Thursday, September 23, 2010

Lazy Cabbage Rolls

When the weather starts to cool, it makes me really happy. It means that I get to start making some of my FAVOURITE food...chilis, stews, things with squash, and I get to pull out my crockpot!

I got my crockpot over 6 years ago from my dear friend, Dawn...it has made some amazing meals...sadly, it's nearly done for this lifetime. It's been pretty cranky the past couple of times I've used it. It might be time for a new one :(

So, I got really excited that we were having some cool weather, and planned to make Lazy Cabbage Rolls. Then we hit a warm patch.

We had them anyway.

The beef I used was hormone free stuff from a local farm, Wagner Orchards. Our awesome chiropractor and friend, Dan, recommended this place.

Lazy Cabbage Rolls

cabbageRolls1

1/2 head chopped cabbage (or 1 small cabbage)
1 lb ground beef
1 large onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 - 8oz can tomato sauce
Salt and pepper
1 cup uncooked brown rice
3 cups water
1 can condensed tomato soup
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 tablespoon worcestershire sauce

Brown your ground beef in a skillet. This is an important step in any crock pot with meat type meal. Browning means caramalization, which means flavour! Take advantage of this opportunity while you can! Don prefers his ground beef to be in really small pieces, but since it's going to be in the crock pot all day, I don't fuss about the size of the pieces too much. I break it down into hunks, let it brown, and dump it in the crock pot.

Toss in cabbage, onion, garlic, ONE can of tomato sauce, rice, water, and salt and pepper. Give a stir, cover, and cook 4 to 6 hours.

If you're home, stir occasionally. If not, no biggie.

Approximately 2 hours before serving (or 1 hour if you're tight for time), mix the second can of tomato sauce, tomato soup, brown sugar and worcestershire sauce in a bowl and pour on top of casserole contents. Continue to cook.

Serve how you like it (we like a blob of sour cream).

cabbageRolls2

3 comments:

CinnamonOpus said...

Ooh, that looks intriguing. We used to make something similar -- unrolled cabbage rolls -- but it involved a fair bit of work and layering and baking in the oven, so... This looks MUCH easier. And my kid could eat it, theoretically. Plus, crock pot FTW!!

Jacy said...

Don requested that I try this recipe but modified to be rolled. I'll have to do some pondering on how to adjust.

Quinn liked the meat "guts" but wasn't too fond of the cabbage pieces. It is crazy easy this way (because there's not much fussing and all the flavour). The only thing that is missing from the traditional rolls is the compressed meatloaf kind of texture the meat takes on.

Can't beat stuff made in a crock pot though!

Unknown said...

I add rice at the end as well and you can put in a weight like a plate to weight it down, Mine is just like cabbage rolls, I have not tried this recipe but it looks good. I never really fallow a recipe I just wanted to make sure I was not missing something when I make this tonight,