Do you like fast and easy meals? Me too!
However, this is not one of them.
Yes, most of the meals I like to make are fast. But every month (or two – because let’s be honest, as a busy mom I don’t have a lot of time) I’ll make a big batch of food and freeze it so we can have something fast and easy to make once it’s thawed.
One of my favorites is stuffed cabbage. You can use red or green cabbage. This is also one of the few times we eat red meat. Beef is delicious, but we love poultry and fish more. Because Dr. C likes us to eat a variety of foods we will eat beef about 3 times a month. We love grass-fed beef because the fats are more like the Omegas you would find in wild-caught salmon than in beef that is grain fed. (Butcher Box is fantastic for delivering some directly to your front door). You could also use ground pork or lean ground turkey instead. Or make it vegan and just stuff it with veggies.
The secret to this recipe is to mix a little sweetness with the savory flavor. For that I like to use 3-4 raisins per roll. My favorite are Thompson seedless, organic raisins. Dr. C prefers more savory and less sweet so I sometimes only use 2 raisins because I love him and we tend to do wild and crazy things for love.
This recipe makes about 16 large rolls and because it freezes well, you can double it.
Makes 8 servings (2 rolls per serving)
Ingredients:
- 1 head of cabbage
- 1 lb of ground meat
- ½ onion – diced
- 3 heads of garlic
- 6 large carrots – shredded
- Tomato sauce (to make your own double or triple the recipe) *This is another thing I like to batch cook – usually making 6-10 times the amount and freezing it in mason jars.
- Smoked paprika – to taste
- Basil – to taste
- Raisins (really important to get organic raisins) 3-5 per roll
- Optional – sun-dried tomatoes
- Salt and pepper to taste (non-iodized salt, Diamond, or Mortons brands)
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 350.
- Soften the head of cabbage. You can do this 2 ways. a) Core the cabbage the best you can. Then microwave it – core-side-down for 7 minutes OR b) Core the cabbage the best you can. Then boil it until the leaves soften. Remove leaves as they soften and dunk in a bowl of ice water. Dry off. Continue to cook until you get more leaves and repeat. Set dried off leaves aside to cool.
- Saute onions on medium-high heat until translucent.
- Add garlic, sun-dried tomatoes, and basil. Cook for 1-2 minutes.
- Add meat and cook for a few minutes – just until browned. Add paprika, salt and pepper and mix well.
- Stuff the cabbage leaves with meat, carrots, and raisins.
- Line large baking dish with ⅕ of your tomato sauce.
- Place your cabbage rolls on top of the sauce.
- Once the baking dish is filled with cabbage rolls, top with tomato sauce and extra cabbage (chopped), meat or carrots.
- Bake covered for 2 hours
Again, this is not a fast dish, but it tastes even better when you reheat it the next day. Be sure to add carbs. ½ cup carbs for a lunch serving, and ¾ cup of carbs for a dinner serving if you are following the Adrenal Reset Diet.
Enjoy!
Kirin Christianson
