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.