And another recipe!

Yes, I freely admit I am trying to use up the head of cabbage I bought. I love cabbage. I love it raw, I love it boiled, I love it braised. I really really love it braised, actually, because cabbage gets all lovely and silky and tender but still has just enough chew and it takes on this delicate sweetness that is just amazing. So I had some leftover ground turkey, and ground beef, and cabbage. And I had about an hour before the SO would start whining for food.

So, I Googled around for recipes and came up with one for unstuffed cabbage, http://lowcarbdiets.about.com/od/maindishes/r/unstuffcabbage.htm which of course I screwed around with because that's how I roll. This meal comes together very easily and requires little supervision, and since the SO loved this, I thought it was worthy of a post.

For this recipe, which will serve one small female and one larger, very hungry male with some leftovers, you will need
1) 7 g/1.5 tsp butter
2) 454 g/1 lb of cabbage of cabbage
3) 120 g onion, thinly sliced.
4) 1 large clove garlic, thinly sliced
5) 200 g jarred tomato sauce+1/2 cup water OR 1 16 oz can tomatoes
6) 454 g ground beef/turkey
7) Malt vinegar (or any other you have lying around)
8) Red pepper flakes
9) Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
1) Preheat oven to 350F.
2) Use butter to grease bottom of large dutch oven.
3) Slice cabbage into 1.5" wedges and lay on the bottom of the oven.
4) Lay onion slices and garlic slices on top of cabbage.
5) Pour tomatoes or tomato sauce+water over cabbage+onions+garlic.
6) Roll the meat into 1.5" diameter balls. Wedge meatballs between cabbage slices. When doing so, make sure you give them a good roll in the tomatoes.
7) Douse the pot with a nice shake of vinegar, salt and pepper, and hot pepper flakes to taste.
8) Throw the lid on the pot and stick the whole shebang in the oven for an hour. Halfway through cooking, remove the lid.
9. Serve in bowls in order to savour properly with the lovely meaty tomatoey broth that will form on the bottom of the pan.

In the last 20 minutes or so of cooking, carefully monitor the meat. My turkey meatballs we slightly overcooked, although the beef was dandy. This recipe would work nicely with ground lamb or chicken as well. And it's an economical dish, owing to the cheap ingredients.

I hope everyone has a lovely weekend :)