Tuesday, May 01, 2012

Cabbage Rolls

I had a hankering for these last week, and having some energy, I decided to get the ingredients and make them.  I also had a desire to start stocking my freezer with pre-portioned meals because lately my appetite has been up and down and sometimes I really don't feel like cooking.

Remember my epic cabbage roll day?  This is what I was kind of going for, only the cabbages at my local Wally World (where cabbage prices were the least expensive in my neighbourhood) were huge, so I only got one.  Turns out I could have used a second cabbage because I had enough ingredients to double the recipe.  Oh well.

This meal was interesting because I actually found a decent real butcher at Guildford Meats in the Guildford Mall.  Great find!  The butcher ground me up some fresh ground pork and even had something on hand called "bacon #2" which appeared to be the ends and scraps from bacon.  It was a great price so I got half a pound.

Again, I kept track of pricing.

3/4 lb ground pork = $2.67
3/4 of 1/2 lb of bacon #2 = $1.82
1 large cabbage (the sucker weighed over 4.5lbs!) $2.17
green pepper = $0.49
1 large can Heinz tomato juice $2.87
3/4 lb ground beef (1 lb = $3 at Wally World) = $2/25
rice, salt & pepper, and onions = I have no idea
total price excluding rice, salt & pepper, and onions = $12.27

I got 16 cabbage rolls, so that equals $0.76/roll or 8 servings at $1.53/serving.


I basically followed the method I got from Mr. Anchovy, which is outlined in the epic cabbage roll post.  Turns out I should have re-read that post before starting out because I had the same issue with mushy rice that I did that last time, and that really disappointed me.  Next time, par-cooked or raw rice!  Also, I found the tomato juice too thin as a sauce...Next time I might do a tomato juice-tomato sauce combination for a slightly thicker, richer sauce. 

All in all, not bad, but definitely needs improvement.  I was actually going to skip the bacon, but I'm glad I didn't because it adds such great flavour to the rolls.

My freezer is looking a little more full these days, which is a good thing!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Yes I like rustling up a batch of cabbage rolls every now and then as well. They're a great food to have on hand, and yes the method does take a bit of perfecting over time to make them just right!

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