Despite the Always Hungry? diet now being a memory of things past this one recipe (and the blue cheese dressing) has stayed around the kitchen. Somehow with the rather chilly, grey days that seem to be endless, this seemed appropriate now, so I thought I’d share the recipe. Sometimes good things come from strange places. I never have thought I’d be keeping recipes from a diet book!
The recipe calls for using a food processor, and for blanching the cabbage. Since I cook for one, I really consider using a food processor a lot more work than simply getting out my knife, even if the recipe calls for “finely diced”. It’s so simple to clean a knife and a cutting board.
Here is the recipe (adapted from pp.236-237) from Always Hungry?
Ingredients
- 1 medium onion, chopped
- 4 (or more) cloves of garlic
- 1 red bell pepper, cored and seeded
- 1-1/4 pounds ground beef (the recipe calls for lean, but not in this cook’s kitchen)
- 1 teaspoon of salt
- 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
- 3-1/2 cups diced tomatoes (about two 14.5 ounce cans
- 2-4 teaspoons of apple cider vinegar
- 1 apple, finely diced
- 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon
- 5-6 cups shredded cabbage (about 1/2 small head)
Preparation
- Preheat the oven to 375°F.
- In a food processor (if you’re using it, otherwise chop and use an immersion blender, or finely dice) the onion, bell pepper and garlic. Transfer to a bowl.
- Stir the beef into the beef, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/8 teaspoon black pepper (personally, I like more), into the onion mixture.
- Combine the tomatoes, vinegar, apple, cinnamon, remaining salt and pepper. If you have an immersion blender, use it here to complete the sauce–otherwise you can go rustic and have chunky sauce; it still tastes good.
- Blanch the cabbage for about 30 seconds and drain. (Not this lazy cook; it goes in the microwave briefly).
- Cover the bottom of a 9 x 12-inch baking dish with 1 cup of the tomato mixture. Layer with half the cabbage, then half the beef mixture; alternate tomato mixture, cabbage, and beef mixture, ending with beef and then tomato mixture.
- Cover with foil and bake for about 45 minutes; remove the foil and bake for an additional 30 minutes (or a bit longer if it’s still too juicy).
This is another of my cabbage “things” that gets better the day after, or even after that. It freezes well, so I don’t try to alter the recipe to cut it from 4 servings to one or two.
A son gôut!
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