Polish Cabbage Rolls

Exhibit A:
alarmingly delicious

Before you freak out and think this is going to be disgusting based on the name, hear me out for just a second. Imagine taking a delicious meat loaf/ meat ball and wrapping it with something that, although it is a little less delicious, is fairly healthy, and then topping it off with some extremely tasty tomato sauce! Doesn't that sound fantastically enticing?!? I'm exaggerating a little but I'm trying to tell you that this is in fact, alarmingly delicious (see exhibit A, to the right) and I'm probably going to make it regularly (on nights when I have plenty of prep time) when it is nice and cold outside. Just try it, I promise it is not yucky. As I made these I thought of how proud Whitney is going to be when she sees that this meal includes not 0, not 1, but 2 types of meat!

Polish Cabbage Rolls (Golabki)

Ingredients
Rolls:
Head of cabbage
1/2 lb ground beef
1/2 lb ground pork
1 small onion -finely chopped
3 garlic cloves - minced
salt and pepper
1 egg
1 cup (uncooked volume) brown rice
can diced tomatoes

Sauce:
2 Tbsp butter
2 Tbsp flour
can tomato sauce - the smaller kind, 12 oz I think
can diced tomatoes
2 cloves garlic - minced
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
pepper to taste
1/4 cup milk or cream
3/4 cup chicken broth
1/2 tsp thyme

Instructions
1. Core the cabbage head, remove the outer leaves and boil for 20 minutes. Prepare the rice as instructed on the package.

2. Preheat oven to 375. Combine beef, pork, onion, garlic, salt and pepper, egg and rice in a large bowl. Mix well.

3. Line a 9x9 baking pan with cabbage leaves. Next make the rolls by overlapping two leaved (long-ways) to form a longer wrap. Place the leaves in your hand and put a large scoop of the meat mixture in the center. Roll it up tightly like a burrito, pulling in the sides. Line the rolls up over the cabbage leaves in the pan. When all rolls are completed (I got 5 big rolls), pour a can of diced tomatoes over the top, then cover the entire top with cabbage leaves.

4. Bake for 1 hour. Make the sauce when there are about 30 minutes left on the rolls.

5. Melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Add flour and stir, allowing to cook for just a few minutes to form a blonde roux.

6. Add tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, garlic, milk or cream, sugar, salt and pepper. Stir and simmer for 5 minutes. Add chicken broth and thyme and allow to simmer for about 15 minutes stirring occasionally.

7. When rolls are finished allow them to cool slightly and them serve them topped with tomato cream sauce.