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Tuesday, December 23, 2008

What the F I do with a lot of cabbage [RECIPE]

I recently posed the question to you guys; "What the F do you do with a lot of cabbage?" and bless your hearts you totally came through for me.

Even though it was only a parenthetical question buried in a post about a crockpot dinner that looked like a greasy dog log. How you were able to extract a question from that post and provide a meaningful response is beyond me.

Really. I can't do that. I am very easily distracted by photos that look like dog doo, I guess.

ANYWAY - to be specific here - JJ (Lady Di) put up a recipe for Cabbage Beef Soup from her The Book of Regional American Cooking: Heartland and I made it.

With a few amendments. You know, because I'm *that way*.

The good news is that the recipe was TASTY, easy, used a lot of cabbage and was also very patient with me as I mopped up the sea of wash water that had mysteriously drained onto my laundry room floor while I was off working rather than supervising my household appliances.

I know. I'm such an asshole.

Anyway, let's not talk about how that washing machine is out in my garage thinking about what it did while the new washing machine is sitting atop a freshly cleaned floor waiting for a load of towels.

Instead - let's talk about this recipe and how I changed it because I can't leave well enough alone and have to fuck with everything.

Yeah. It's not much to look at, but it's good.
Finny's Cabbage Beef Soup
Adapted from Cabbage Beef Soup, The Book of Regional American Cooking: Heartland
My changes in BOLD

Ingredients
1/2 large cabbage head, shredded
1 large yellow onion, chopped
4 cups tomato juice (I like Trader Joe's Garden Patch tomato juice)
1 cup water
14 oz beef broth
2 tablespoons molasses
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons fresh ground black pepper
1 bay leaf
Small handful black peppercorns
1 pound extra lean ground beef, browned and drained
2 tablespoons dried dill weed
1/8 teaspoon garlic powder

Combine cabbage, onion, tomato juice, water and beef broth. Bring to a boil.

Add molasses, Worcestershire sauce, salt, bay leaf, peppers and pepper. Crumble in ground beef, dill and garlic powder. Simmer 30 mins, stirring occasionally.

Serve hot with biscuits fresh from the oven because then Bubba can put me to shame with his soup eating prowess.

Bubba: "It's not nice to eat soup and not give me any."

Dinner is always such an amusing time at our house.

4 comments:

  1. YUM. I think this is going to look really fucked up when I make it with purple cabbage, because that's what I have, but OH WELL.

    Also, my husband does not really like soup, and is especially suspicious of cabbage-based soup. He calls it "Siege of Stalingrad" soup. He's a funny guy, that A.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Finny, you're funny. I'm so glad you stopped by my blog. I'm going to visit yours.

    Note: it cracks me up that it's my childless friends who are the domestic goddesses...

    ReplyDelete
  3. Glad ya liked it. And I improvise a lot too. Hubby knows we're never going to have the same recipe twice (and not just because I don't often actually cook the same thing more than once). It's going to be close, but not EXACTLY. I consider a recipe to just be a shopping list guideline. Last weekend I had a friend telling how good some enchiladas I made for them were, and I should make them again. Problem is - enchiladas/burritos for me are a clean out the crisper and use up the leftovers kinda meal so it'll never be the same. *sigh*

    ReplyDelete
  4. Although that soup looks mighty good, I have a cabbage salad recipe that is always a hit at my house:

    1/2 cup almonds (slivered, or, if you don't want to spend the money for those, whole ones chopped)
    1/4 cup sesame seeds
    2 Top Ramen noodle packages (MUST be Top Ramen - the other stuff gets soggy; throw away the seasoning packets

    Brown (roast, whatever) the nuts, break up the ramen, put in a large bowl.

    Mix together 1/2 to 3/4 cup oil, 1/2 cup rice vinegar, 1/4 sugar. Pour over the nut, ramen mixture. Let sit.

    Chop up a head of cabbage and mix in with the nut, dressing mix. I also add a can (or two) of chicken from Costco. But you could cook up a chicken breast and use that instead.

    Yummy. My teenaged kids even like it.

    ReplyDelete

[2013 update: You can't comment as an anonymous person anymore. Too many douchebags were leaving bullshit SPAM comments and my inbox was getting flooded, but if you're here to comment in a real way like a real person, go to it.]

Look at you commenting, that's fun.

So, here's the thing with commenting, unless you have an email address associated with your own profile, your comment will still post, but I won't have an email address with which to reply to you personally.

Sucks, right?

Anyway, to remedy this, I usually come back to my posts and post replies in the comment field with you.

But, if you ever want to email me directly to talk about pumpkins or shoes or what it's like to spend a good part of your day Swiffering - shoot me an email to finnyknitsATgmailDOTcom.

Cheers.