Growing up, ethnic food generally meant spaghetti. I don't remember Granny or Memaw making spaghetti, but Mom made it a lot. Sandy loved spaghetti. As an earlier post mentions, I love stuffed peppers. Mom also made stuffed onions, which Pepaw loved. Other than that, I don't remember many attempts at stuffed vegetables. Mom once found a recipe for cabbage rolls in a magazine and made them. The recipe used Campbell's tomato soup and it simply was not very good.
I've always loved ethnic foods and I love cabbage, but never found a recipe for stuffed cabbage recipe that suited until Momma Z. gave me this one that she created using her own Polish/Irish know-how! These are savory, warm, and delicious! I believe it was the recipe that Mom thought she found in that magazine!
 |
| Ingredients! |
The ingredients are as follows: 1 huge head of cabbage, 1 1/2 pound of ground beef, 1/2 pound of hot/zesty sausage (Bob Evans, Jimmy Dean, etc. I used Esskay here.) 1 medium onion (chopped,) 1/2 to 1 cup cooked white rice, 1 cup tomato sauce, salt, pepper, whole tomatoes, and stewed tomatoes.
 |
| Close-up of hamburger, sausage, tomato sauce, rice, onion, salt and pepper. |
Mix this all up and let it rest. Boil enough water to cover the head of cabbage. Cut around the stem of cabbage and dunk in the water until the leaves start to loosen. As the leaves loosen, remove them and place in a colander. When the leaves are too small to remove, chop them to lay in the bottom of the slow cooker or Dutch oven along with a bit of left-over tomato sauce. If no tomato sauce remains, just pour in a bit of water as you rinse the tomato cans!
 |
| Chopped cabbage with some sauce on the bottom of the Dutch oven! |
 |
| Cabbage leaves waiting for stuffing! |
And the fun begins! Take a bit of the stuffing and place it near the cut end of the cabbage leaf. Then roll the stem end over once, fold in the sides, and roll the rest of the leaf around the stuffing.
 |
| The smallest leaf with some stuffing. |
 |
| It's the BABY cabbage roll! |
 |
| This is what the larger rolls look like! |
Adjust the amount of stuffing so that you have enough for all of the leaves. Lay the cabbage rolls seam-side down on top of the chopped up leaves.
 |
| Pack them so they cannot unroll while cooking, but give a bit of space so the juices can baste around them too! |
I put 1/2 of the stewed and 1/2 of the whole tomatoes (mushed up a bit) over the first layer of cabbage rolls.
 |
| First layer. |
Honestly, you can use only tomato sauce, or whole tomatoes, diced tomatoes, or stewed tomatoes. I like using a mix.
 |
| Second layer! |
Place the second layer right on top of the first. Then add the rest of the tomatoes!
 |
| Pretty! |
The leaves which were kind of intact, but did not remove prettily can be used to cover the entire thing to hold in moisture. This is not as important in a slow cooker, but is useful if cooked in the oven.
 |
| Ready for baking! |
|
Cover with a lid. Cook 2 hours at 350 degrees Fahrenheit if made in a Dutch oven. If using a slow cooker, cook on low for 10 to 12 hours.
 |
| Opening the lid. |
The top leaves dried a bit. No worries!
 |
| With the top leaves removed! |
The rolls below are lovely.
 |
| With a side of mashed potatoes. |
You all know how to make mashed potatoes. Right? Here I used Russett potatoes, butter, salt, pepper, and whole milk. I cook the potatoes until just done. Drain well, lightly smash them with salt, pepper and butter and then add milk. If you over mash them, it has the consistency of wallpaper paste - but...I'm positive you know how to do this. :)
