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I really like stuffed cabbage, but I never understood why people go to all the trouble the tradional recipe asks for.

Why take the time and trouble to boil the leaves, separately prepare the meat/rice mixture, wait for everything to cool, THEN stand there rolling the whole mess together.

I've got some unstuffed cabbage going on the stove right now. It took 1 pot, 1 cutting board and 1 knife. When the rice was done cooking in a big pot, in went the meat, spices, roughly chopped cabbage and tomato sauce.

Sure isn't going to look significantly different once it gets on our plates.

What meals do you prepare that cut out the middleman?

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[+3] - Intrepid - 03/06/2010[quote="Mame"] Well, I buy chopped or minced garlic and ginger in jars, as well as roasted red peppers. Saves a lot of time. I've seen that Lazy Man's Cabbage Roll Casserole and have...

@chai2,

Fastest short cut I have is going to a friends house for dinner Smile

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@chai2,

chai I do something similar -- unrolled cabbage rolls: shredded cabbage in the bottom of a casserole dish topped with browned ground beef and onions, topped with tomato sauce. Cooked in the oven and served with rice on the side.

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@chai2,

We make cabbage rolls (no longer rolls) the same way. We call it Lazy Man's Cabbagerolls up here in Canada.

Same ingredients, same taste, less time and trouble. Smile

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@Intrepid,

my mother would occassionally make perogies. Oh my god that takes hours.

Then, one time she just used egg noodles rather than making the dough from scratch.
It did taste different, but not that much.

I've made perogies from scratch maybe half a dozen times.

Even though I helped my mom make them as a kid (stuffing the dough), I hadn't actually worked with the dough.

Being inexperienced, I ended up looking like this.

http://us.123rf.com/400wm/400/400/123rf/123rf0901/123rf090100130/4107559.jpg

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@chai2,

umm, hold the phone please...

The only thing I miss about a certain evil Polish princess is perogies.

a recipe would end my suffering, or ease it anyways.

(the noodle one of course, I ain't got all day to cook) Wink

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I prefer (baked) Kraut Burgers and use frozen load bread dough from the market.

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@dyslexia,

My perogies come in a celo bag from the frozen food section.

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@Intrepid,

I'm not swell at making ravioli - so instead of spinach and ricotta filled ravioli, I cook up a pasta like farfalle and after draining toss it into a pan of spinach sauteed in butter and olive oil with garlic, mush it around, add a couple of tablespoons of ricotta, heat the whole mess a little bit more, just to warm the ricotta, serve in warm bowls with a squeeze of half a lemon (seeds removed best I can) over each bowl. Salt and pepper as desired..

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I don't know about making cabbage rolls, or perogies . . . but i can make reservations . . . hand me that phone, will ya?

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Well, I buy chopped or minced garlic and ginger in jars, as well as roasted red peppers. Saves a lot of time.

I've seen that Lazy Man's Cabbage Roll Casserole and have wanted to try it. Now I think I will.

I also used cheddar cheese soup instead of going to all the trouble of making a cheese sauce. Works great.

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@chai2,

Quote:

What meals do you prepare that cut out the middleman?

Well my general aim in the kitchen is to spend as little time preparing the food then cleaning up after myself, chai.
I am trying to think of wildly successful short cuts I can share here, but sadly they often haven't been wildly successful at all.
So I rely heavily on some of the better "quick cooking" varieties of cookbooks. I own quite a few. (Sadly, I'm the sort of person who usually needs a recipe to follow! Smile

)

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@msolga,

One of these days I'm going to make the now fairly famous n0-knead bread, which I first read about as done by Jim Lahey. I think ehBeth has tried it..
Mark Bittman worked up a way to do it using whole grain type wheat flour, which I won't try until I do the recipe the first way.

Here are some links -

The original article I remember _
The Secret of Great Bread: Let Time Do the Work
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/08/dining/08mini.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Secret%20of%20Great%20Bread%20Let%20Time%20Do%20the%20Work&st=cse

The video - http://video.nytimes.com/video/2006/11/07/dining/1194817104184/no-knead-bread.html

Fast No Knead Whole Wheat Bread
http://bitten.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/19/about-that-whole-wheat-brick/

What's holding me up? This lazy bum has to measure out how big my possible pots are to do the recipe with.

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@Mame,

Mame wrote:

Well, I buy chopped or minced garlic and ginger in jars, as well as roasted red peppers. Saves a lot of time.

I've seen that Lazy Man's Cabbage Roll Casserole and have wanted to try it. Now I think I will.

I also used cheddar cheese soup instead of going to all the trouble of making a cheese sauce. Works great.

I buy onions, red peppers, green peppers and mushrooms in large quanties and chop them up. I put them in freezer bags and always have them handy for spaghetti sauce, omelettes or anything else that I choose to make with them.

A friend, now passed, used to make sauces from canned soups like cheddar etc. I don't know what she mixed with them but I always thought her sauces were the best. It was much later that I learned how she did it and now I sometimes do the same thing.

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@Intrepid,

Yep - I do that (the chopping part) - everything is chopped over the weekend, then used during the week. Yes, it takes time to chop but then you're done with that.

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@Rockhead,

Here you go, Rockhead, a recipe for Lazy Perogies:

9 Lasagna noodles, not oven ready
Oil or melted butter
8-10 large potatoes, peeled
1 1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese (or cottage cheese)
1 onion, chopped fine and lightly sauteed
Salt and pepper
2 onions, coarsely chopped and sauteed

Prepare lasagna noodles in salted water until tender. Remove from water and brush noodles with oil or melted butter then set aside. Boil mashed potatoes. Saute finely chooped onions. Mix mashed potatoes with cheese (or cottage cheese), onion, salt & pepper. Place on layer of noodles in a baking dish. Top with half mashed potato mixture. Repeat and end with final layer of noodles. Brush noodles with oil or melted butter then cover with onions. Cover with coarsely chopped onions. Bake 30 minutes at 325 degrees F (greased pan). Serve with sour cream and fried bacon.

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@ossobuco,

ossobuco wrote:

I'm not swell at making ravioli - so instead of spinach and ricotta filled ravioli, I cook up a pasta like farfalle and after draining toss it into a pan of spinach sauteed in butter and olive oil with garlic, mush it around, add a couple of tablespoons of ricotta, heat the whole mess a little bit more, just to warm the ricotta, serve in warm bowls with a squeeze of half a lemon (seeds removed best I can) over each bowl. Salt and pepper as desired..

Oh man!

Now that sounds delish!

I never thought of the lemon, but that's sounds good too.

1 Reply

@mckenzie,

mckenzie wrote:

Here you go, Rockhead, a recipe for Lazy Perogies:

9 Lasagna noodles, not oven ready
Oil or melted butter
8-10 large potatoes, peeled
1 1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese (or cottage cheese)
1 onion, chopped fine and lightly sauteed
Salt and pepper
2 onions, coarsely chopped and sauteed

Prepare lasagna noodles in salted water until tender. Remove from water and brush noodles with oil or melted butter then set aside. Boil mashed potatoes. Saute finely chooped onions. Mix mashed potatoes with cheese (or cottage cheese), onion, salt & pepper. Place on layer of noodles in a baking dish. Top with half mashed potato mixture. Repeat and end with final layer of noodles. Brush noodles with oil or melted butter then cover with onions. Cover with coarsely chopped onions. Bake 30 minutes at 325 degrees F (greased pan). Serve with sour cream and fried bacon.

Genius!

Pure genius I tell you.

(The sour cream and fried bacon sent my husband over the edge. I guess I know what I'll be making soon)

1 Reply

@chai2,

Better of course with good pasta (I'm off on a new favorite brand, that comes out wonderfully chewy al dente if caught at the right time - Rustichella d'Abruzzo, but I've no idea if they make farfalle. At the time I wrote up this recipe before on a2k, I used de cecco). Anyway, decent pasta, nice fresh garlic, amount of garlic to taste, fresh lemon, and so on. I think some chili flakes could be considered if you like them..

http://able2know.org/topic/6246-1#post-170031
What a pedantic obnoxious post. Oh well.

I wish we had Meyer lemons in our markets nearby. Very seasonal, but I love them.

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@chai2,

Just made those lazy man perogies.

Wonderful - After sauteing the onions, I added spinach to the onions and wilted it.

I'll probably give our gourmets here a fit, but I made it even easier.

I used instant potatoes.

Cleanup:
one large bowl for the potato flakes, cheddar chesse, spinach & onion (I put the flakes and cheese in the boil, mixed in hot water, added the veggies.
one frying pan for the onions, spinach and bacon.
one large pot for the lasagna noodles.
one medium baking pan

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