What to do with a head of cabbage?

Braised cabbage is nice. Slice up an onion and chop up some bacon, saute those in a little olive oil (in a coverable saucepan big enough to hold the cabbage) til the onion is clear and the bacon cooked. Slice the cabbage - maybe around a quarter of a cabbage would probably feed 4-ish depending on the size) finely and add it to the saucepan. Cook for a couple of minutes, then add around a cup of white wine and around a cup of good chicken stock. You could also add a couple of bay leaves and a few peppercorns at this stage, and a teaspoon of brown sugar can be nice as well. Bring to boil, then reduce heat to low and cover. Simmer for at least an hour. Season to taste at the end (sometimes I find it needs a bit of lemon juice to bring out some tartness).

Goes nice with sausages.

Sorry if this appears twice - computer is having a bad hair day.

Lentil Cabbage Casserole


You're gonna love this! It is so easy, so cheap, so filling, so nutritious! This is one of my favorite dinners!

(Please excuse the incredibly detailed, very basic directions! I wrote this up for a young lady who didn;t know how to cook at all, not even how to cook up some rice! And I don't have time to re-write it, so here it is, very basic instructions and all!)

To make enough for two people for one dinner:

Ingredients:
1/2 Cup dry green lentils
1/2 Cup dry (uncooked) brown rice, preferably basmati brown rice, but any kind will do
1/2 Green Cabbage, medium sized
1 yellow onion
either 1-2 Tablespoons Butter OR 1-2 Tablespoons Olive Oil (not any other kind of oil!)
Salt
Pepper

Directions:
In one pot, measure out the 1/2 Cup of dry brown rice, add one cup of water, bring it to a boil, then reduce heat to low and put a lid on the pot, and cook till done, and the water is absorbed. This might take 30 minutes to 40 minutes. You have to watch it closely after 25 minutes, to make sure it doesn't run out of water and burn!

In another pot, measure out the 1/2 Cup dry green lentils. Add plenty of water (no need to measure the water -- you will be draining it off!). Put a lid on the pot. Bring it to a boil, the lower the heat to low, and pop the lid up a little on the side of the pot, so that the pot is covered, but not tightly. Let cook for at least 20 minutes, but not more than 30 minutes. Drain the lentils.

Mix the cooked lentils and the cooked rice together. This can be done just before you make dinner, or it can be done the day before, and just have some cold lentils and rice waiting in the refridgerator for when you make dinner!

Wash the cabbage, cut it in half. Save half for another day. Chop the other half up (dice it -- first cut into strips, then into squares).

Put the chopped cabbage into a large pot. If you have a steaming rack for the pot, that is ideal, but you can cook it without one, if you don't have one.

Peel and chop the onion. Add it to the pot with the Cabbage.

Put just a little bit of water in the pot. If you have a steaming rack, the water should come to just below the steaming rack. If you don't have a steaming rack, put maybe a half an inch or so of water in the bottom of the pot. Certainly no more than one inch of water in the bottom of the pot.

If the cooked lentils and rice are warm, leave them alone. If the cooked lentils and rice are cold, add them on top of the cabbage and onions, so they can warm up while the cabbage and onions cook.

Bring the pot to a boil. Keep a lid on the pot, and let it boil at medium high heat for 3 minutes to 5 minutes, no longer. This will make it still slightly crunchy, and keep more nutrients intact than cooking longer.

Drain the cabage/lentil mixture, and either put it back into the pot or into a big bowl.

Add either the butter or the olive oil to the cabbage/lentil mixture, and stir several times to mix it in.

I have never measure the salt or the pepper! It can be salted to taste. I recommend plenty of pepper -- enough to actually SEE bits of pepper in the mixture, but not so much that it is thick with pepper! Just enough to see flakes of pepper here and ther, after mixing it in.

This makes two really large bowls, and I find it very filling! But sometimes I add a side dish, like cooked carrots, especially if I have company.