Even Lazier Cabbage Rolls

In the winter we get lots of cabbages from our CSA.  Our family loves cabbage cooked with onion and bacon or made into a coleslaw, too.  But I remembered those cabbage rolls from my youth and wanted something like that.

But time is an issue for me somedays.  And even when I have time, I don't necessarily want to spend it filling cabbage leaves and trying to arrange them in a casserole dish.  Because remember, I'm cooking for 8 people.  And even though there are 6 kids, they eat A LOT.  So a little dish of 6 or 8 cabbage rolls would just be a good start.  lol

My friend Kathy posted this recipe and variations a long time ago and it was a go to recipe here for a while.   I would do her casserole version.  I would do a big 10x13 pan of it and there were rarely leftovers.  I needed to make more.

This fall I came up with my even lazier version, that feeds us all with a little leftovers.  You may need to downsize this recipe if you don't feed an army  like I do.

Even Lazier Cabbage Rolls

enough olive oil to cover the bottom of the pan

1 onion, chopped

2-3 cloves garlic, minced

4-6 carrots, diced

2-3 pounds ground beef (or venison works great in this one too)

1 large or 2 medium heads of cabbage, rough chopped

46 oz can tomato juice (we have tons of these leftover from our WIC days)

1 c water

1 1/2- 2 cups white rice

salt and pepper to taste

In a large skillet or dutch oven (I use my Le Cruset large oval French oven), drizzle the olive oil. Brown the onion for a couple minutes (you know, the amount of time it takes to mince the garlic). Add the ground beef and garlic. Brown until mostly cooked through. (the amount of time it takes to peel the carrots and dice them). Add the carrots and continue to cook. It takes a good stir to get it all incorporated. Then add the chopped cabbage. I let that cook for about 5 minutes, covered to let the cabbage start to wilt down.

Stir in the rice, tomato juice and water. Bring to a simmer and cook covered for about 40 minutes. Check about 20 minutes into the cooking time to check the amount of liquid. You may need to add more water. When the rice it cooked, season with salt and pepper and serve!

I gave ranges for meat and rice because some times I thaw more meat than other times. So the times when I have only 2 lbs of meat, I need to add more rice to stretch it out. My kids all love this. Very nice comfort food and super lazy!

don't think they noticed

But I put pumpkin puree in their mac and cheese tonight. Hubby is out so I took advantage and made an easy dinner of homemade mac and cheese. Just before I stirred the shredded cheese into the white sauce I added a cup of pumpkin puree that I froze this fall.

I don't think anyone noticed any thing different, and I feel so much better that the got more veggies in them tonight.

chile relleno casserole

I was looking for a casserole idea yesterday afternoon that I could put together and leave it to bake while I took Clay to his drum lesson. Little did I know it would also have to wait through my trip to after hours trauma with Jack E. Thank goodness for time bake on the oven!

I started with a large white onion and a pound of ground beef. After that was mostly browned, I added 2 cloves of chopped garlic and 2 cups of shredded zucchini (I feel guilty not serving some farm veggies with every meal these days) and let that cook down. I sprinkled in a good dose of salt and pepper and about 2 Tablespoons of chili powder. When it was cooked through, I stirred in about a dozen roasted green chiles. (I freeze my chiles in bags of 3 chiles per bag, so I defrosted 4 bags to use.) I probably could have gotten away with less chiles, but it was quite tasty as it was.

I poured that into a prepared 9x13 baking dish and topped it with cheese. Then I poured over that a mixture of 6 beaten eggs, 1/4 cup + 2 Tbsp flour and 2 cups milk, seasoned with salt and pepper.

It baked at 350 for about 50 minutes, until it was bubbly and brown on top. We served it with a dollop of sour cream on top. That was the only offering for dinner and there was NONE left after half the family had seconds.

So here's the recipe in a little more readable format.

Chile Relleno Casserole

Brown together
1 large onion, diced
1 pound lean ground beef

when nearly done, add
2 cloves chopped garlic
2 cups shredded zucchini
salt and pepper to taste
2 Tbsp chili powder

Then stir in
diced green chiles, 6-12, to taste

Pour into prepared 9x13 pan.

Top with 1 1/2 c shredded sharp cheddar cheese or jack cheese...more or less to family preference

Combine
6 eggs, beaten
1/4 c + 2 Tbsp flour
2 c milk
salt and pepper

Pour egg mixture over meat and cheese. Bake at 350 for 45-55 minutes or until browned and bubbly.

more zucchini ideas

I really love this time of year in my kitchen. The abundance of fresh produce makes last minute meal planning really simple. If I had the foresight to thaw some kind of meat, I can go from there, and if I didn't, then I quickly defrost a pound or two of ground beef, grab my big skillet and start throwing stuff in.

The last couple of weeks I have tried to have more of an idea in place. Did you see the new thing in my sidebar that says what's for dinner this week? Really that's there for me. I have a place to write down my plan that won't get misplaced or colored on or thrown out. Friday I was going crazy looking for my grocery list. I couldn't find it and had to make a new one. I did finally find my list. Duane had taken my notebook with my list to drawn some plans for his dream bathroom. lol

I am starting to dread Sunday nights. Since Duane has been doing construction, I pack a lunch for him in the mornings. And I like to send him out the door with some kind of breakfast thing too. That means on Sundays I need to make sure that I have all the stuff I need for that ready. Baking bread, mixing up chicken salad or tuna salad, and getting an egg casserole ready is on the list. By Sunday night I just want to sit down and relax. Not the plan these days.

Today we are going to some friends' after church to brew beer. (That sounds kind of odd doesn't it? That's the oddity of my life!) I am taking some crock pot meatballs. I found the easiest thing. I take the frozen meatballs, add a jar of chili sauce and a can of cranberry sauce. Yum. Totally easy too. I need to go get those in the crock pot come to think of it.

I am also taking zucchini brownies.

Oh, back to the title about more zucchini ideas. This week I was looking at recipes online and found an Italian type of zucchini thing. I sauteed onion, zucchini and garlic, mixed it with some spaghetti sauce and baked that with a little cheese on top until it was nice and bubbly. It was a nice side dish that was different. I also thought it had a lot of possibilities. Adding ground beef or TVP or pasta.

Friday night we had a similar dish. I cooked some cheese tortellini and put that in the bottom of a casserole dish, Then I covered that with the onion, zucchini, garlic and bell pepper mixed with spaghetti sauce. Again with the cheese on top. It was a nice casserole to eat while we watched the Olympics.

OK, have to get to baking now. More later.

inspired

The other night I needed an idea. I was in the mood to do pasta for dinner. It's just easy and quick...and requires no baking or early planning like the crock pot. But I also felt like I needed to use more of the vegetables that are in my fridge. So I took a couple of ideas from a couple different places and made this sauce.

Vegetable Pasta Sauce

I'm not going to really write this out as a recipe since it was more an idea that can be adapted to whatever you have on hand. I used all vegetables from our farm share, the onions, peppers and tomatoes were frozen from last year, too.

I added these in the order listed. I cooked the onions and peppers on high to cook off a lot of the liquid, then I turned the heat to medium high until after the tomatoes were soft.

2 c chopped onions
1 c sliced bell pepper
broccoli, 2 medium crowns florets went in whole, and the stems were chopped first
2 c chopped carrots
2 large kohlrabi, shredded
2 1/2 large zucchini (about 6 c shredded)
9 medium tomatoes
6 cloves mashed garlic
salt and pepper to taste
2 tsp Italian seasoning

I let the onions and peppers cook away the liquid, then added a couple Tablespoons of oil to the pan with the broccoli, carrots and kohlrabi. That cooked for about 3-4 minutes then I added the zucchini. Another 3-4 minutes then I added the whole tomatoes (which I partially defrosted in the microwave). I let that cook for 10 minutes then I used my hand blender to puree it all. In went the seasonings, and the sauce was ready for a pound of pasta.

This was a chunkier sauce, not necessarily a tomato sauce. The leftovers were good too, and then I could really taste the broccoli in the sauce. It was a great way to have pasta and a veggie heavy sauce. High in vitamins and fiber, too.

what's for dinner?

that was a question that plagued me all day today. Monday's are not good days for me. I work and don't get home till around 2, and then I have to leave at 4:30 to take Clay to his drum lesson. I walk back in the door around 5:45, met by starving children and a starving husband. Lately the weekends have been crazy too, so I don't have much of a plan or many leftovers to go from. Then there is the issue of produce.

A huge part of why we get a farm share is so that we really buy very little produce in the summer. I have bought only one or two onions since we have joined the farm. Those were to grill since we have chopped onions in the freezer to cook with. That's 2 onions in over 3 years. I bought a bag of potatoes last spring. Again, those were the first in YEARS. We really try to eat what we are given and not really buy much else. I do have a fridge full of vegetables right now, but I didn't have a lot of time to deal with things. In the past I have prepared casseroles to bake while I am at the lesson, then we have a hot dinner waiting for us. It was just too hot for that today. And I didn't spend any time prepping things for dinner when I came in from work today, because I was scrubbing my wood floors.

So here's what I had to work with in the meat department:

leftover grilled pork sirloin steaks

leftover roasted chicken

leftover shredded chicken in BBQ sauce

eggs

bacon

my veggies on hand?

onions

garlic

zucchini/yellow squash

yukon gold potatoes/new red potatoes

kohlrabi

green beans

carrots

lettuce

fennel

leftover turnip puff

leftover broccoli salad

There was a time when I would have really just wanted to order pizza or get burgers on a night like tonight. Instead I ran in the door at 5:50. I sauteed some onion in olive oil, then added diced new potatoes. While they cooked down a little I chopped 2 yellow squash and sliced the pork sirloin. I added that to the skillet too with a little chicken broth, covered it and let it simmer for 10 minutes. I reheated the turnip puff and pulled out the broccoli salad, too. By 6:15 we had dinner on the table. whew...

and I felt better for using what I had. I didn't defrost any extra meat since I had some cooked that I didn't want to go to waste. Tomorrow will be interesting again because I have an interview at 4 that will take about an hour. But I have more time at home to prep what I am doing. I am really in the mood to have chicken pot pie with that leftover chicken and some carrots and potatoes. We'll see what I do. It's supposed to be like 93 tomorrow so I don't know that I want to bake in the afternoon.

As far as the summer squash bread I made on Saturday goes, I decided I really don't like the way I made it. So I will tweak it again. I had used honey, and I just didn't like the honey taste in there. I want to make some zucchini banana bread tomorrow. I'll be putting a few different recipes together. I'll let you know how it turns out. And the sandwich bread I made the other day is AWESOME. But I want to do it again, to make sure it wasn't a fluke.