Grandmas Cabbage Rolls My Way Recipes

GRANDMA ELAINE'S UNSTUFFED SWEET AND SOUR CABBAGE

Steps:

• Place the vegetable oil into a large pot over medium heat. Stir in the sliced onions, and cook until transparent, about 5 minutes. Add the tomatoes and tomato sauce, using a spoon to slightly chop the whole tomatoes. Season with 1 1/2 teaspoons salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Cover, and simmer for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Stir the cabbage into the tomatoes. Cover, and simmer 1 hour until the cabbage is tender and mixes easily with the tomatoes.
• Place the ground beef, eggs, finely chopped onion, rice, water, additional 1 1/2 teaspoons salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper in a mixing bowl. Mix together with hands until thoroughly blended. Add additional rice if mixture is too moist. Form into golf ball-sized meatballs. Place meatballs on a plate, and refrigerate 20 minutes to firm.
• Place meatballs on the surface of the tomato mixture. Cover and simmer over medium heat until the meatballs are firm and cooked through, about 15 minutes. Gently stir the meatballs into the tomato mixture. Cover the pot and continue to simmer 45 minutes more. Stir in the lemon juice, and taste for seasoning, adding additional lemon juice if required. Stir in the raisins, and honey. Add the brown sugar, a little at a time, tasting after each addition. Cook mixture over medium heat 15 minutes more.

GRANDMA'S CABBAGE ROLLS

Steps:

• Cook cabbage in boiling water just until outer leaves pull away easily from head. Set aside 12 large leaves for rolls. Refrigerate remaining cabbage for another use. Cut out the thick vein from the bottom of each leaf, making a V-shaped cut., In a large bowl, combine the egg, onion, rice, dill, paprika, savory, salt and pepper. Crumble beef over mixture and mix well. Place 1/3 cup meat mixture on a cabbage leaf; overlap cut ends of leaf. Fold in sides. Beginning from the cut end, roll up. Repeat with remaining cabbage leaves and filling., Combine the sauerkraut, tomatoes and bacon. Spoon half into a 6-qt. slow cooker. Arrange six cabbage rolls, seam side down, over sauerkraut mixture. Top with remaining sauerkraut mixture and rolls. Add broth to slow cooker. Cover and cook on low for 6-8 hours or until a thermometer inserted in rolls reads 160°.

GREAT GRANDMA'S STUFFED CABBAGE ROLLS

Steps:

• Core head of cabbage by cutting around the core and removing as much as possible. Boil large pot of water (fill pot only 1/4 or 1/2 full -- when boiling put cabbage into water and cover with top. Leave cabbage in water and every so often as leaves loosen up remove leaves and place in collander in sink to cool -- when all leaves are removed turn off water and throw away -- (if you have any little pieces of cabbage left at end of core, you can save them to place on top of leaves if you would like.
• In a large bowl mix cooked rice, ground meat, onion, garlic, raw eggs 1/2 can tomato sauce and oregano and a little pinch of kosher salt. Mix well with your hands --.
• Spray 9 X 13 inch pans with Pam. Take cabbage leaves and fill with 1/4 to 1/2 cup meat mixture (depending on how big hour leaves are). Place with seam side down in pans -- Turn oven on 350 degrees. Make up sauce (depending on how many rolls you get from your cabbage and how much sauce you want,you can use between 4 to 6 cans of diced or stewed tomatoes for your sauce), if you like cabbage rolls to have more sauce, you can add a little tomato juice to your sauce. Pour sauce over top of rolls. Sprinkle with kosher salt over top of rolls.
• Bake uncovered to 2 1/2 hours or until browned on top, you may need to add a tomato juice to them once in a while so they do not dry out --.
• Freezes well.

GRANDMA'S GERMAN CABBAGE ROLLS

Steps:

• Core the cabbage and put in a large microwave-proof bowl. Add 1/3 cup water and cover with plastic wrap. Microwave on high for 20 minutes, remove soft leaves and continue microwaving until all the usable leaves are soft. Stack the leaves as you remove them and cover.
• Mix the filling ingredients in a separate bowl and get your large casserole dish out. (You may need another small casserole dish).
• Place filling near the base of each cabbage leaf and roll up, placing seam side down in the casserole. Crowd the rolls as much as possible. Continue until you are out of filling.
• Spoon the tomato soup over the rolls evenly.
• Bake at 300-325 degrees for at least 2 hours, covering when they start to brown.
• I've guessed at the serving sizes since Grandma didn't tell me! And cabbage rolls do take a long time but are worth it all.