Cabbage roll cassarole

preheat oven 350

I made this for my dh the other night .The real goal had been to make him cabbage rolls. My dh loves Ukrainian food ☺

usually we make a cabbage roll casserole with the scrapes of cabbage left over from making rolls . However you can also make it as an easy cheat to save a bit of time in that you need not roll and fry each cabbage roll ;-)

First off I took 1/2 pack of bacon and chopped it raw and fried with 2 chopped onions . I then threw in lean ground beef and browned them altogether .

Now this is something about cabbage rolls . some people use raw ground beef and some use cooked . I chose to cook mine always because I just am to worried to start off with putting raw meat in the roll.

I should say that this is also the time I put on 2 c of raw long grain rice to cook 20min.

Once browned I added one can of dices tomatoes. and add salt & pepper .

I don't like garlic in cabbage rolls but you can add if you like

I cooked my cabbage how I would if I were to be making rolls just so You can see the method .

Normally if I'm just making casserole I'd chop the cabbage now and cook already chopped .

put a big pot of water on to boil and core your cabbage .

Place Your cabbage in the boiling water and place lid on .

The cabbage will slowly steam cook and You can then peel the leaves off one by one as they cook ☺

Okay this is a step only the good and old time cabbage roll makers do and it is a key step in great flavour ;-)

many people skip this because it adds another task to the job or people don't know of it .

Add butter to your cast iron pan

Pick off the leaves and place in butter

. Brown the leaves in the butter .

As I mentioned I normally would've chopped the cabbage up before cooking .

I also took my meat tomatoe mix and added rice to it . Mix all up and it is ready to roll or layer in casserole



Line the bottom of casserole with some juice from a can of tomatoes

Layer first with chopped browned cabbage , then layer with rice meat mixture .

keep layering ending with layer of cabbage

Now top with Tomatoe juice or more diced tomatoes .some people usually this is a German custom add thick cream to the juice .Some cheat and use canned tomatoe soup but I personally think it tastes gross .

Top casserole and cover , bake for 1/2hr -45min on 350 oven , as it is all already cooked it just needs to heat up well and let the flavours blend .

Like soups the flavour gets better over night ;-)

So below I saved one cabbage leaf to roll

simple easy , just scoop mixture onto cabbage leaf and roll

Then place in pan with butter and brown on both sides . Place rolls  in roaster or casserole don't forget to put juice on the bottom so they don't stick . Top them with the tomatoes juice as I did the casserole and bake the same in a covered pan .