Showing posts sorted by date for query cabbage. Sort by relevance Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by date for query cabbage. Sort by relevance Show all posts
We sure have been having some bitterly cold weather this past week. I believe it was -10 out there this morning. I have not experienced temperatures such as this in over 20 years! This is the kind of cold that really makes you appreciate Winter soups and stews.
Food that warms your belly and soul! There is nothing like a hot bowl of soup to do just that and this Winter Vegetable Soup is one of my favourites! And not the least because of the dumplings!
There is nothing more comforting on a cold winter's day than a traditional boiled dinner! This is something which has been very much a Maritime, Eastern Canada and New England tradition for many years.
It may seem a bit old fashioned, but there is a great comfort to be had in the simple cooking of thse very humble ingredients. This is full meal in a pot that has been pleasing families for many years.
Cabbage. Cabbage has to be one of my absolute favorite vegetables and never more so than when it is cut into thick wedges and roasted. There is something about roasting cabbage that really brings out its very best qualities.
I have been making this stuffed cabbage roll recipe which I am sharing with you today for years, and years and years. In my opinion it is the absolute best, and I don't make that boast lightly.
The original recipe came from a community cookbook put out by my church ladies's guild back in the early 1980's. I really love community cookbooks. People tend to put into them their very best recipes and tried and trues.
Not all of the recipes will be to everyone's taste. Taste is subjective after all.You can be pretty sure that all of the recipes will be the donater's best and most favourite recipes however.
This makes community cookbooks a wise choice when it comes to finding economical, family friendly and delicious recipes. At least that has been my experience.
My mother used to make cabbage rolls often when I was growing up. They were one of my father's favourite things. My father loved anything with hamburger in it. Mom would always make a HUGE pot of them, with enough to freeze for another time.
She did not use rice in hers. Her meat mixture was more like a meatloaf mixture and she would roll it up in the leaves of cabbage, putting them into a very large saucepan. Over that she would pour a few cans of stewed tomatoes.
She also added peeled potatoes and peeled carrots, cut into chunks. I have never seen anyone else make cabbage rolls in this way. When they were done, there was a full meal prepared. No need to add anything else.
I was not fond of the meat filling, I confess, but I did really love the cabbage, carrots and potatoes. My father really loved the meat, but was not fond of the cabbage. I would trade him my meat for his cabbage. Nobody felt cheated in the least.
This recipe is worlds apart from my mother's recipe. First of all the rolls are baked, not simmered on top of the stove and there are no vegetables added. Just the rolls. I also don't use canned tomatoes, preferring instead to make a sauce from a few simple ingredients. Just tastier, in my opinion.
My meat mixture does include rice, unlike hers. I always use raw rice and you needn't worry about it cooking. It does every time and perfectly.
The meat filling also includes some special seasonings aside from salt and pepper. Grated onion, garlic, and carrot to keep things moist. I also add an egg to hold everything together along with a quantity of chopped streaky bacon.
You would be surprised at how much flavour the bacon lends to the mixture. Its not enough to overpower the meat, but it does give a nice smoky flavour. If you want you can put it through a meat grinder. Raw bacon can be rather difficult to chop.
I also like to use a good dry cure streaky bacon. There is less water in dry cured bacon.
I always use a large white/green cabbage, never a savoy cabbage. I think it has the best flavor and texture for this use.
I use a large one because the leaves are much larger and are the perfect size to completely wrap and enclose the meat filling. I also wilt them first in some boiling water for ease of wrapping.
If you trim the thick vein in each leaf you will find that it is much easier to fold the leaves. Just take a sharp knife and pare it down so that it is the same thickness as the rest of the leaf.
Mom never wilted her cabbage first, but it really does make rolling them a lot easier. You can save the inside of the cabbage for other things. Don't worry it will all get used.
The star of this wonderful cabbage roll recipe has always been the sauce. It is incredibly delicious. So delicious that I often double it because we love it so much.
It uses a canned tomato sauce, fresh lemon juice and brown sugar. If you are in the UK, tomato sauce is NOT ketchup! It is what you call Passatta. Seived tomatoes, but a bit thinner. You can add a bit of water to thin it out if you want but it should be fine just as it is.
Make sure you use fresh lemon juice. It has a much better flavour than lemon juice made from concentrate and is not so acidic. It adds a lovely punch to the sauce.
In my younger years I used to always make a big pan of these if we were invited to a pot luck lunch or supper. I always came home with an empty pan and many requests for the recipe. They really are that good!
I like to serve them with some steamed rice on the side and a vegetable if I can. You can serve them with whatever you wish to use and which you enjoy eating with them. Boiled potatoes are also very nice.
These really are the BEST cabbage rolls and worth every ounce of effort to make. You can double or triple the recipe with ease and you may want to do just that as they do freeze very well and it never hurts to have something like these in the freezer that you can just pull out.
You can pay upwards of $20 in the store for a large pan of ready made frozen cabbage rolls, whereas it will only cost you a fraction of that to make your own at home and they really do taste so much better!
This is the season for comfort foods such as these. Why not bake up some comfort for your family today! They will be ever so pleased and grateful that you did! Trust me on this!
Best Cabbage Rolls
Yield: 4 (12 rolls)
prep time: 15 Mincook time: 1 H & 20 Mtotal time: 1 H & 35 M
This is our favourite cabbage roll recipe. Delicious, moist and meaty with a fabulous sweet and sour sauce. These always go down a real treat. I often double and triple the recipe when I take them to pot luck suppers. I always bring home an empty dish.
Ingredients
For the rolls:
- 1 pound (455g) extra lean minced beef
- 1/4 cup (55g)raw long grain rice
- 1 large free-range egg, beaten
- 1 medium onion, peeled and grated
- 1 carrot, peeled and grated
- 1 fat clove of garlic, peeled and crushed
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
- 1/2 pound ( 225g) smoked streaky bacon, minced (dry cure if possible)
- 12 wilted cabbage leaves, thick veins trimmed to thin
For the sauce:
- 1/2 cup (100g) soft light brown sugar, packed
- 1/4 cup (60ml) fresh lemon juice
- 1 cup (240ml) tomato sauce (passata)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 190*C/375*F/ gas mark 5. Butter a shallow baking dish large enough to hold your rolls. Set aside.
- Place the meat into a bowl and mix together with the raw rice, egg, onion, carrot, garlic, salt, pepper and bacon. Mix well together. Shape into 12 equal sized ovals.
- Place each oval at the wide end of a wilted cabbage leaf. Roll up, tucking in the sides to completely encase the meat.
- Place, folded side down, into a greased baking dish.
- Mix together the brown sugar, lemon juice and tomato sauce. Pour this sauce over the rolls. Cover tightly with a lid or a thick sheet of aluminimum foil.
- Place the casserole into the heated oven and bake for 1 hour. Uncover at the end of that time and bake for 20 minutes longer. Serve hot with your favourite sides.
notes:
I often double the sauce as it is so delicious. Simply multiply all of the sauce ingredients by 2.
This content (written and photography) is the sole property of The English Kitchen. Any reposting or misuse is not permitted. If you are reading this elsewhere, please know that it is stolen content and you may report it to me at: mariealicejoan at aol dot com Thanks so much for visiting. Do come again!
Fish for Friday here with the Ultimate Fish Finger Sandwich. Fish fingers are something we all probably keep in our freezer. They can get really boring however, and we may often find ourselves wishing that we had a fish finger recipe to help to save us from that boredom!
If you like fish you are going to love this delicious, spicy Fish Finger Sandwich. It blows the fish sandwich from most of those fast food places totally out of the water.
In fact I might even so go far as to say that once you taste one of these delicious sandwiches, you will never settle for one of those fish sandwich again!
Cowboy Casserole. Such a simple name, but wow, what fabulous flavours. This recipe I am sharing with you today is one I have adapted from a cookerybook entitled the Betty Crocker Ultimate Bisquick Cookbook.
I bought it second hand from Amazon. Most of the time their second hand books are quite reasonable and in fairly decent shape. My heart breaks when I think of the cookbook collection I had to leave behind in the UK. All of my Dorie Greenspan books, etc. I will hopefully gradually be able to build the collection back up again in time. We will see.
One thing which appealed about this recipe is the fact that it seemed relatively simple to make and did not require a lot of ingredients. My sister had taken a pound of ground beef from the freezer. I made several suggestions as to what we could make with it.
Most received a nay. This recipe did tempt them however, and I got the go-ahead. Whew! You can use ready made Bisquick for this or you could make your own baking mix to use in this. I always made my own baking mix when I was in the UK. You can get that recipe here.
You could also make a homemade biscuit dough of a dropping consistency to drop over top of the casserole. I have included some instructions on how to do that in the recipe.
All work well. All are delicious, although I do have to say I am a bit partial to the homemade biscuit dough. It is probably because of the butter. 😋 Butter makes everything tastier.
I am not sure why it is called Cowboy Casserole. Probably because of the ground beef and the baked beans. Surely cowboy types of foods. Many a cowboy has been sustained by ground beef and baked beans when out on the range.
My sister buys organic grass-fed beef. She buys it at a local farm market, frozen in one pound packages. When I was in the UK I bought ground steak from my local butcher.
In any case you want to use a good quality of ground beef here. You want it fairly lean. I think if I was living on my own I would just grind up my own steak for this.
I cannot stand cheap ground beef. Not only do you end up pouring half of it away in fat, which is a huge colossal waste of money, but it stinks when you are cooking it.
There is no economy in buying cheap ground meat. The fat content is far too high for one thing. And you are paying for all of that fat. Fat which you will not be eating.
Or at least that you shouldn't be eating, not if you care for your arteries anyways. A small amount of fat is okay, but I would never use beef that had any more than 5 % fat in it. This is just my way of thinking and how I like to do things.
But then again ground beef has never really been a favourite of mine and not something I would eat at all when I was growing up. And I am really not fond of it mixed with other things, as in casseroles. Its a texture thing.
You know what they say . . . . there's naught so queer as folk. And some of us are a bit weirder than others! We are all different and I like to celebrate our differences as much as I can!
Life would be incredibly boring were we all the same! Now back to the casserole.
You need a tin of baked beans for this, and some prepared BBQ sauce. You could make your own BBQ sauce if you wanted to. For this recipe you would need tomato ketchup, brown sugar, cider vinegar, Worcestshire sauce, dry mustard powder and some seasoning.
I would start with 1/2 cup (120g) of the ketchup and add 1 TBS each of the brown sugar and cider vinegar. 1 tsp of dry mustard powder, 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce and then salt and black pepper to your taste.
If you have it you could add liquid smoke to really give it that campfire taste.
We used an ordinary can of original baked beans. (Bush's) In the UK you could use Heinz or any other brand. I think in something like this the brand of baked beans doesn't really matter that much overall.
I did find that the mixture was a bit too thick and so I added a bit of boiling water to thin it out a bit and it could have been a bit thinner still I think. You judge accordingly.
You don't want it too thin and you don't want it too thick. I would also be tempted to add an additional half a can of beans, but then I really like baked beans.
You could really amp it up by adding some chopped onion, green chillies and garlic when you are frying the ground beef. That would give it it a bit of delicious heat, but it is up to you!
As you can see it was fairly thick. The biscuit dough absorbs some of the liquid, so don't be afraid to make your beef mixture a bit thinner!
Its really delicious however, so don't mess with the flavours too much. They don't do salt at all in this house so I only added some ground black pepper. And to be honest you really didn't need any salt.
I've never been one to add a lot of salt to things anyways, but I often do add a tiny bit to things. Its all a matter of taste and what you are used to. Using less salt never hurt anyone.
And in fact its much better for you to use less.
We actually used a Tex Mex mix of cheese to sprinkle on top that we had leftover from some natchos we had made around New Years. It was a tiny bit spicy so that worked well with the rest of the flavours.
I would normally use a good strong cheddar cheese. The stronger the flavour of your cheese, the less you need to use. Its a fact.
Anyways, I think this was enjoyed. I had no complaints really and I did enjoy it myself. I served it with some homemade coleslaw. I do make good coleslaw if I don't say so myself.
You can find my coleslaw recipe here. Creamy Coleslaw. Its my favourite. I don't always add the cucumber. Yesterday it was only cabbage, carrots and some scallion/spring onion. BBQ always goes well with coleslaw.
I hope you will want to give this a go. I highly recommend it for a fabulously tasty, family friendly, mid-week supper entree!
Cowboy Casserole
Yield: 6
prep time: 10 Mincook time: 25 Mintotal time: 35 Min
Quick, easy and incredibly delicious. This tasty casserole uses only a few ingredients, cooks quickly and is a real family pleaser.
Ingredients
- 1 pound (453g) extra lean ground beef
- 1 can (16 oz/453g) baked beans
- 1/2 cup (120g) BBQ sauce
- 2 cups (240g)Original Bisquick
- 2/3 cup (160ml) milk
- 1 TBS softened butter
- 1/2 cup (40g) grated cheddar cheese
Instructions
- Preheat the oven o 425*F/220*C/ gas mark 7. Have ready a 2 litre/Qt casserole dish. No need to butter it.
- Heat a large skillet over medium high heat. Crumble in the ground beef. Scramble fry the beef for 5 to 7 minutes until browned and no longer pink. Drain if needed.
- Add the BBQ sauce and baked beans, stirring everything thoroughly together. Bring to the boil, stirring occasionally. Keep warm.
- Stir together the baking mix, softened butter and milk.
- Pour the beef mixture into the baking dish. Smooth over and then drop the baking mix over top by spoonfuls to cover.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 18 to 22 minutes until the biscuit topping is golden brown.
- Remove from the oven and sprinkle with the cheese. Return to the oven for about 3 minutes, or until the cheese has melted.
- Serve hot.
notes:
You can make your own biscuit mixture from scratch to drop on top very easily. Whisk together 2 cups (280g) all purpose flour with 4 tsp baking powder and 1/2 tsp salt. Cut in 1/2 cup (120g) butter until crumbly. Stir in 3/4 cup (180ml) milk until you have a soft droppable dough. Proceed as above. You may need more milk to get the right consistency.
This content (written and photography) is the sole property of The English Kitchen. Any reposting or misuse is not permitted. If you are reading this elsewhere, please know that it is stolen content and you may report it to me at: mariealicejoan at aol dot com
Thanks so much for visiting. Do come again!
One thing I really love about the Winter months is that it is comfort food season. You cannot get much more comforting than a delicious plate of Toad in the Hole with plenty of mash, veg and gravy!
Toad in the Hole is a very British dish, and very much beloved by one and all. It consists of sausages baked in Yorkshire pudding batter, usually served with onion gravy
and vegetables. You can dress it by adding herbs to the batter or
onions, etc. but basically it is just sausages and a pudding batter
baked together.
Simple. Today I have added to the appeal by wrapping strips of streaky bacon around the sausages before baking.
One thing I always loved about British Cuisine was their inventiveness in giving fun names to favorite dishes. Bubble and Squeak. Spotted Dick. Jam Roly Poly. Toenail Pudding. Sometimes they can sound a bit unappealing, but that is all a part of the fun of these names.
As unappealing as they sound, they are all incredibly delicious. They are a part and parcel and woven tightly into the fabric of British cuisine, being much beloved by its people. You cannot help but love them also.
This British family staple has been served on British Tables since the 18th century. It began as a delicious and inventive way of stretching and getting the most of what was a very precious commodity in that day. Meat.
During the Industrial revolution, which began mid-century, the working class worked incredibly hard jobs for a very meagre amount of pay. While their bosses became richer and richer off of the backs of the poor, the working poor needed to be incredibly inventive in making their resources stretch.
And nobody was truly exempt from having to work. Everyone in the family was expected to chip in and work for a wage, contributing their earnings to the wage pot to help and keep the family going.
Necessities such as shelter, clothing and food were the most important things, even more important than play and pleasure. Providing even these simple necessities of life often involved long and back breaking hours of labor.
And even then it was barely enough, all pooled together in the pot, to help to keep the family going. Pennies were pinched, and pinched and pinched some more.
It was often a necessity for families to stretch any bits of meat acquired by combining them with cheaper and more filling ingredients. In other words bulking them out with starches and such to help to fill the bellies for less.
Recipes such as this and other batter pudding dishes were very popular ways to do just that. When served with some potatoes and a cheap and tasty gravy on the side, these dishes were destined to become family favorites, to be handed down through the generations.
Dishes which we still love today. One thing is for certain, despite its very humble origins, this is a dish which has withstood the test of time. You cannot beat dishes like this. Humble, filling and delicious all rolled into one.
I doubt very much they could have afforded to splurge on two different meats such as bacon and sausage being served together, but you never know. In any case, it is a most delicious combination and a real favorite.
I like to use a good butcher's sausage. I don't like the really thick ones for this, although you certainly can use them if that's what you have. I prefer thinner ones. I get the best quality sausages my money can buy.
I like my sausages richly flavored and meaty. I don't like sausages which contain a lot of nasty fillers and preservatives. They have a really pasty texture which I find quite unpalatable. You really go get what you pay for and I highly recommend using good sausages.
Likewise bacon. I prefer the dry cure bacon. It just cooks up nicer with a much lower water content. If you can get nitrate free, do buy that! Its much healthier for you.
These are simply wrapped and placed in an oiled baking dish. You can bake them while you are making up the batter.
There is nothing out of the ordinary about the batter. It is simply flour, salt, eggs, milk and water. Beaten together and then poured around the partially baked sausages in the baking dish. I also like to add a goodly amount of pepper for seasoning.
Baked in the oven until the pudding is well risen and crisp and the sausages are perfectly golden brown and done through. You can't get much better than this.
We enjoy it with a huge pile of fluffy mashed potatoes. Mashed potatoes are the quintessential comfort food side. Light and fluffy, they are perfect for creating a little bowl to hold some of the delicious gravy that is also a must with this dish.
You can use gravy powder of course, or an envelope of gravy mix and most British do. But, making your own homemade gravy is also a very simple thing to do.
To make a lush onion gravy, you need to peel and thinly slice several large onions. Melt some butter, about 2 TBS in a skillet and then as soon as it begins to foam add the onions. I like to add some seasoning and a touch of sugar.
This helps the onions to brown very nicely. You do not really need a lot. Just a pinch will do, or you can leave it out altogether if you wish.
Once your onions have softened and are golden brown you need to sprinkle them with some flour. This depends on the amount of gravy you want. For two cups of gravy I add 2 TBS of flour.
You can use stock reconstituted from stock cubes or a good quality of broth from containers. Either will work well. For 2 cups of gravy you will need 2 cups or 480 ml of stock.
A bit of salt and pepper to season and you have a very nice gravy, which is delicious. Ready to spoon over your mashed potatoes and your Toad in the Hole.
And that is it! All you need now is some vegetables on the side. As you can see here today I cooked peas and carrots, but any vegetable will go well. I sometimes like to serve this with greens such cabbage or Brussels Sprouts.
You just serve this with whatever vegetable your family fancies. I guarantee you will receive no complaints from the peanut gallery. This is sure to become a firm favorite with the family or I will eat my hat!
Bacon & Sausage Toad in the Hole
Yield: 4
prep time: 10 Mincook time: 50 Mintotal time: 1 Hour
A delicious family favourite. Bacon wrapped sausages baked in a Yorkshire pudding batter until crisp and delicious. Fabulous served with mashed potatoes and hot gravy.
Ingredients
- 12 well flavoured sausages
- 12 slices of smoked streaky dry cure bacon
- 1 cup (140g) plain all-purpose flour, sifted
- pinch salt
- 2 large free range eggs, beaten
- 2/3 cup (160ml) semi skimmed milk
- 2/3 cup (160ml) water
- coarsely ground black pepper
To serve:
- Hot onion gravy
- Fluffy mashed potatoes
- Cooked vegetables
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 220*C/425*F/ gas mark 7. Have ready a 9 by 13 inch casserole dish which you have sprayed with low fat cooking spray.
- Wrap each sausage tightly in a slice of bacon and arrange in the prepared dish. Place in the oven and roast for 15 minutes, until just beginning to brown.
- While the sausages are cooking, sift the flour into a bowl along with a pinch of salt. Make a well in the center. mix the milk and water together. Drop the beaten eggs into the center of the flour and then gradually beat in half of the milk/water mixture with a wooden spoon.
- Beat for 2 minutes until smooth, then gradually whisk in the remaining milk/water mixture until you have a smooth batter which has the consistency of cream. Season with coarsely ground black pepper.
- Remove the sausages from the oven and quickly pour the batter around them. Return to the oven and bake for a further 30 to 35 minutes until the batter is well risen and golden brown.
- Serve hot straight from the oven as above with your favorite accompaniments. Yum!
This content (written and photography) is the sole property of The English Kitchen. Any reposting or misuse is not permitted. If you are reading this elsewhere, please know that it is stolen content and you may report it to me at: mariealicejoan at aol dot com
Thanks so much for visiting. Do come again!
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