You'd think it was Oktober with all this cabbage

For a while now, I've been wanting to make stuffed cabbage rolls.  For some reason, it just never happened.  I'd look up a recipe for it and get excited about making it, but then would change my mind last minute and make something else.  I've never had them but the idea always sounded good so FINALLY I decided to give it a try.  They definitely take a little time to make so if you want to try them, make sure you have the patience and some free time.  The ingredients were:

cabbage

ground beef

tomato paste

diced tomatoes

tomato sauce

onion

egg

sauerkraut

paprika

garlic

dill

allspice

lemon

quinoa

brown sugar

So the first things I did were to make the quinoa just by cooking it in some chicken broth and boiling the cabbage.  I let the cabbage boil in a pot of water until the leaves were softened but not completely cooked through.  Once the leaves were pliable, I put them under some cold water to stop the cooking process.  When they're cool enough to touch, you can start rolling.  You can also use rice but we always prefer quinoa. 

To make the beef filling, you take your quinoa and other ingredients and mix them all together in a bowl.  This includes the garlic, onion, beef, diced tomatoes, quinoa, lemon, spices, egg, and some of the sauerkraut.  

Give this a good mix and this will be your filling.  

To make the sauce for the cabbage rolls, I used the tomato sauce, paste, brown sugar, garlic, and lemon juice.  This sat in a pot for a bit just to mix flavors. 

To make the rolls, take a leaf of cabbage and dry it off.  Place enough filling on the inside and start rolling from the bottom up.  About halfway through, fold in the ends and then finish rolling up to the top.  

I think I was able to make about 15 or so.  At some point, the leaves become too small and there's really no point.  You just take the rest of the cabbage and chop it up.  

In a big pot, I put some sauerkraut and the chopped cabbage remains on the bottom.  Then I started layering my cabbage rolls.  I put a layer of cabbage rolls then poured some tomato sauce on top.  This was continued until the rolls were all gone, ending with sauce on top.  Make sure to put the rolls in the pot, seam side down.  

This cooked for about an hour or so with the lid on.  It will start to simmer so make sure the heat is turned down so it doesn't boil.  

So I must say that this was a very successful dish!  The cabbage didn't fall apart and I was able to get them out of the pot still in roll form.  The sauerkraut from the bottom of the pot had enough sauce on it and made for a good side dish to the already full of cabbage meal.  All the flavors blended nicely together.  The sweetness from the tomato balanced out the sour from the kraut and cabbage.  The best part about this meal is that it's low cal.  It also made really good leftovers and tasted great cold the next day.

Bad wing sauce = Awesome pork marinade!

Sorry for those of you who try to keep up with my blog...I know it's not very hard to do since I never update.  I've been feeling a little burnt out lately and finding myself not wanting to blog even though I'm cooking and taking pictures.  Not really sure what's going on but I really want to try harder to be better about this.

A few weeks ago, I made wings at home.  They had a seasoning on them and then I made some different sauces.  Once of them went wrong.  I'm not sure what happened or maybe it was just supposed to taste like that but I didn't like it.  Eric said it was fine but I wasn't about to ruin my wings by drenching them in this sauce.  However, Eric mentioned marinading pork in it and since we had a tenderloin in the freezer, I decided to give it a shot.

The marinade was made of the following:

Frank's Hot Sauce

Butter

Balsamic Vinegar

Water

Cornstarch

Salt

Sugar

Mustard

Egg

All of the ingredients, except for the top 2, were placed in a double boiler and allowed to cook down.  The butter and Franks was added later and it was put in the fridge to cool.  I thought this tasted terribly so I added some honey and some more mustard.  I guess it got a little better but still not wing-worthy.  I put the sauce in a bag with a pork loin and let it marinade overnight. 

The next day was a really nice one so I decided it was time to uncover the grill again.  The pork loin was cooked over medium heat and flipped every few minutes or so.  I didn't want to burn the sugar but really just caramelize it and form a nice crust.  After about 15-20 minutes, I removed it from the grill and let it sit for about 10 minutes for juices to flow through.  While this is sitting, I cook down the marinade to make a reduction.  

Earlier in the day, I decided a good side would be some collards.  This is made the same way I have made it in past posts but just a quick update, ingredients include:

collard greens

bacon

apple cider vinegar

crushed red pepper

onion

garlic

chicken broth

I let the bacon cook down in the pot and then add the onion and garlic to the fat.  After cooking a few minutes, I add the greens and let them wilt.  Then, I pour the stock over it all and add seasonings and let it cook for as long as I can.  I taste it before it's served just to check salt and pepper.  

So eating time! Final product:

The pork was cooked perfectly for us.  It was more of a medium-rare/medium than just medium rare which is good for me b/c I feel like medium rare pork can be a little too much rare.  The collards turned out well, which I figured they would since they take very little effort to come out perfectly.  I don't know what it was but the sauce with the pork was delicious.  It was the perfect amount of sweet and tangy and adding it with the spice from the collards gave a well rounded flavor balance.  I'm glad Eric mentioned the idea and I didn't just throw it away.

It's wedge season!..and not the shoes

We're still filtering through our Omaha Steaks that we bought last summer.  Since I haven't been eating gluten, it's been a lot easier to eat all this meat, especially since we need the freezer space.  Our freezer has someone grown so full due to all the meat I've been buying at Costco.  To help with this space, I decided bacon filet would be a good start.  For sides, brussel sprouts and a wedge salad.
Ingredients:

bacon wrapped filets

butter

salt

pepper

brussel sprouts

mushroom

sundried tomatoes

brown sugar

balsamic vinegar

iceberg lettuce

ranch

cheese

tomatoes

peppers

To start, I cut up the brussel sprouts.  I took the outer leaves that were wilted and then cut them in half, removing the stem.  Then, I put them in a baking dish and covering them in salt, pepper, and olive oil and putting them in the oven for about 45 minutes.  

While the brussel sprouts were in the oven, I decided to make a glaze for the sprouts.  In the pot went mushrooms, sundried tomatoes, brown sugar, and balsamic.  I let the mushrooms cook to soften and the glaze to reduce.  Once the sprouts came out of the oven, I poured the glaze over them and put them back in the oven for about 10-15 minutes just to meld together.  

To cook the steak, I melted butter into a pan.  I put salt and pepper on both sides and cooked each side for about 4 minutes.  Then, I put the pan into the oven and let the steaks cook for about 10 minutes.  Then they sat on a plate for about 15 minutes just for the juices to flow through the steaks. 

Since I don't like bleu cheese AT ALL, I decided to make the wedge salads with ranch.  I quartered the head of lettuce and wanted to add some extra salad goodies so I chopped tomatoes and peppers.  I'm not sure how they do it at restaurants but it's really hard to make all of these little chopped things stick to the wedge.  I had to kinda shove them into the layers of lettuce.  I don't think it really mattered that it stuck there since you cut the whole thing up but I really wanted to do it.  I topped it off with some freshly ground pepper. 

SOOO, once everything was cooked, everything went on a plate.

The steaks were cooked to a perfect medium rare.  The sprouts and its reduction added a great flavor of sweetness to the salt of the steak.  They combined together very well.  The salad was crisp and refreshing, exactly what I was craving that night and a great start to the heartiness of the steak and sprouts.

Family style dinner

I always buy roast chickens on Wednesday but I've never made one.  I make a turkey every year so I know it can't be that different right?  So last week I decided to roast my own chicken and make a meal out of it. Our friend Kevin's wife had been out of town for a while so we invited him to dinner as well.  Then I went to lunch with my friend Whitney and so decided to invite her and her boyfriend over too!  Our simple chicken dinner for 2 turned into a family dinner which was awesome.

I decided to make dessert since the feast had grown and decided to make a gluten free cheesecake.  This is basically cheesecake minus the crust.  I love the crust...but the cheesecake goodness part is pretty awesome too.  For the cake, I used:

cream cheese

ricotta cheese

eggs

cream

sugar

vanilla

Everything basically got mixed in an electric mixer until whipped together and then put into a pan.  The pan was put into a baking dish with some water and put in the oven. I also made a strawberry topping which consisted of strawberries and sugar.  This was cooked down in a pan on the stove until it was topping-like. 

For the chicken, I used Julia Child's recipe from Food and Wine this month.  This consisted of:

whole chicken

salt

celery

onion

carrots

oregano

thyme

pepper

lemon

All the veggies were put into a pan and cooked for a bit and the chicken was washed, dried, and then trussed.  To truss a chicken, you just take kitchen string and tie the legs together and around the bird.  Usually, if you get a roasted chicken at the store, it's already trussed.  

The cavity of the bird was salted and the veggies were placed inside the chicken.  The lemon slices were also stuffed into the bird and then more carrots, onion, and celery as placed around the pan outside the bird and the whole thing was put in the oven and cooked to 165 F.

Unfortunately, I didn't take any more pics that night.  I kinda just forgot.  But you can probably put everything together.  The chicken came out wonderfully.  It was so juicy and had really good flavor.  The veggies were great too.  The cheesecake was delicious!! It wasn't too thick and almost fluffy due to the addition of ricotta to sub some cream cheese.  

I love family dinners.  I wish we could have them more often but they always take so much effort and I've gotten bad about planning dinner beforehand.  

Pork with a side of bacon...

When I was thinking about what to make for dinner, I really wanted to use things we already had in the house so I didn't have to go too crazy on groceries.  They get so expensive! Luckily, we've been buying all this meat at Costco in bulk so we already had porkchops in the freezer.  We also had some bacon in the fridge that probably had to be made so I figured why not?  It didn't occur to me until later that we were basically eating pork with a side of pork.  YUM! To add some health to the meal, I bought some green beans that were on sale as well as some mushrooms so it worked out well.  So the ingredients for dinner were:

porkchops

bacon

green beans

mushrooms

garlic

brown sugar

paprika

onion powder

italian seasoning

cocoa powder

garlic powder

salt

pepper

cumin

crushed red pepper

I mixed all the seasonings together and made a dry rub for the pork.  They were coated on all sides.  The green beans were washed and snapped.  

So to start cooking, I added the bacon to a pan and let it cook for a bit, not completely though.  Once there was some fat in the pan, I added the onions and let them cook for about 2 minutes or so.  Then the green beans were added and everything was tossed to combine.  The mushrooms went in last.  Once everything was in the pan, I put a lid on it and let em cook, giving them a turn every now and then.  

While those were cooking down, I heated the oil in a frying pan until it was super hot.  Then I added the pork chops and cooked them for about 3 minutes on each side, just to make a crust and brown them.  

So once they were browned on each side, I stuck the in the oven for about 20 minutes, covered in foil.  

They came out done and ready to go.  They were a little overcooked for me but not well done so it was ok.  They were still pretty good and they weren't dried out which is what I always worry about with pork.

 I was surprised at the kick they got from the crushed red pepper.  It wasn't too spicy but definitely spicier than expected.  The rub mixture sounds questionable with the cocoa powder and all but it was a good mixture of sweet and spicy.  I was worried about the green beans being too soft and overcooked but they were actually quite perfect.  This meal was so easy to make and was pretty much close to effortless.