Tonight's Stuffed Cabbage Rolls Using the Large Outer Leaves and Leftover Pot Roast

My family all agreed tonight's dinner was delicious. So I thought I'd share with you.

This year I have 12 heads of garden cabbage at varying stages of development. We've picked 3 so far. I expect they will last through sometime in September. When I pick the heads I cut most of the loose large outer leaves as well as the tight heads. We've been shredding these dark leaves and adding them to salads. When I picked the third head on Sunday, I set aside the large dark green outer leaves. In tonight's dinner I used the ones that were about 7 or 8 inches in diameter.

filling of leftover beef roast, slice of bread, onion, seasonings

To fill the cabbage leaves I used leftover cooked beef pot roast, a slice of bread, some onion, garlic powder, onion powder, herbs (thyme, oregano), red pepper flakes, and salt. I chopped the meat, bread and onion before grinding in the food processor, adding the seasonings to taste. The benefit of working with a cooked meat was I could taste the filling as I put it together.

Once I had a filling that I thought was good, I began the rolling process. I steamed the leaves one at a time in the microwave for 20 seconds. To make the roll work with the thick core end, I cut about 2 inches through this end, allowing it to split as I rolled. 

Cabbage rolls are assembled like burritos or egg rolls, filling at one end, fold in the sides, and roll up.

Once filled, these need to be steamed or baked in a sauce, usually a tomato sauce. As I'm low on tomato products right now, I chose to steam these, covered, in the oven, using some of the liquid from the pot roast as my steaming liquid. At serving I spooned the residual liquid over each roll.

These were a tasty way to use both the outer cabbage leaves and leftover beef pot roast. My family asked me to make these again this summer. I may try other filling combinations, perhaps leftover pork roast or chicken and vegetables or a cheesy-beef filling.

I realize that most of us here don't grow their own cabbage each summer. Other leaves can be used for filling with great success, too, such as Swiss chard, collard greens and kale. 

Just thought I'd share.

My once every two weeks shopping at WinCo: *sigh* spent more

Friday was my every other week trip to WinCo. I spent more on that shopping trip than my previous WinCo runs. Despite spending more, I did refrain from buying a bunch of foods for the freezer, with exception to 2 pounds of butter, a piece of fish, breakfast sausage, and 1 whole chicken to replace the chicken I roasted this past week, but no frozen vegetables or packaged frozen foods. In the refrigerated section, I only bought a bunch of celery, some pepperoni for pizza, a block of cheddar cheese (again no block of mozzarella), a bag of carrots and a container of natural peanut butter -- no milk or eggs. I also bought a bunch of bananas, but those aren't refrigerated. 

What I spent, what I bought

So my total at WinCo came to $119.79, about $10 over my average prior to the last WinCo run. So, how did I spend my money this week? I stocked the pantry. I bought flour, sugar, peanuts, raisins, cocoa powder (it was back in stock in the bulk bins -- half the price of containers of cocoa), dates, mayo, canned tuna, popping corn, potatoes, onion powder, garlic powder, black pepper, baking powder, salt, powdered milk, corn starch, and dried cranberries. The cranberries and dates were perhaps a treat item for my family, to make meals and desserts more interesting. But I'm glad I bought both.

Souring milk and the last of the frozen eggs

What I didn't buy? Milk and eggs. I took the last container of frozen eggs out of the freezer over the weekend. That's a half dozen eggs (less one I used last night). And I have 4 fresh eggs remaining. I also pulled a quart of drinking milk out of the freezer on Friday and have another quart of drinking milk remaining in the freezer. These two quarts are from the last gallon I bought. When we were about a week away from the sell by date, I realized we just weren't going through the milk as fast as usual. So I froze 2 quarts. Good thing I did that, as yesterday at dinner, one of my family members informed me the milk was souring. I smelled it, and yes, it was souring. There was just a cup left. So after dinner I made a batch of pancakes for my family to enjoy with Monday's breakfast. If I had not frozen half of that gallon, we would have had a half-gallon of sour milk on our hands.

Why was this shopping trip more costly?

So, I'm asking myself, how did I spend so much more than my last WinCo trip, but not buy freezer foods or lots of meat? To figure this out I needed to compare my receipts from the two shopping trips. So, two weeks ago I spent $89.13 and bought 22 items. This week I spent the above mentioned $119.79 and bought 34 items. In those 34 items are some extra meats over last time (an extra bag of sausage, pepperoni, fish, although one less chicken), seasonings and baking ingredients not bought last time (cocoa powder was almost $4, and the other ingredients just add up), the popping corn (5 lbs at 88 cents/lb), and the dried fruit (dates and cranberries). I only bought a small amount of dried cranberries to use in kale salads, but the dates came in a 2-lb bag, and that was over $11. I also bought 2 lbs of butter, as it was on sale. If it hadn't been on sale, I wouldn't have bought any butter. I think all of the small packages of various items simply add up. And it didn't help that I was in a spending mood and splurged on the large package of dates, some fish, and a large bag of popcorn. It's funny, I just assumed that since I wasn't buying much produce or a whole lot of meat, that the final bill wouldn't be very high. Fortunately, I had plenty of cash with me (WinCo is cash or debit only).

The good news

So, trying to be optimistic -- at least my shopping at Walmart later this week is not expected to be expensive with food items. So far, the only food item on my list is hot dogs (the good beef kind). I would skip Walmart altogether this week, except I need to stock up on paper products for the household and buy some hair conditioner for myself. On my last shopping at Walmart I bought a lot of chocolate -- bars and chocolate chips. I'm still stocked on chocolate, so it'll just be the hot dogs. Plus, it's the cumulative spending over a season that matters, as grocery spending can vary considerably from one week to the next.

In case you're wondering, I'm still working on eating down the freezer. I'm getting close enough that I could transfer the contents to other freezers while the big one defrosts. Very soon.