Tuesday, June 17, 2014

No Writing Last Weekend


I didn't write last weekend. Instead, I made stuffed cabbage. My mother used to call stuffed cabbage halupki, but hubby's family calls them gowumpki, which is actually spelled golabki. In Polish the l  has a slash through it indicating that it should be pronounced as a w. No matter which language you use, it's the same thing.

My mother never gave me the recipe for her halupki because she didn't have one. She told me she had to feel the mixture to be sure it had the correct proportions of rice and meat. However, she did teach me how to boil the cabbage and peel the leaves off the head carefully and in one piece.

When hubby and I were married, his mother gave me a Polish cookbook immediately. I suppose she didn't want her son to starve to death. The stuffed cabbage recipe in that book is quite similar to the one my mother made, so I've used it over and over again. However, making stuffed cabbage involves a lot of time and effort, so it's rare that I set aside the time to do it. But since we celebrated Father's Day, I thought the special meal would be appreciated--and it was.

Of course, now that I have a larger slow cooker, one part of the task is much simpler because once all the cabbage rolls are prepared, I put them in the slow cooker and forget about them until it's time to eat.

Since there are hundreds of recipes on the web for stuffed cabbage, I am not going to include mine here. Everybody does something different. Some precook the rice, some don't. Some add lots of spices and some don't. Some add eggs. Some use tomato soup for the sauce, some use beef broth.

There's a great deal of variety. Check out the recipes online and you'll see what I mean. Pick the one you like.

I put together a huge batch of stuffed cabbage. We are still eating them and nobody is complaining.

I did a little bit of writing yesterday--mostly cutting out some sections in the beginning of the story. I always tend to put too much narrative in the beginning. Sigh.

I should be able to snatch more time for writing today since I don't have to worry about what's for supper. :-)

2 comments:

MarkD60 said...

I love stuffed cabbage! I've been meaning to make it. I don't think my Wife has ever had it.

Penelope Marzec said...

Mark,

It's delicious! I'm sure your wife will enjoy it. :-)