So what are your plans for Cinco…big party? Laying low?
I’m thinking about having a cook-out with this salsa on the menu, if the weather is nice (it has been sooo rainy here in Miami!), or at least making these super fresh skinny margs and relaxing with friends.
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It’s my week to host The Food Matters Project and I am sticking true to my tradition and choosing a dish I’ve never cooked. Last time around (almost a year ago! can you believe we’ve been at it this long?) I chose a Cassoulet with Lots of Vegetables. Killer cozy meal if you need to feed a large group!
I’ve chosen another dish that cooks in a tomato sauce, but it is so completely different. “Stuffed Cabbage Rolls” is the name and the version I cooked up is made with lean ground beef, scallions, peppers, and jalapeño stuffed in cabbage and simmered in a tomato sauce with cinnamon, cloves, and bay leaves.
I love the idea of a slow cooked “worked all day in the kitchen” meal, but I usually have NO excuse to make them… hence my picks for the FMP. As per usual Food Matters style, this dish is the healthier version of the stuffed cabbage rolls recipes you will find out there in the recipe world. I even OK’d it for the cleanse I am doing this week given the brown rice, it is a little bit of a cheat with the beef I know, but that’s why I didn’t go with the sausage the recipe calls for (which would be divine).
Head on over here to see the creative versions my fellow FMPers whipped up.
On a another note, we just wrapped up a fabulous weekend with Food Matters Project Founder, and my bestie, Sarah in Miami. She and Gregg were in town staying with us for a quick break from their NYC Pop Up Restaurant ABODE for the Miami Food and Wine Festival. It was a weekend full of sun, laughing, and great food of course!
Lunching at the SLS Miami with Sarah and Gregg
{Two things} 1. if you have not been watching them on The Taste where have you been!? and 2. if you are anywhere in the NY area grab tickets here to their pop-up because they are selling out quick. We are heading there this weekend and I absolutely cannot wait.
recipe adapted from The Food Matters Cookbook by Mark Bittman
Ingredients
Salt
1 large head cabbage (about 2 lbs), cored
1 cup brown rice
8 oz lean ground beef (a mix of sausage and ground beef would be great)
1/2 cup chopped scallions
3 mini bell peppers, diced (I used 1 each yellow red orange)
1/2 jalapeño, diced
2 garlic cloves, diced
black pepper
2 28 oz cans diced tomatoes, with their juices
1 bay leaf
1 cinnamon stick
4 or 5 whole cloves
Instructions
Bring a large pot of water to a boil and salt it. Place the cabbage in the boiling water and cook, turning it in the pot once or twice, until it begins to get tender, 15 to 20 minutes. Remove the cabbage (do not pour out the water) and rinse the leaves with cool water to stop the cooking. Pull off the 10 largest, most intact leaves, then chop the remaining leaves and put them in a large bowl. Return the pot to a boil and stir in the rice. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 15 minutes then drain.
Add the cooked rice, raw ground beef, scallions, peppers, jalapeño, garlic, and a good sprinkling of salt and pepper to the bowl of chopped cabbage and mix just enough to combine. Put a large spoonful of the rice mixture into a cabbage leaf, taking care not to overfill, and roll loosely. Shoot for 8 cabbage rolls, but if you have extra filling use more of the leaves. Put the rolls seam side down in the bottom of a large pot or dutch oven; it's okay to stack them on top of each other in the pot.
Add the tomatoes and their juice to the pot along with 1 cup of water, the bay leaf, cinnamon stick, cloves, and some salt and pepper. Cover and bring to a boil. Reduce heat so that the mixture barely bubbles and cook, undisturbed, for 30 minutes. Check to see if there's still liquid in the pot. The cabbage should be just submerged; if not, add a little water. Cover and cook for another 30 minutes before checking again.
When the rolls have plumped up and absorbed most of the liquid, and are firm, turn off the heat and let rest, for at least 10 minutes. Put the rolled cabbage in shallow bowls, removing the whole spices as your find them. Taste the pot juices and adjust seasoning as needed. Pour a big ladleful over the cabbage rolls and serve.
Notes
Slow Cooker Version:
I chose to do mine in a slow cooker. Same idea but you will want to heat the tomato sauce in a saucepan first unless you have a lot of time to spare.
It took 1 hour on high heat, sauce heated in a saucepan before pouring over the cabbage rolls.
Now that you know what you are cooking, you can’t forget that PERFECT swimsuit. You just might want to skip those bacon wrapped water chestnuts. Just a thought. I’m currently lusting after these beauties.
My kitchen aid stand mixer is my best friend and my worst enemy.
Especially on beach days that turn into couch days because of a massive thunderstorm in Miami.
Since receiving the mixer as a gift from Peter’s family for Christmas I’ve made banana peanut butter cookies, banana cookies, peanut butter cookies, and chocolate chocolate chip cookies. None have been so fabulous that I felt like blogging them though.
THESE however are fan freaking tastic and you should go make them right now.
8 tablespoons unsalted butter (1 stick), softened, plus more for the pans
6 tablespoons granulated sugar
6 tablespoons light brown sugar
1 large egg
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon water
1 cup rolled oats
6 ounces semisweet chocolate chips
1 /4 teaspoon cinnamon
Preheat the oven to 375 °F. Butter or line 2 rimmed baking sheets with a slipmat.In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt, and cinnamon.
In a large bowl {I used my stand mixer}, beat together the butter, sugars, egg, vanilla, and water. Add the flour mixture and stir to combine. Stir in the oats and chocolate chips.
Drop tablespoons of the dough onto the baking sheets, spacing the dough 1 inch apart. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, until lightly golden in color. Let sit for at least 3 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.
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A few weekends ago my sister came in town to celebrate my 28th birthday. We decided to have a nice late breakfast Saturday to kick off the weekend and I wanted to experiment with these cute little popovers I saw on Pinterest.
I say experiment because halfway through baking them, I thought I created some sort of “mini monsters fluffs” that would never be allowed to grace the camera with their presence. BUT… to my surprise the second they left the heat of the oven they began shrinking up into these adorable little “cups.”
The fruit filling was delicious and is easy enough to play around with different flavors depending on your mood. Peter wants applesauce topping next time, as he wasn’t so sure what was so German about them.
I totally see why some people call them Hootenanny pancakes. Never really knew what hootenanny meant, but you can find some hilarious definitions. My favorite being “thingamajig.” These are totally thingamajig pancakes! You will see what I mean when you take them out of the oven.
“What on earth?”
“Oh wow, do you see that?”
“Are they supposed to look like that?”
“Glad we also cooked eggs and sausage.”
Were some of the things heard in my kitchen that morning…
2 cups frozen berries (I used a blueberry, strawberry, raspberry mix)
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup honey
1 tablespoon corn starch, dissolved in 1 tablespoon of water
Instructions
Preheat oven to 400° F.
Mix milk, eggs, flour, salt and vanilla in a mixer, blender, or by hand with a whisk. I used my new kitchen aid mixer with the whisk attachment because I find any excuse to use it now. Once clumps are gone, add in butter a little at a time, make sure it's not piping hot from melting since you have so many eggs in there. Pouring in a little at a time gradually adjusts the temperature of the mixture which is important given the eggs.
Grease muffin tins well and pour batter evenly between 24 tins. They should each look a little less than half full.
Bake for 15 minutes. They should slightly brown and puff up. Once you take them out of the oven they "deflate" and "curl" into cute little circular bowls.
While the pancakes are baking, put the frozen berries, honey, and water in a saucepan on high heat. Bring it to a boil. Add cornstarch (mixed first in a tablespoon of water) and reduce heat to medium low and simmer for about 10 minutes or until sauce thickens.
Sprinkle with powdered sugar and serve berry sauce over pancakes.
