New Years Day Dinner- Cabbage Roll Casserole and Fumi Salad

I did a double cabbage dinner for New Years. I had 2 different kinds of cabbage to use up in the fridge-- one regular head of cabbage and a savoy cabbage which I had never cooked with before.

Cabbage Roll Casserole

I do a casserole instead of "real" cabbage rolls because I have never had much luck with adding raw rice into any kind of dish like this...it always turns out to be little hard rocks in my food. That just makes me want to cry after working so hard.

6 C cooked white rice
1 medium head cabbage (you'll want to have about 8 nice leaves)
1 lb. ground beef
2 (15 oz) can stewed tomatoes
1 C or more to taste cheddar cheese, shredded
seasoning salt to taste

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare cabbage by peeling about 12 outer leaves off of it very carefully. I always pull off extra leaves in case one rips in the cooking process.  Cook cabbage leaves in a large pot of boiling salted water until crisp tender. Meanwhile puree tomatoes in a blender until they are still slightly chunky but not liquefied. Add tomatoes to the rice. Cook ground beef in a skillet until done, season with seasoning salt and add to tomato/rice mixture, mixing well. Place a bit of filling in the center of each cabbage roll and tuck ends under. Place in a 9 x 13 inch baking dish.

After all the cabbage rolls have been stuffed place remaining rice mixture over the rolls and spread to even out, top with cheese and cook for 20-30 minutes or until cheese melts and becomes bubbly.














Fumi Salad

I love the dressing on this salad so much!

1 lb. savoy or regular cabbage
4 green onions, chopped
1 pkg. ramen noodles, crushed. seasoning packet discarded

Dressing:
4 Tbsp. sugar
salt and pepper to taste
seasoning salt to taste
1 C. oil
8 Tbsp rice vinegar

Combine salad ingredients in a large bowl and toss. Combine dressing ingredients and then pour over salad. Allow to chill several hours before serving.

For more great recipes check out  Tuesdays at the Table

New Years Extra- Crockpot Meatballs

New Year's Day we just laid around in our pj's and watched the Rose Parade and movies.
I made these meatballs and some cheese and crackers to snack on throughout the day. I was at the grocery store on Friday and I was going to buy some frozen appetizers to heat up but it hit me that I could make whatever I was looking at for less money. I decided to make one of my go to dishes when asked to bring something to a pot luck. Whoever came up with these was a genius because I never would have thought of combining the ingredients that go into these. If you like really saucy meatballs you may want to double the sauce because we like ours more on the glazed side.

Crockpot Meatballs

1 bottle chili sauce
1 jar grape jelly
1/4-1/2 C lemon juice
2 lbs. precooked frozen meatballs

Place meatballs in a crockpot. In a bowl mix together chili sauce, grape jelly and lemon juice, pour over meatballs. Cook on low for about 4 hours or until meatballs are heated through.

Glazed Meatloaf, Mashed Potatoes, Spinach with Bacon and Onions

Glazed Meatloaf

I couldn't make a meatloaf worth a darn for years, I tried recipe after recipe with no luck until I came up with this one. I think the secret is to add the glaze at the end of cooking that way it doesn't burn.

½ C ketchup

1/3 C brown sugar

¼ C lemon juice, divided

1 tsp. mustard powder

2 lbs. ground beef

3 slices bread, torn up into small pieces

Dry minced onion to taste

1 egg, beaten

Cajun seasoning to taste

Heat oven to 350 degrees. In a small bowl combine ketchup, brown sugar, and 1 Tbsp of the lemon juice and mustard powder. In a large bowl combine ground beef, bread, remaining lemon juice, onion, egg, seasoning and 1/3 of the ketchup mixture. Mix well and place in a loaf pan. Bake for 1 hour, drain any fat off, then spread ketchup mixture evenly over the top. Bake for 10 more minutes then serve

Mashed Potatoes

I have a confession. I don't make the mashed potatoes in our house, my husband does. All I have to do is ask and he produces the most perfect, fluffy potatoes. Isn't he sweet? I love him all the more because I don't have to peel one single potato or worse yet use those boxed potato flakes.

Spinach with Bacon and Onions

We eat a lot of greens in our house. I am anemic and I read some where that nothing has more iron content than greens. I use that as an excuse to serve them. The other reason I use them a lot is because it's winter and they are in season and that makes them inexpensive as well. Really I'd serve them anyway because I just love them.

4 slices bacon

1 small onion, chopped

1 (28 oz.) can spinach, drained

In a skillet fry bacon until crisp. When done remove from pan and drain on a paper towel. Remove all but 2 Tbsp or so of the bacon grease from the pan. Return pan to the stove over medium heat and add onion, cook until tender and then add spinach. When spinach is warmed crumble the bacon into it and serve.

For more frugal recipes check out  $5 Dinners

Layered One Dish Supper, Green Salad with Homemade Ranch Salad Dressing and Dinner Rolls

This was a great dinner because all I had to do was get it in the oven and let it do it's own thing. I wanted to help my husband set up a new fish tank so we spent the 2 hours this took to cook working together.

Layered One Dish Supper

This was just a layered beef stew. It was really, really good....everything turned out to be so tender. My husband loved this because he's such a meat and potatoes kind of guy.

2 lbs beef, cubed
3 celery stalks, chopped
6 potatoes, peeled and chopped
1 lg onion, chopped
4 carrots, chopped
2 (10 oz) cans of tomato soup
1 (10 oz) can cream of mushroom soup
2 C water
salt and pepper to taste

Layer meat in a large casserole dish then layer in the following order on top of the meat - onion, celery, potatoes, and carrots. In a bowl combine soups, water and season with salt and pepper, pour in casserole evenly over contents. Cover and bake at 350 degrees for 2 hours.

Green Salad

I love very simple salads usually I just make them out of whatever lettuce and extra vegetables I have hanging out in the fridge that need to be used. I got a little bit fancy with this one and threw some chopped pecans on top that I had left over from Christmas. One of the things I love about salad is the dressing. I took a cooking class last year and I watched the chef make his own dressing, then I got to taste it. Before that I didn't really care to make my own because I always figured I could just go to the 99 cent store and buy a bottle. How naive I was, I haven't been able to go back to buying it at the store since. This Ranch dressing is one of my staples. I just make it in a Mason jar. I even serve it out of the same jar, you can see it in the picture above, we are very high class around here.

Ranch Dressing

1 C buttermilk

1 ½ C mayonnaise

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 small shallot, minced

2 Tbsp chives

1 Tbsp onion powder

1 Tbsp garlic powder

½ Tbsp celery seed

Pepper to taste

Combine everything and mix well.

Dinner Rolls

These are leftover from the holidays....I sometimes have problems resisting a sale on Hawaiian Sweet Bread rolls so we have a ton of them.




Cooking dinner in the oven gave me time to do this, our new fish tank all set up- minus the fish, the water needs to cycle before we can safely add any.

Ham, Cheese Grits and Collard Greens

This was going to be my New Year's Day dinner but I decided I wanted to go with Cabbage Rolls and a Cabbage Salad instead. I also needed to use the ham because I took it out of the freezer and didn't use it when we had company in town.

Ham

I didn't do anything special to the ham other than heating it because my main point in cooking it was to package it up in 2 cup portions for the freezer for using in future dishes.

The way I heat a ham is to place it in a roasting pan with about 2 cups of water, cover it tightly with foil and place in the oven at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes per pound or until the meat reaches a temperature of 160 degrees. This was a big ham so it took about 2 hours to get done.

Cheese Grits

I am not posting the recipe for these because they turned out very runny and I was very sad about it. My sister in law gave me a gift basket with REAL grits in it and I was so excited. Where I live you cannot walk into a grocery store and just buy old fashioned grits like you can in the south. I have looked for years....no luck, so I have lived a grit deprived life. If anyone does have a cheese grits recipe they could pass my way I would love to have it. I have a 5 pound sack of grits waiting for me. I am also not fully blaming my lack of grits knowledge because it may have been the jar of processed cheese food I was supposed to add. I have never bought any before and the grocery store where I shop had one jar left and I grabbed it. The recipe said a small jar but this jar looked a little bit on the large size.

Collard Greens

My experience with collard greens has been limited to making soup out of them and cooking them like I cook all greens.; sautee with a bit of oil and garlic until they are tender. Having only 2 ways to cook any greens has become beyond boring for me so I decided to branch out a bit and use an old recipe I found in a recipe tin I bought at an antique store. They were beyond excellent and I will be making these again in the future.

1 Tbsp. oil or more as needed
3 slices bacon
1 lg. onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
salt and pepper to taste
3 C. chicken broth
1 lb. collard greens, cut into bite sized pieces

Heat oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add bacon and cook until crisp. Remove bacon, chop and return to pan. Add onion, cook until soft, about 5 minutes. Add garlic and cook about 3 more minutes. Add collard greens and saute until they start to wilt. Pour in chicken broth and season to taste. Bring to a boil then reduce heat to low, cover, and allow to simmer for 45 minutes or until greens are tender.

A new year ....a new blog and some Salmon Chowder

I've been doing a lot of thinking about what I want for the new year. I want simple things, to spend more time with my family, to save money, to eat healthier, to expand my cooking skills.  I can do all of that by making dinner for my family every day.  It seems a bit daunting right now....365 days....all in the kitchen. I'll forgive myself if I miss a day here and there. If anyone starts reading  this blog the fear of public humliation will help keep me in the kitchen anyway.

I am sure the days will fly by and I'll have a really neat blog cookbook to look back on at the end of next year.

Happy 2011!

I made this chowder the other day. We have been having a lot of wet, cold weather. Being from California I just don't know how to deal with it, other than to stay inside and make soup.

Salmon Chowder

1 (15 oz.) can salmon, drained and any bones/skin removed

1 lg. onion, chopped

2 stalks celery, chopped

1 green pepper, chopped

1 clove garlic, minced

6 medium potatoes, peeled and cubed

4 carrots, sliced

2 (15 oz) cans creamed corn

Seasoning salt to taste

Black pepper to taste

1 (15 oz) can chicken broth, divided

½ tsp dill weed

1 (12 oz) can evaporated milk

In a pot over low heat, mix together ½ C. broth with the onion, celery, green pepper, and garlic. Cook until vegetables are tender. Add remaining broth, potatoes, carrots, seasoning salt and dill. Cook over med. Heat 20-30 minutes or until the potatoes and carrots are tender. Add evaporated milk, creamed corn and salmon, gently stir. Season with pepper to taste. Serve when heated through.