Stuffed Cabbage Casserole

Our CSA provided us with the world's biggest cabbage.  What to make?  I thought of coleslaw and sauerkraut....I'm not a fan of sauerkraut, and Austin doesn't like either.  I hate having food go to waste, so a little big of googling, and I found a recipe from Skinny Taste.  It was hearty, delicious, and hardly tasted like cabbage :)  There was also so much cabbage that I made 2 casseroles, 1 for dinner that night and 1 for the freezer.  Enjoy!

Stuffed Cabbage Casserole

Ingredients
2 tsp olive oil, divided
1 lb lean ground beef
1 large onion, chopped
1 tbs finely minced garlic
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp Paprika
salt and pepper, to taste
1 extra large head green cabbage, coarsely chopped
1 can (14.5 oz.) petite dice tomatoes with juice
1 can (15 oz.) tomato sauce
1/4 cup water
2 cups cooked brown rice
2 cups low-fat mozzarella cheese
1 green pepper, chopped

Directions
Preheat oven to 350°F. Spray two large glass casserole dish with non-stick spray. (My dish was 13" x 9").

Heat a large frying pan on medium heat; add ground beef and cook until it's browned and cooked through, breaking it apart as it cooks. Remove ground beef and set aside.

In the same pan, add 1 tsp olive oil, chopped onion, green pepper and cook over medium heat until the onion is translucent and starting to brown, about 5 minutes. Add the minced garlic, thyme, and paprika and cook about 2 minutes more. Then add the diced tomatoes with juice, tomato sauce, and ground beef. Add water to the pan. Simmer until it's hot and slightly thickened, about 15-20 minutes.

While it simmers, cut cabbage in half, cut out the core, and remove any wilted outer leaves; chop the cabbage coarsely into 1 inch pieces.

Heat remaining olive oil in a large frying pan or dutch oven; add the cabbage and cook over medium-high heat until the cabbage is wilted and about half cooked, turning it over several times so it all wilts and cooks. Season with salt and fresh-ground black pepper.

When the meat and tomato sauce mixture has cooked and thickened a bit, stir in the 2 cups of cooked rice and gently combine.

Spray casserole dishes with non-stick spray and the layer half the cabbage, half the meat mixture, remaining cabbage, and remaining meat mixture. For the first dish, cover tightly with foil and bake 40 minutes, or until the mixture is just starting to bubble on the edges.  For the second dish, cover with foil, wrap in saran wrap, and freeze.

Remove foil and sprinkle on cheese. Bake uncovered an additional 20 minutes, or until the cheese is melted and starting to slightly brown. Serve hot.

Guest Post from Sadie @ Frosting and Filigree

Hello Food Ramblers, my name is Sadie and I’m coming at you from a blog I share with my friend Carrie called Frosting and Filigree.  Elizabeth is off on some tropical island somewhere for her honeymoon so she asked me to guest post!

So this past weekend I was visiting my parents house and my mom told me her most recent dilemma.  My dad is an Olympic level snacker and he tends to covertly eat through the contents of the cupboard on a regular basis.  She says that if she doesn’t have actual snacks in the house like crackers or cookies, etc, he will turn to her cooking and baking ingredients.  If my brothers and I are not home, my mom typically cuts down on her baking and snack selection because she wants to limit temptation for herself.  But it’s clear that she’s shooting herself in the foot because it causes my dad to turn to her supplies of chocolate chips/Craisons/sunflower seeds/sliced almonds, etc.  She said she is often in the middle of a recipe and realizes that her supply of a necessary ingredient has been mysteriously depleted.

What was her proposed solution you ask?

“So Sadie, it would be great if you could bake some snacks for him this weekend, so he’ll stop eating my precious ingredients.”

I saw this as the perfect opportunity to try a Martha Stewart recipe that caught my eye the other day.  It looked too easy to pass up.  I thought it would be perfect for my parents because it’s not some ooey gooey cookie that would put them into sugar shock.  These bars basically seem like a thick version of graham cracker crust with almonds, and who doesn’t love a graham cracker crust!

Almond Graham Bars with Dark Chocolate

Yields 12 small bars Adapted from Martha

Ingredients
• 1 ½ cups of graham cracker crumbs
• 1 14oz can of sweetened condensed milk
• 2 cups sliced almonds
• Dash salt
• 1 cup dark chocolate chips

Method
1. Preheat oven to 350.  Line an 8 x8 square pan with parchment or foil (this step is essential for this recipe, the bars stick!).
2. In a bowl combine the graham cracker crumbs with the condensed milk, salt and 1 ½ cups of the almonds.  Make sure the ingredients are well combined.  You might even want to let it sit a few minutes to make sure the milk has soaked through and coated the crumbs and almonds.
3. Press the mixture into the prepared square pan and bake for 35-40 minutes until golden brown.

4. When the bars are done, sprinkle on the chocolate chips and allow them to melt on top while the bars are still warm.  When the chocolate has melted, use an offset spatula to spread it evenly across the surface.

5. Top the chocolate layer off with the last ½ cup of sliced almonds and allow to cool completely before you slice them.

Grilled Avocados with Salsa

Found this great recipe from Buns in My Oven- love to grill and it felt a little more tropical...like maybe I can eat it in Jamaica?!?

What do you think we're eating and drinking on our amazing honeymoon?  Post a comment below...

Anyways, here's this simple but great recipe!  We paired it with grilled chicken breast :)

Grilled Avocados with Salsa

Ingredients
2 avocados, halved and pitted
1 lime
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 cup salsa (homemade or store-bought)- we did store bought
salt, to taste

Directions
Preheat the grill to high heat.  In a small bowl, whisk the juice of the lime with the olive oil.  Brush the lime and olive oil combo on the avocado.  Grill for 5 minutes or until grill marks appear and the avocado is just warm.  Remove from the grill and fill the whole with salsa. Sprinkle with salt and serve immediately.

Dinner Fail

Here's the end result of this dinner:

Yup, it was that bad :(  Weight Watchers has a recipe of the day, and a recipe for a mushroom and spinach lasagna was featured.  Sounds great to me!  I substituted kale (and cooked it more since it's a little tougher than spinach), but then followed the recipe to a T.

And look at the pictures...the recipe looks good:

pre-oven

post baking

individual piece

We took a bite and then another; I even finished my plate, but it hurt me to swallow each bite :(  Austin said nothing about the meal (he's a good fiance-- now HUBBY!) and asked what to do with the leftovers.  When I said the trash, he just smiled and agreed.  Sad face, but it happens.  I'm just glad it doesn't happen too often when I cook. 

I tried to go on Weight Watchers to review/destroy the recipe, but they took it down...guess others ran into the same problem that I did-- the recipe was terrible!! :(

Too Much Corn (Part 2) and a Recipe

What a cliff hanger- you had to wait through the weekend to see what I do with all that corn...haha.

This week and the beginning of next week will feature recipes that Austin and I have made over the past month but haven't been blogged yet.  We are currently on our way back to Virginia and heading to Jamaica tomorrow :)  Expect some tropical blog posts soon!

But back to the kitchen!  Corn chowder is one of my favorites, so with an abundance of corn, of course we needed to make chowder!  This recipe is adapted from finecooking.com.

Summer Corn Chowder with Scallions, Bacon & Potatoes

Ingredients
6 ears fresh corn
scallions (about 10 medium)
3 slices turkey bacon, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1 Tbs. unsalted butter
1 jalapeño, cored, seeded, and finely diced
1 tsp. kosher salt; more to taste
Freshly ground black pepper
3-1/2 cups low-salt chicken broth
2 sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch dice (about 1-1/2 cups)
1-1/2 tsp. chopped fresh thyme
1/4 cup light cream

Directions
Husk the corn and cut off the kernels (I used a new gadget, and it rocks!). Reserve two of the corn cobs and discard the others. Trim and thinly slice the scallions, keeping the dark-green parts separate from the white and light-green parts.

Line bacon on cookie sheet and cook for about 10 minutes at 350 degrees.  Cut bacon into 1/2 inch pieces.

In a 4 qt saucepan, melt the butter.  When the butter is melted, add the white and light-green scallions and the jalapeño, salt, and a few grinds of black pepper. Cook, stirring, until the scallions are very soft, about 3 min.

Add the broth, corn, corn cobs, potatoes, and thyme and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce the heat to medium low and simmer until the potatoes are completely tender, about 15 min. Discard the corn cobs.

Transfer 1 cup of the broth and vegetables to a blender and puree. Return the puree to the pot and stir in the cream and all but 1/3 cup of the scallion greens. Simmer, stirring occasionally, for a couple of minutes to wilt the scallions and blend the flavors.

Season to taste with salt and pepper and serve sprinkled with the bacon and reserved scallions.

Wedding Day!

Today is the day!  Austin and I are getting married!!!!!!!!!!!!  I don't think enough exclamation points can let you know how excited I am.  Pictures will be up soon enough (well, after the honeymoon), but I thought this post would be a good one to show what gifts we gave our parents as a big THANK YOU for getting us to this point.

I knitted our parents blankets.  I have been working on these blankets for more than a year, and I was thrilled when I finished them (granted that only happened 6 days ago).  Three blankets was a little bit too much to put on my plate, but they are done- and BEAUTIFUL (if I do say so myself...lol).

Here's the blanket I made for my parents.  This is it over my bed, so it was a pretty big blanket.

I made the blanket in three different strips and then stitched them all together.

The first stitch was the easier with slip stitches pulled over, the second a cable (I taught myself cabling with the help of youtube), and then another fancy stitch (I can't remember what it's called since I made these strips over a year ago...).

my parents were married 30 years ago, someone made them a cream blanket that they still have today.  I thought it was appropriate to make them one for the start of my marriage too!

Blanket for Austin's mom:

This blanket was done in a different orientation.  I cast on hundreds of stitches, so when the blanket was done, the strips were vertical instead of the traditional horizontal stripe.

Blanket for Austin's dad:

I did Austin's dad blanket in a modified rib in the manly colors of tan and brown :)

I hope that our parents really appreciate the gifts since there were made with lots of love!

DID I MENTION TODAY IS MY WEDDING DAY?!?!?!

Too Much Corn- Part 1

What do you do when you have corn coming out of your ears?  There's a couple things I do-- one is cook...the other, of course, is to save.  My boss' family has a farm, and she came into work one day with her trunk full of corn.  I took many a ear, but then I didn't know what to do with it.

So I blanched and froze enough corn to take us through the winter.  Start with a huge stock pot of boiling water.  Husk all the corn and break into pieces.  I found this to be easier that boiling who corn cobs, and they're easier to stack in the freezer bags.

Boil corn for about 10 minutes.

Drain corn in colander and put into ice bath.  My ice bath was the other side of the sink with half cold water and half ice.

When the corn cools, put in freezer bags and store until needed.

Enjoy for as long as the corn lasts.  Considering I eat 3-4 ears of corn at a time, I don't think this frozen corn will last long :)