Favorite Cabbage Rolls

Cabbage Rolls are a Christmas essential with our family. We make up a full head of cabbage at a time and hope for leftovers but it usually gets eaten pretty quickly. When served on Christmas eve it is traditional for the cabbage rolls to be meatless. If you do choose to go that route you should increase the amount of onion a bit. Another option wold include some of the very tasty vegetarian meat substitutes that are in your supermarket.

Cabbage Rolls

filling:
2 cups rice cooked with 4 cups of water
1 onion coarsely chopped
1 package of bacon chopped fine.
season with salt and pepper to taste.

1 large head of cabbage
1 large can of tomato juice

First cook the rice. You can do this ahead of time and leave in the fridge for a day or two. Fry the onion until golden brown and then remove to a separate dish. Next fry up the pieces of bacon. Because they are cut into smaller pieces they cook quickly and you can do the whole package at once stirring frequently until it is browned and getting crisper. Drain all the fat possible. Add your onion and bacon and seasoning to the cooled rice and mix well. This filling can be made the day before also.

Cut the stem end of the cabbage down down into the head a little bit. I like to then place the head stem down into a glass mixing bowl, add about a cup of water and cover with plastic wrap. I then keep cooking it in the microwave until the leaves are softened and can be removed from the head easily. For larger cabbage leaves cut in half along the vein and try to remove the thicker vein areas of the leaves so that they can roll easier. There are several ways of folding the cabbage around the rice filling. It tends to reflect regional preferences for many Eastern European countries. Our preference winds up with a little triangular packet.

Use a deeper casserole or dutch oven. A quick touch of cooking spray now will help with clean up later. Pour a thin layer of tomato juice on the bottom followed by a layer of few leaves of cabbage on the bottom. Next we need to assemble our rolls and arrange them snugly against each other in layers in the casserole. Top the dish off with a bit more of the left over cabbage leaves and then add canned tomato juice to close to the top.

Cook in the oven at 375 degrees for about an hour and a half. You might want to have a cookie sheet under the casserole in case there are any spills. Discard the top protective layer of cabbage which will probably be a bit browned and dry and you will have a casserole ready to serve at the table of traditional and delicious cabbage rolls.