  Whip the egg whites and fold into batter.

Spray the waffle iron(s) with canola oil spray between every waffle.  I don't always have to do that, but the oat flour soaks up the oil and the next one will stick to the pan.