Unstuffed Cabbage Roll Casserole

I'm taking the next step in learning how to cook - limiting myself to cooking with only what I have on hand in my kitchen. This is born partially out of my desire to simplify my cooking and my life, and partially out of gas being $4 a gallon and not wanting to make special trips to the grocery store.

We got a head of cabbage in our CSA basket a couple weeks ago. I have never cooked with plain cabbage (I have used Napa cabbage before though), so this also sat in my fridge for a while as I tried to figure out what to do with it. I found this recipe and it fit the bill. I do like cabbage rolls - my parents used to make them when I was younger - so the fact that this was a "lazy man's version" was very appealing. I had some ground turkey and ground beef leftover from recipes gone by in the freezer, so I mixed those together to brown. I doubled the vinegar and brown sugar to give it a little more flavor. I didn't have crushed tomatoes, so I used a can of whole tomatoes that I cut up, and a can of diced tomatoes. Instead of garlic powder I sauteed a clove of garlic and threw that in.

This was good, for cabbage. I wouldn't go out and buy a cabbage just to make this recipe, but if I found myself in possession of another cabbage, I would make this again. I think I overcooked the cabbage, and it was a little too wilted. I think if the cabbage was more firm I would have liked this more. The caraway seeds definitely give this that "cabbage roll" taste - the flavor took me back to my parent's kitchen. So - for those of you who like cabbage rolls, this is a nice way to enjoy the flavor with much less of the work.

Chinese Chicken Noodle Soup with Sesame and Green Onions

This was the last week that we got a CSA basket. This week there was a Chinese cabbage in it, which I have never cooked with before. Generally now when I get a new vegetable in the CSA basket, I look it up in The Joy of Cooking first to figure out what it taste like and how to use it. Sometimes I look on the Cook's Thesaurus website to get more background info too. Then I look for a recipe. I found this one for Chinese chicken noodle soup, and had most of the ingredients on hand. I had to substitute white wine for Sherry, and substituted Thai rice noodles for the yakisoba noodles. I was almost out of tahini so I probably used less than half of what the recipe called for.

This soup was pretty good. It was a good mix of flavors, with just a little bit of kick from the chili-garlic sauce. My husband gave it three out of four stars a la Epicurous's rating system. I've come to the conclusion that it is just hard to make Chinese food that knocks your socks off. Foods that knock my socks off tend to have a lot of butter, sugar, or cream, and unfortunately Chinese food doesn't use much of those ingredients. (That's probably why most Chinese people are skinny, and most Americans are fat.) I would try to get the actual yakisoba noodles if I make this again, because the long rice noodles were difficult to eat in a soup.