A lot of times I make food that I don’t nessasrily care to eat because well, I love to make for other people. Take all the cakes, I love to make cake, it makes me so happy to make a cake, but I don’t eat cake. I never eat cake.
This is not one of those times. I basically made these cabbage rolls all for me. Sure I shared them with the mr because it was dinner but honestly, he was’t the biggest fan (he hate celery). And to be honest, I was glad he didn’t really like them because these things were bonkers amazing to me whichh means I got to eat them all myself. In fact I thought they were so good that I made them twice this week. And not just because I have a shit load of cabbage right now, (I stocked up on cabbage and have like 15 heads in the pantry and stuffed in the fridge), although it helped that I do.
I ♥️ cabbage.
And now I ♥️ these cabbage rolls.
To the rolls!
The stuff. A head of cabbage, a can of butter beans (cooked from dried beans or canned), crushed tomato (also home made or canned), a couple stocks of celery, a carrot, an onion, some garlic, Italian seasoning, salt and pepper, and a little olive oil.
Start by getting the cabbage leaves to roll the filling in. You are basically just going to dunk the whole head of cabbage, with the core removed, into a big pot of boiling water until the outer leaves are tender enough to peel away. You are going to want to 12-14 nice leaves so peel away using tongs. Once you have all the leaves, remove the rest of the cabbage ans place the leaves back into the pot to cook until completely tender and soft. Remove then from the water and place them into a bowl and let them cool.
Meanwhile the filling. Take roughly half of the remaining cabbage and rough chop it up along with the celery, carrot, onion and garlic.
Place it all into food processor and pulse until its a small chunky chunk consistancy.
Add a splash of olive oil to a pan then dump the veggies on in. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and the Italian seasoning then set on a medium heat on the stove to start to cook the veggies a bit.
One the veggies are out and cooking, pulse up the butter beans in the food processor until not quite smooth. Some chunk is good.
Veggies a bit cooked.
Dump the veggies back into the food processor with the beans, along with a little of the crushed tomato. Pulse a few times.
That is the filling. Time to roll.
Pat each leave dry and lay flat on counter. If your cabbage leaves have thick ribs you can slice them down the middle, just not to far up into the leaf. Add about 1/3 of a cup of the filling (add less for smaller leaves) and then roll as tightly as you can like a burrito without the filling coming out. Repeat until all the filling is gone.
Place all of the rolls nice and cozy into a oven safe pan, preferably the pan you have been using to cook the veggies in (you want them to fit close together, it helps then from opening up during cooking ) and cover then all up with crushed tomato.
Now all you need to do is stick the whole thing in the oven.
Cooked and looking good.
If you got it, spinkled with some green scallions and parsley for color and flavor and the all you need to do it eat. Eat one or eat them all because they are freaking fantastic!
P.S. Left overs are just as good, if not better cold.
YAY CABBAGE!
Stay cool.
-C
Butter Bean Cabbage Rolls
A medium sized head of cabbage
2 cups (or 1 can) cooked butter beans
an onion
1 large carrots
2 stalks of celery
3 cloves garlic
3 1/2 cups crushed tomatoes (or a 28 oz can)
1 tablespoon Italian seasoning
olive oil
salt and pepper
First thing, bring a large pot of water to a boil. Remove the core from the head of cabbage and place the cabbage head into the boiling water. Gently peal away 12-14 of the outer leaves from the head then remove the head. Place the leaves back into the boiling water until they are soft and plyable. Remove from water and place in a large bowl.
Preheat oven to 400
Rough chop about half of the remaining cabbage head (like a little more then a cup) the carrot, celery, onion, and the garlic and place into a food processor. Pulse until its a small chunk consistency. Add a drizzle of olive oil to a skillet (if you can, use a oven safe skillet the can also be used to bake the rolls in) and dump the veggies in. Sprinkle with the Italian seasoning, salt and pepper, and place on a medium heat to cook for a few minutes. While the veggies are cooking, drain the beans and dump them into the food processsor. Pulse until not quite smooth. After the veggies have started to become fragrant and are not completely raw, dump those veggies back into the food processor with the beans. Add about 1/3 cup of the crushed tomato and pulse until combined.
To assemble the rolls. Pat the leaves dry and lay flat. If a leaf has a really thick rib, cut it down the middle, but not to far up the leaf.. Place about 1/3 cup of filling into each leaf (less if the leaves are small) and roll each one up like a burrito, as tight as you can without ripping the cabbage. Place rolls into oven safe skillet, bumped up against each other if they can. Once all the rolls are assembled and in skillet, pour the crushed tomatoes all over, getting the sauce in between each of the rolls.
And then place the rolls into oven to bake for an hour.
Once the rolls looked cooked and maybe a little crisp on an edge or two, remove and let cool a few minutes before serving.
Chopped parsley and scallions are nice to sprinkle on top if you got it.
Eat, and eat some more. Any left over should be placed into the fridge and eaten just a short few hours later cold, while standing in from of the fridge because these cold are almost better then hot. So good!
