Unstuffed Cabbage Rolls

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DogRiverDude
DogRiverDude Posts: 433 Member
in Recipes
This "Unstuffed Cabbage Rolls" recipe is custom-made to fit my own healthy appetite and desire to keep caloric intake (and sodium) to a minimum. YES... it's a TOTAL pain in the *kitten* (with the straining) however it's kind of required when you cook stews with tons of vegetables. It's as close as I could come to the taste/consistency of real cabbage rolls all while taking calories and sodium into consideration. The ingredient amounts I used below are what "I" used, and were also used to calculate the Nutritional Information below. That said, I'm sure this recipe is pretty forgiving if you stray from the quantities below. I hope you enjoy!

INGREDIENTS
1585 g Tomatoes (skinned/diced)
1350 g Cabbage (thinly sliced)
555 g Onions (finely diced)
150 g Sauerkraut (drained)
35 g Garlic (very finely diced, or pressed)

850 g Extra Lean Ground Beef (browned without oil/butter)

163 g Wild Rice (dry weight)

3 Tbs Beef Bouillion Concentrate
2 Tbs Apple Cider Vinegar (adds a wee punch to the cabbage)
1.5 Tbs Black Pepper (might be too much for some)
1 Tbs Splenda (brings up the sweetness a tad)

234 ml Tomato Paste (1.5 of those tiny cans)
1.5 Tbs Corn Starch

DIRECTIONS
Simmer the Tomatoes, Cabbage, Onions, Sauerkraut, and Garlic on low heat, stirring frequently, for 1.5 hours. Start slow as there won't be much liquid in the pot at first. While it's simmering, brown your extra lean ground beef.

Strain the simmered vegetable liquid into the pot that you're going to cook your Wild Rice in (there should be AT LEAST 3 cups). It's IMPORTANT to strain as much of the veggie liquid out as possible, otherwise you'll end up with a soupy result at the end. Cook the Wild Rice in the strained veggie liquid to your desired consistancy. I used a 12 psi pressure cooker for 35 minutes. If just boiling in a regular pot, it'll take longer.

Strain AS MUCH of the leftover Wild Rice liquid as you can into separate pot.

Combine the wild rice, veggies, ground beef, bouilion, vinegar, pepper, and Splenda and mix/fold. This mixture should have very little to no free liquid assuming you did a good job of straining. If there "is" still free liquid in this pot, get it into your Wild Rice liquid pot!

Over low heat, whisk in the Tomato Paste into your leftover Wild Rice Liquid. Whisk in the Corn Starch a bit at a time. The end result should be a very thick gravy-like liquid. You may have to adjust the amount of Corn Starch accordingly.

Pour the gravy-like stuff over the contents and mix together. Simmer on very low heat for a few minutes (or until it's heated throughout).

NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION
Yield - 3.8 kg (3154 Total Calories)

Servings - 10
Serving Size - 380 g

Calories - 316
Fat - 7.2 g
Cholesterol - 47 mg
Sodium - 370 mg
Potassium - 495 mg
Carbs - 40 g
Fibre - 9.1 g
Sugars - 14.3 g
Protein - 25.8 g
Vitamin A - 34%
Vitamin C - 116%
Calcium - 13%
Iron - 28%

Replies

  • ljmorgi
    ljmorgi Posts: 264 Member
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    Interesting! I love cabbage rolls, but ain't no way I'm doing the work to make them; this looks simpler, and something to try when I have time on a weekend.
  • DogRiverDude
    DogRiverDude Posts: 433 Member
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    ljmorgi wrote: »
    Interesting! I love cabbage rolls, but ain't no way I'm doing the work to make them; this looks simpler, and something to try when I have time on a weekend.

    LOL, yeah I've made the real thing several times. Agreed... not much fun. Also end up with prune-like hands that smell like sour cabbage :wink:
  • mistikal13
    mistikal13 Posts: 1,457 Member
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    Def a weekend meal, but sounds tasty
  • DogRiverDude
    DogRiverDude Posts: 433 Member
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    mistikal13 wrote: »
    Def a weekend meal, but sounds tasty

    Yes, I agree, it does take some time to prepare!! I actually LOATHE dicing veggies in large quantities but... it pays off during the week when I can just "grab" a quick meal out of the fridge :smile:
  • Jille0
    Jille0 Posts: 62 Member
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    I tried a recipe for unstuffed Cabbage Rolls last week. A little different than the recipe you posted. My kids loved it. It was an inexpensive and quick recipe! :)
  • DogRiverDude
    DogRiverDude Posts: 433 Member
    edited June 2015
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    Yeah, pretty easy eh? The biggest pain with this recipe is all the straining (really high water content with that massive amount of veggies). Even at that, I'm already looking forward to making it again; finished the last of it for lunch today :-(

    EDIT: Spelling mistake.
  • jgnatca
    jgnatca Posts: 14,464 Member
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    It sounds so very good. I imagine I could manage many of the steps (stewing the vegetables, heating the whole thing at the end) in the slow cooker. I love your use of the vegetable liquid to cook the wild rice. I really want to try this.
  • DogRiverDude
    DogRiverDude Posts: 433 Member
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    jgnatca wrote: »
    It sounds so very good. I imagine I could manage many of the steps (stewing the vegetables, heating the whole thing at the end) in the slow cooker. I love your use of the vegetable liquid to cook the wild rice. I really want to try this.

    It worked really well cooking the rice in the veggie juice; no flavor went to waste ;-). Good luck!
  • pili90
    pili90 Posts: 302 Member
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    I think I love this and you sir! Thanks for sharing it!!! I'll try to emulate this!!
  • DogRiverDude
    DogRiverDude Posts: 433 Member
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    pili90 wrote: »
    I think I love this and you sir! Thanks for sharing it!!! I'll try to emulate this!!

    LOL thanks! I see you're sporting an Iron Maiden shirt. Um, this'll give my age away but... I actually saw Iron Maiden during their glory days; late 84 or early 85 (many many years ago). To this day, I still shuffle the occasional Maiden song into my playlist while I'm treadmilling and sing out loud... "RUN TO THE HILLS..."
  • pili90
    pili90 Posts: 302 Member
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    I usually listen to their live albums, specially the one they recorded here in my country (En Vivo! Chile) :)
  • DogRiverDude
    DogRiverDude Posts: 433 Member
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    I'll look it up and add to my playlist! Thanks.
  • KateKyi
    KateKyi Posts: 106 Member
    edited June 2015
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    I was introduced to cabbage rolls last year and I love them. I do cheat tho. I make them in a slow cooker/crock pot. I slice and layer the veg/meat/rice and pour over the tomatoes. Then I just leave it to cook over 4 hrs. I dont bother pre cooking anything and it turns out lovely. Quorn mince works well for it.
  • auddii
    auddii Posts: 15,357 Member
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    jgnatca wrote: »
    It sounds so very good. I imagine I could manage many of the steps (stewing the vegetables, heating the whole thing at the end) in the slow cooker. I love your use of the vegetable liquid to cook the wild rice. I really want to try this.

    I wonder if you could put the rice into the crockpot raw and allow it to soak up the extra liquid instead of draining. Of course, that is an experiment that could go horribly wrong too...
  • DogRiverDude
    DogRiverDude Posts: 433 Member
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    KateKyi wrote: »
    I was introduced to cabbage rolls last year and I love them. I do cheat tho. I make them in a slow cooker/crock pot. I slice and layer the veg/meat/rice and pour over the tomatoes. Then I just leave it to cook over 4 hrs. I dont bother pre cooking anything and it turns out lovely. Quorn mince works well for it.

    I wouldn't call that cheating... more like smart!!!

    I'm a calorie counting MANIAC, bordering OCD, so I'm adapting recipes that result in the lowest possible calories/gram while trying to maintain flavor and consistency. The only way I've achieved this is by using lean protein with a MASSIVE vegetable content. I've thrown together a few really low calorie stews (for lack of a better word) and found that they've gotten awfully "watery".

    That said... I LOVE your crock pot idea. In fact this recipe could easily be adapted for a crock pot:
    1) Cook all ingredients (except tomato paste and corn starch) in the crock pot.
    2) After cooked, drain the crock pot liquid and combine with the tomato paste and cornstarch to make a sauce to pour over!!!
  • DogRiverDude
    DogRiverDude Posts: 433 Member
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    auddii wrote: »
    jgnatca wrote: »
    It sounds so very good. I imagine I could manage many of the steps (stewing the vegetables, heating the whole thing at the end) in the slow cooker. I love your use of the vegetable liquid to cook the wild rice. I really want to try this.

    I wonder if you could put the rice into the crockpot raw and allow it to soak up the extra liquid instead of draining. Of course, that is an experiment that could go horribly wrong too...

    No... that WOULD work. See post above. Assuming similar recipe proportions are used there'll be a ton of left over liquid. Of course, you could always add extra rice to absorb BUT... if you wanted to keep the calories down, you could do the tomato paste / corn starch thing with the excess crock pot water.

    I dunno why I didn't think of this!!! Thanks for the suggestions!

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