Unstuffed Cabbage Roll Casserole

Unstuffed Cabbage Roll Casserole

I made a soup with similar ingredients to this many moons ago with a mile-long ingredients list, so this time around I decided to simplify it a bit more plus turn it into a casserole. As much as I love soup, sometimes I crave a bit more heft in the bite.

I ALMOST made this inedible, as I had the Hungarian sweet paprika and cayenne pepper sitting side by side in identical containers during prep. I actually poured ONE TABLESPOON of cayenne pepper on top of the tomatoes, but praise be I immediately noticed my mistake and was able to scoop most of it out before stirring it in. The end result was still a tad spicier than I intended, but overall a great comforting meal for a cold night. It sure warmed my husband up, lol! And even though this is over an hour in the oven, I guarantee this is way less time than the traditional stuffed method!

Unstuffed Cabbage Roll Casserole

1 tablespoon olive oil
1  pound ground beef, pork, or turkey (I used half beef/half pork)
1 cup chopped onion
1 teaspoon minced garlic
Ground black pepper and salt, to taste
1 14-ounce can diced tomatoes
1 8-ounce can no-salt tomato sauce
1 tablespoon Hungarian sweet paprika
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
2 teaspoons rice wine or white vinegar
1/2 cup white rice, uncooked
1 3/4 cups homemade or low sodium beef broth
1 small head cabbage (about 1 pound), quartered and sliced thin
1/2 cup shredded mozzarella

Ground Beef and Pork Mixture

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a skillet, brown the ground ground meat and chopped onions in the olive oil over medium heat until meat is cooked through, about 10 minutes. Add the minced garlic and cook a minute or two more. Drain the grease, if any. Grind a bunch of black pepper over it and add salt, to taste. Set aside.

In a bowl, mix in the next 7 ingredients (diced tomatoes through the rice).

Tomato Rice Mixture

Lightly spray an 8 x 8 casserole dish with oil, then layer half the cabbage on the bottom.

Cabbage and Beef Layer

Top with half the ground meat mixture, then half the tomato sauce mixture. Repeat. Last, pour the beef broth over all.

Layers Complete

Cover dish tightly with foil, and cook in oven for 1 hour 15 minutes. Remove foil, sprinkle cheese over top and broil for just a few minutes to melt cheese. Remove and let rest for 5 minutes, then serve.

p.s. We had to say goodbye to our beloved Hannah Banana last week. Our rescue dog of 14 years is deeply missed.

Hannah Banana

Hannah Banana

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Homemade Chorizo Sausage

Sausage Patties

My husband bought an electric meat grinder a few months back. He justified his purchase by stating it would be a great use for grinding up a large batch of cheap steaks he bought into burger, as well as for another large batch of cheap pork he also bought into homemade sausage. We made the sausage “healthy” by also grinding in some chicken to the mix.

Grinding the Pork and Chicken

We made three types of sausage: Hot Italian Sausage, Breakfast Sausage, and Chorizo Sausage. We use the hot Italian sausage in Paul’s Spicy Spaghetti Sauce.

Mixing the Hot Italian Sausage

The breakfast sausage came out OK and the recipe could use some tweaking, but it did make a great quick breakfast the next morning stacked on a whole-wheat English muffin topped with a lightly fried egg.

Breakfast Sausage and Egg Stack

We decided to make sausage patties with the first two recipes. I rolled the sausage into an even thickness, covering it with plastic wrap first.

Rolling the Sausage

I then used a pint canning jar to cut out patties.

Cutting Out Breakfast Sausage Patties

I don’t exactly remember what else I was doing that day, but I never did end up with a photo of my chorizo! But I do plan on posting something I’ve made with it soon.

The chorizo sausage recipe I’m sharing with you today came from one of my dear foodie-blogging friends that passed away unexpectedly last year. I fondly remember him whenever I make anything with this chorizo.

Homemade Chorizo Sausage
Adapted from REMCOOKS Chorizo Sausage

1 pound lean ground pork
4 strips bacon
1 clove peeled garlic
1 tablespoon cider vinegar
1/2 tablespoon chipotle in adobo sauce
1 tablespoon smoked paprika
1 tablespoon ancho chile powder
1/2 tablespoon Hungarian paprika
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon spicy Mexican oregano
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon sea salt

Add the pork to a large mixing bowl. Add everything but the pork into a blender or food processor and pulse until well-combined. Scrape the mixture into the bowl with the pork. With clean hands, incorporate the seasoned mixture well into the pork until thoroughly combined. Divide mixture into even weights and freeze separately in zip-top freezer bags. I made 4-ounce portions, as the chorizo packs a lot of taste so you don’t need a lot of it when using in dishes.

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Fuss-Free Spicy Pork and Kale in a Crock Pot

Spicy Pork and Kale

I had a few pieces of frozen pork that had to be used stat, as they were starting to look slightly freezer-burnt around the edges. Then I had this HUGE bunch of organic kale I picked up the other day, for reasons still unknown to me this day. I must have had something in mind, but it never came back to me. Armed with those two ingredients, I thought about making my Spicy Pork and Kale Soup, but decided I needed to try out something new. After countless interwebz searches, I finally settled on a combination of flavors I thought would work together.

Kale Bunch

About halfway through the cooking time my daughter said the kitchen smelled really good, so I was hopeful! And thankfully, it turned out delicious! It was spicy, tangy, filling, and made for a great meal for the fam after we spent a good part of the day cleaning out our junk room to make into a bedroom for a foreign exchange student we are hosting in February. (As well as painting my daughter’s bedroom a new color, which I had no part in. That was a father-daughter project for the day.) We served this over a bed of brown rice sided with thick slices of French Bread to sop up the juices. Yummy!

Spicy Pork and Kale Ready to Cook

Spicy Pork and Kale in a Crock Pot

1 1/2 pounds thick boneless pork loin chops
Sweet Hungarian paprika
Ground black pepper
1 large bunch of kale
2 pints homemade canned tomatoes and liquid, chopped, or two cans of diced low-sodium tomatoes, with liquid
2 tablespoons Balsamic vinegar
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
Cooked brown or white rice, for serving

Season the pork generously with paprika and black pepper. Add to a 5 or 6 quart slow cooker. Tear the kale off the stems into bite-size pieces and add to the crock pot. It fills up almost the entire crock pot, but don’t worry, it all cooks down. For my homemade pints of tomatoes, I just used a knife to chop them up straight in the jar. Pour the chopped or canned diced tomatoes over all, then sprinkle the Balsamic vinegar, lemon juice and crushed red pepper flakes over the kale.

Cook on high 4 to 6 hours or on low 8 to 10 hours. When ready to serve, shred the pork with two forks in the crock pot and give it a good stir. Serve over cooked brown or white rice, with bread for sopping up the juices. Minimal ingredients, fuss-free, huge taste!

Spicy Pork and Kale

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Black Bean, Potato, and Chorizo Soup

Black Bean, Potato, and Chorizo Soup

Whoa! This got four thumbs up from my family. So good and so filling. AND as a bonus, you can make it vegetarian by using Soyrizo. However, I made it with bonafide pork Chorizo, but I didn’t use a lot of it considering all the other ingredients. I used half of a 10-ounce tube/casing of it, However, the seasonings in Chorizo sure packs a lot of punch.

I have eaten Mexican Chorizo at least as long as when I first attended college at the University of Texas at Austin. It was a staple at about every Mexican food stand that sold breakfast burritos, as well as most breakfast house restaurants. I was wanting to use some for soup and not make it too watery.  Since most of my experiences with Chorizo included potatoes, I went on the hunt on the intewebz for black bean, Chorizo, and potato soup.

Black Bean, Potato, and Chorizo Soup Ingredients

Well, I got a  bunch of hits,  but they were all for a Spanish version of Chorizo, which is the cured version that is hard and kind of like a smoked sausage. NOT. I had the crumbly Mexican Chorizo, that you remove from the package and cook like breakfast sausage, only it’s really red and spicy. So, just like I usually do, I just made up my very own recipe. I hope you enjoy this. We only had one serving leftovers, and I think I’ll have to fight my husband and daughter for it for lunch. My husband suggested I double this next time I make this, and I will.

Chorizo and Vegetables

Black Bean, Potato, and Chorizo Soup

2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
5 ounces Mexican Pork Chorizo
1/2 large sweet onion, diced 1/4 inch
2 stalks celery, diced 1/4 inch
2 medium to smallish potatoes, peeled and diced 1/4 inch
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/8 teaspoon Mexican oregano
1/8 teaspoon Hungarian sweet paprika (optional)
Ground black pepper, to taste
2 cans black beans, rinsed and drained
2 to 3 cups homemade or low-sodium chicken broth
1/2 large lime, squeezed
Crumbled Cotija cheese, cilantro, and tortilla chips, for garnish

Dice all your vegetables first and set aside. In a dutch oven or soup pot on medium high heat, add one tablespoon of olive oil. Remove the casing or wrap from the Chorizo, and add to the pot, using a spoon or spatula to separate and crumble it as it cooks.  After about 5 minutes, add the diced onion, celery, potatoes, garlic and the other tablespoon of oil and stir to combine. Turn the heat down to just a tad below medium, then cover the pot with a lid. Continue cooking the mixture for about 20 minutes, stirring about every 5 minutes, until vegetables are tender. Add the cumin, Mexican oregano, and Hungarian paprika. I threw in the paprika at the last minute, well, just because.

Next add the black beans, then the chicken broth, eyeballing how much you want to add depending on how thick or soupy you want this to be. Bring up to a low simmer, uncovered, for about 5 more minutes. Last, add the juice of 1/2 of a large lime and stir. Scoop half the soup into a blender and puree, then add back to the pot. Bring back up to a simmer until heated through. Serve with crumbled Cotija cheese, cilantro, and tortilla chips for garnish. So very good!

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Black Bean, Potato, and Chorizo Soup

Inside-Out Stuffed Cabbage Roll Soup

Inside-Out Stuffed Cabbage Roll Soup

I have a confession to make. I have never made stuffed cabbage rolls in my life. For years and years I have drooled over pictures of them, but the long process to stuff the cabbage leaves and braise for several hours always intimidated me. So I did the next best thing. I turned them inside out and made soup instead! While researching what ingredients go into a stuffed cabbage roll dish, I discovered that every Eastern European country has their own version of this dish. Ukranians typically make theirs with pork, sauerkraut and onions, while the Romanians add a generous amount of fresh dill to their sauce. Polish cuisine mixes ground beef or pork with rice, which is the common Americanized version. Hungarians add paprika to theirs, which I did too. Most of the sauces are tomato-based, except for in Sweden where they typically serve it with Lingonberry jam.

Trying to decide what to put in the soup took me several hours of scouring recipes (in which I could have been actually making the traditional dish!), and finally just had to start making it by the seat of my pants otherwise we’d never eat. I wrote a list of most common ingredients, then started adding them one by one, tossing in a bit of this and a pinch of that. I kept a notepad nearby so I could document what actually ended up in the soup, and how much. Another thing I did was try to healthy it up a bit by using ground turkey and brown rice, and used some homemade no-sodium turkey broth.

I always measure my success with a new recipe by how many servings my family goes back for. In this case, hubby went back for thirds and daughter took seconds. That’s success in my book! This makes a nice bit pot of soup, and freezes well. It also tasted even better the next day as leftovers. On day two, I also added a dollop of sour cream to my bowl, which is another garnish that can be added to this dish.  And please don’t get intimidated by the long ingredient list, it comes together fairly quick and easy. You can also make the cooking time much shorter if you use white rice instead of brown. Brown rice takes a long time to cook at high altitude.

Stuffed Cabbage Roll Soup

Inside-Out Stuffed Cabbage Roll Soup

1 teaspoon olive oil
1 1/4 pounds ground turkey
1 cup chopped onion
1 tablespoon minced garlic
Ground black pepper, to taste
1 teaspoon Mrs. Dash Garlic and Herb, or salt, to taste
5 to 6 cups chicken, turkey, or beef broth, homemade or low sodium
1 tablespoon Hungarian sweet paprika
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
Pinch of crushed red pepper flakes (more if you like spicy!)
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar
2 bay leaves
1/2 cup brown or white rice, uncooked
2 cans low-sodium diced tomatoes
1 8-ounce can no-salt tomato sauce
Handful of chopped fresh parsley, plus more for garnish
1 bag of shredded cabbage (I used the mixed cole slaw with carrots)
Sour cream for garnish (optional)

In a large soup pot, brown the ground turkey and chopped onions in the olive oil over medium heat until turkey is cooked through, about 10 minutes. Add the chopped garlic and cook a minute or two more. Drain the grease, if any. Grind a bunch of black pepper over it, and add the Mrs. Dash or salt, to taste. Next add the broth and stir in all the rest of the ingredients except the cabbage or cole slaw and garnishes. Bring up to a boil, then cover and reduce to a simmer until the rice is cooked through. For brown rice, that took about an hour. White rice would probably only take 20 minutes. Once rice is tender, add the bag of shredded cabbage, bring back up to a simmer, and cook for about 10 minutes more. Remove the bay leaves, and garnish with parsley or sour cream. There area some exciting tastes going on in this soup!

Hearty Spicy Kale and Pork Soup with White Beans

Hearty Spicy Kale and Pork Soup with White Beans

I had made a small promise to myself earlier this year that I was going to cook something with kale. In all my years of cooking, this is one vegetable that I just never got around to using. Of course, now that I’ve made this absolutely delicious soup with it, I’ll have to rotate it into our diets. It’s chock full of vitamins and calcium and a chemical with anti-cancer properties. YES! More Kale! I have adapted this soup I found from Eating Well magazine by kicking it up a notch and using Hungarian Paprika and Ancho Chile Powder in place of the smoked paprika, among other modifications. The entire family really enjoyed it and trust me, their is no lack of flavor in this hearty soup. We sopped it up with big thick slices of French bread, which you’ll want to pair this with to get every last yummy drop in your bowl.

Hearty Spicy Kale and Pork Soup with White Beans

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 pound boneless pork  loin or chops, trimmed and cut into bite-size pieces
Mrs. Dash Table Blend
Ground Black Pepper
1 cup chopped onion
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 teaspoon Hungarian paprika
1 teaspoon ancho chile powder
1/4 cup red wine
4 Roma (plum) tomatoes, chopped
4 to 5 cups chicken or turkey broth, homemade or low sodium
1 bunch of kale, ribs removed and chopped
1 can white bean

Kale and Pork Soup with White Beans

This is one of those recipes where you’ll want to chop everything up in advance. Once all the chopping is done, the preparation is quite simple.  Start out by heating the oil in a dutch oven or soup pot on medium high. Generously season the pork with the Mrs. Dash and black pepper, then add to the pot. Brown the pork on all sides, then remove to a bowl and set aside. Add the chopped onion to the pot, and cook for about five minutes until starting to soften. Then add the minced garlic, Hungarian paprika and ancho chile powder. If you don’t have those two ingredients, you can substitute with regular or smoked paprika and add some crushed red pepper to taste to make it spicy. Stir for about a minute longer, then add the red wine and chopped tomatoes, stirring to scrape up any browned bits on the bottom. Now add the broth, then bring to a boil. Add the kale (it looks like a lot, but it all wilts down just like spinach) until it’s mixed in, then turn down the heat to a low simmer. Add the pork back in and the white beans (I used cannellini) and continue simmering until ready to eat. You could probably eat it right away but I wanted the flavors to meld so let it simmer before about an hour before eating. Serve with thick slabs of crusty French bread. Mmmmmm!