Slow cooker Golumpki (aka cabbage rolls)

I got a head of cabbage in my organic veg delivery last week, so decided to try making my favorite Polish food: golumpki. Also known as cabbage rolls - but 'golumpki' is just so fun to say.

This is a very basic cabbage roll recipe; when I make this in the future (and I will make these again, because they are so delicious), I'll get a little more creative with the spices and sauce. Makes about 12 rolls/4 servings. I ran out of big cabbage leaves before I did meat, so I froze the remaining and will use it to make stuffed peppers.

Ingredients
1 large head of cabbage

For the filling
1 lb ground beef
1 lb ground pork
1 cup cooked white rice
1 medium onion and 1 green pepper, diced and sauteed in a little olive oil until soft
2 eggs
~ 1 tablespoon minced fresh parsley
~ 3 tablespoons minced garlic (more or less, according to taste)
~ 1/2 tsp salt
~ 1/2 tsp pepper

For the sauce
2 cans chopped tomatoes (with juice)
3 or 4 bay leaves

To make

1) Prepare the cabbage leaves. This is the semi-complicated part.

Fill a large pot about 1/2 way with water, bring to a boil. In the meantime, remove the stem of the cabbage with a sharp knife and discard.

Place the head of cabbage into the pot of boiling water and cover, allow it to cook for about 10 minutes. After this time, you should in theory be able to remove each whole leaf with tongs. This didn't quite work for me, so what I ended up doing was pouring out the hot water, filling the pot back up with cold water, and gingerly removing each leaf from the head as it sat in this cool water bath.

Lay the leaves down one at a time on a cutting board and remove the main rib (the hard part) using a sharp knife. Keep the leaf otherwise intact, though.

Set the cabbage leaves aside.

2) Make the stuffing. Place all of the ingredients for the meat stuffing into a large bowl. Mix well, using your hands. This process is gooey and satisfying.

3) Stuff those cabbages! Lay a cabbage leaf out flat, take a handful of the meat mixture and place it on the leaf near the end that was once attached to the cabbage stem.

Fold the leaf up on each side, and then starting at the cut end roll it up. Repeat with remaining leaves until you have used up all of the meat mixture.

4) Add tomatoes and cook 'em. Place the cabbage rolls seam side down in the crockpot. Pour chopped tomatoes over the rolls. Add bay leaves, cover and cook on low 8 hours.

Slow cooker cranberry pork chops

This recipe incorporates 4 of my favorite things in life: pork, cranberry sauce, the slow cooker, and incredibly easy food prep.

Ingredients:
4 pork chops (~ 2 1/2 lbs of meat)
16 oz. bag of frozen stew vegetables
16 oz. can of whole berry cranberry sauce
1/4 cup chili sauce

To make:
1. Place chops in slow cooker.
2. Put frozen veggies in cooker on top of meat.
3. In a medium bowl, mix together cranberry sauce and chili sauce.
4. Pour sweet-n-spicy mixture over food in pot.
5. Cook on low ~8 hours or high ~3 1/2 hours.

If you're into grains, this would probably be good with white rice.

The 1/4 cup chili sauce adds a little kick to the sweet-tartness of the cranberry sauce. I can definitely handle the added heat, though it does prevent me from devouring the pork as quickly as I might like. Next time I might try this one with half as much chili sauce...

Asian pork chops

I have a slowcooker recipe for Asian pork ribs that is absolutely to die for, and we recently got some farm-fresh pork chops from my husband's cousin's farm. So I am trying something new: Asian pork chops.

The marinade is something like:

1/2 cup hoisin sauce (get it at the Asian market or sometimes in the grocery store)
1/3 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup rice vinegar
splash of sesame oil
fresh ground ginger (I am using powder right now because I don't feel like running to the store--should be fine)

I haven't decided how I am going to cook them, but I am leaning toward baking. I'll let you know how it goes.

We are also having roasted beets tonight---if you haven't had beets before this is the way to go. We bake them covered with a little water in the pan and a sprig of rosemary. They are so delicious!