Rosie Makes Galumpkis.

Mr. Hawthorne and I have been having
a hankering for Galumpkis - or stuffed cabbage rolls.
I've made this particular recipe several times
 and it's quite good. 
It's from Tyler Florence  and I have to say, 
Tyler is my go-to boy toy for consistently good recipes.
 But back-up-the-truck! 
Check out his ingredients on the link up there.
 Wazzat 1 1/4 cups olive oil he's talkin' about.
 Wha!!??!! 

Now, I'm not following Tyler's recipe to the letter,
 since I don't need to fix that much food. 
So I tweaked his recipe a bit.
 First, I cored out a head of cabbage. 

I brought a large pot of water to the boil and simmered the cabbage for 5 minutes. 

Press down and turn around throughout the simmer time. 

One cup white rice went into 2 1/4 cups salted water
 with a tablespoon of butter. 
I brought it to a boil,
 then covered and simmered for about 15 minutes. 

While the cabbage and rice were simmering, 
I started on the Sweet and Sour Tomato Sauce.
 I used a 28-ounce can of crushed tomatoes, 
2 garlic cloves, only half of that onion, 
1 tablespoon of white vinegar, 
2 teaspoons sugar, and 2 tablespoons olive oil. 

I heated my pan, added 2 TB of olive oil,
 then added the minced garlic and onions
 to the hot olive oil and sauteed for about 1 minute. 

Next, the crushed tomatoes went in and I cooked the mixture,
 stirring occasionally, for about 5 minutes. 

The sugar went in. 

Then the vinegar.
I simmered for about 5 minutes, then set aside. 
 Next, is the mixture to be added to my meat mixture. 

I have: olive oil

onion (I only used half.)
 2 garlic cloves 
2 TB tomato paste
 red wine 
Italian parsley 

Again, I heated my pan and added the oil and heated,
 then added the onions and garlic, and sauteed for about 5 minutes. 

The tomato paste went in. 

I added in some red wine. 

The chopped parsley went in. 

And lastly, 1/2 cup of the prepared sweet and sour tomato sauce went in.
 Stir to combine and remove from heat. 

Now, I'm ready to combine my meat mixture.  
Top left, is one pound of ground pork.
 (I'm only using half.) 
Top right is the cooked white rice. (I'm only using half.)
 Bottom right is my parsley/tomato paste mixture.
 (Only using half.) 
Bottom left is 2 pounds of ground beef.
 (Again, half.)
 In the middle is the egg.

I've combined half each of the pork,
 the beef, the rice, and the tomato paste/parsley mixture. 

The egg went in. 

Salt and pepper went in and I combined by hand,
 which is the only way to do this. 

As usual, this is what I'm working around. 
Beau is right at my work station 
and Dixie is directly in front of the sink, 
which is a hindrance, since I'm constantly cleaning up as I go along. 

Here's everything ready to be assembled:
 Simmered head of cabbage
 Meat mixture
 Sweet/sour tomato sauce 

I took the larger outside cabbage leaves, 
cut out the rib, and arranged them on my baking dish,
 letting the leaves hang out the sides of the pan. 

This layer of cabbage leaves will keep the stuffed cabbage rolls
 from burning on the bottom when baked. 

With each leaf, I cut out the rib so it would roll up easier,
 filled it with the meat mixture,
and, starting at the stem end and folding the sides in,
 rolled them up to enclose the filling. 

Like so. 

Place the cabbage rolls seam-side down on in the baking dish. 

And here are all my pretty little stuffed rolls. 

I had enough stuffing and cabbage to fill a 9 x 13 and and 8 x 8 pan. 

I covered the rolls with the sauce 
(I added the leftover 1/2 of the tomato paste 
and parsley sauce to the sweet sour tomato sauce.) 
and folded the hanging leaves over the top to keep the moisture in. 
And I added leftover inner cabbage leaves on top. 

I drizzled the top with a bit more olive oil. 

And here are my Galumpkis ready for the oven. 

350 degrees for 60 minutes. 

My pretty little cabbage roll. 

Oh my goodness gracious.
 This was delic ... 
a wonderful melange of tastes, flavors, and textures.
 Meaty/ricey, tomatoey, parsleyey filling
 with subtle sweet/sour nuance in the tomato sauce on top, 
then you have that whole cabbage thing going on.
A hearty, wonderful dish. 

And I still have my puppies. 
Here's Beau.
 Now, he's in front of the sink. 

And Dixie has retired to the living room.

Remember I only used half of the ground pork and ground beef?
 Stay tuned for what Immona do with that.