Stuffed Cabbage Soup #recipe @LucyBurdette

 Lucy Burdette: Who doesn’t love stuffed cabbage on a winter night? However, it’s time consuming enough to make that I don’t do it very often. When I do, I have used a version of Jane Brody’s stuffed cabbage which you can find here. 

Then a couple of weeks ago my friend Chris mentioned that her family makes a stuffed cabbage casserole in which the cabbage is not actually stuffed but chopped and mixed into the dish. And then I realized that stuffed cabbage soup must also exist and I decided to try a version of that. It really should be called "unstuffed" cabbage soup because that's the beauty of the recipe--much faster and equally delish!

Ingredients

One medium onion

1/2 head cabbage

Three carrots

1 pound ground beef

1 teaspoon smoked paprika or 1 1/2 teaspoons regular

1 32 ounce box beef broth—make this high quality and not terribly high sodium

114.5 ounce jar diced tomatoes

One 8 ounce cup tomato sauce

Half cup of water

Half a cup brown rice

1/2 tsp salt or to taste

1/4 cup honey

1/4 cup lemon juice (one medium lemon)

One Bay leaf

1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

Brown the beef and drain most of the grease off. Chop the onions and carrots and add these to the ground beef with the paprika to sauté until soft. I chopped the vegetables in my food processor and didn't fuss too much about size and uniformity.

Add the broth and stir to scrape up any browned bits full of flavor. When this is simmering, add the tomatoes, tomato sauce, rice, Worcestershire sauce, and water. Bring to a boil.

Add the chopped cabbage, reduce to a simmer, and cook for half an hour to 45 minutes until the cabbage is soft and the rice cooked through.

Stir in the lemon juice and honey. Add raisins if desired. Simmer a few more minutes and serve. Oh my goodness, this was so good that we ate it two nights in a row! 

Lucy Burdette writes the Key West food critic mysteries! 

#11 in the series, A SCONE OF CONTENTION, is coming on August 10, and available for pre-order now! Meanwhile, enjoy the latest, The Key Lime Crime...

My Tweaked Version of Jane Brody’s Stuffed Cabbage, #lowsodium @LucyBurdette

LUCY BURDETTE: I've been making Jane Brody’s stuffed cabbage from her Good Food Cookbook for years. It takes some time to put it together, but it makes a huge pot that can be eaten for several meals. Or eat some now and freeze the rest for later. 

It's perfect for early March, a hearty dish not quite ready for spring. Of course I made my low-sodium tweaks, using no salt tomatoes and low salt sodium chicken broth, but it was really pretty darn good. 
The only tricky part is the cabbage leaves. My advice is to boil the whole head of cabbage until the outer leaves get soft. Then cut them off, return the head to the simmering water, repeat. To make the rolls behave, cut out the vein. You don't have to worry  about making the rolls perfect, as they'll all come together in the end.

 
Ingredients

one head green cabbage
2 onions, one half finally chopped, the other 1 and 1/2 thinly sliced
16 oz can chopped tomatoes
1 pound ground beef
3 Tbsp uncooked rice
3 Tbsp water
1 egg
2 cups low-sodium chicken broth
1/3 cup raisins
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1/4 cup honey

Directions

Bring a large pot of water to boil and drop the cabbage in. Cut off the leaves as they soften, returning the head to the pot each time. 


Combine the ground beef, uncooked rice, egg, finely chopped onion, water and mix this together well. Take about two tablespoons of the meat mixture and roll it into a leaf. 
 





Continue until the stuffing is gone, and then chop any remaining cabbage. 


Meanwhile, sauté the onions until soft, and then add the tomatoes and broth and bring to a simmer.

Nestle the rolls in sauce along with any leftover cabbage and simmer 1 1/2 hours.

Add the lemon juice,honey, and raisins and simmer another half hour. Serve in soup bowls. Mmmm, I've made myself hungry!

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Cottage Oat Biscuits a la Jane Brody

LUCY BURDETTE: This is not exactly a traditional Thanksgiving recipe, but it could be. You could serve on the Thanksgiving table or later at night make delicious little sandwiches or the next day with your turkey soup! 

I started making these biscuits twenty-five years ago--and I bet I've made 250 batches--they are that good. And good for you too, loaded with oats and cottage cheese.

The original recipe came from Jane Brody, who made them by hand. I make them in the food processor, which is much, much easier. It will take you longer to clean up than it will to put them together. And I add white whole wheat flour, and sometimes chop up some chives when I'm kneading the dough together.

We eat them with soup or omelets or as the basis for little sandwiches or even warm them up and serve them with honey and butter in place of dessert. Oh don't let me forget, they are the perfect base for strawberry shortcake!

Ingredients

1 cup unbleached white flour
1 cup white whole wheat flour
1 cup ground oats (rolled oats whirred in the food processor for a minute)
2 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 cream of tartar
1/4 cup butter
2 eggs, beaten
1 and 1/2 cups 2% milk fat cottage cheese

Preheat the oven to 425.

First grind the oats in the processor. I like leaving them chunky because the half-ground oats add to the texture. Add the other dry ingredients to the bowl and process them briefly. Cut the butter into chunks, add to the processor bowl, and pulse until the pieces are pea-sized.

In a 2-cup measuring container, beat two eggs, then beat in the cottage cheese. Add all of this to the bowl and pulse until the batter gathers into a big mass. Scrape the batter out onto a well-floured surface and knead briefly until it's no longer sticky and you can shape it into a rectangle--make this about 3/4 inches high, and maybe 6 inches by 6 inches. The size will depend on how big you like your biscuits. Dip a knife into flour and cut the rectangle into twelve pieces. 

Move the dough to an ungreased baking pan, leaving room for the biscuits to rise while cooking. Bake about 10 minutes until the tops are browned.

These freeze really well so you can pop them into the toaster oven when you need a little treat--if there are any left over. 

And a warm biscuit with butter and honey would be the perfect thing to eat while reading DEATH IN FOUR COURSES!

You can learn more about Lucy Burdette and her Key West food critic mysteries at her website or on Facebook or Twitter.