The hardest yet yummiest cabbage roll recipe to follow....read and experiment at your own risk! ;)

I just wrote a full paragraph on a topic that was too in depth then deleted it. Sometimes putting thoughts into words is difficult. SO for now I have changed my thought pattern. A few years back I had this "writing fit" I called it. I regrettably deleted over 200 posts on here. (Some really great posts I EVEN enjoyed) Many were my own recipes. After deleting that paragraph this morning I thought it's time to bring back the food! Sure I can write in depth thoughts when I'm in the mood but today lets make it light and easy? My award winning, yes - award winning cabbage rolls! These cabbage rolls I learned from two of my children's grandmother that past years ago. A sweet little German lady who I fondly remember teaching me the secrets of perfect cabbage rolls and now I'm going to share with you! These beauty's we are having tonight too! I make two types, meat and vegetarian. Of course I tweaked the recipe so it's not the exact recipe I learned. Here it is! 

Homemade Sweet n Sour Meat Cabbage rolls with oodles of garlic! Warning - you might flatulate! 

There is a lot of prep that goes into making cabbage rolls. It can be an all day process so give yourself enough time!

-Cut the core out of the cabbage and simmer in a pot of hot water. (To loosen the leaves) Set aside.(1 large cabbage) Please don't wrestle the cabbage, it shouldn't be a fight! 
-Cook your rice. Set aside. I use Basmati. (3 cups)
-Mix ground pork, ground beef, onions, garlic, salt/pepper and basil together. (4 pkgs ground beef, 4 pkgs ground pork, 1-2 onions and LOTS of garlic) Tip - you might want to wear gloves, I learned the hard way and was picking meat out of my finger nails for the rest of the day!  
"Note - everything I bake and cook is by feel, sight and/or taste (if I eat it) so my measurements aren't exact!" PS - don't get your gloves stuck in the cabbage roll!

Homemade Sweet n Sour Vege Cabbage rolls YES with oodles of garlic! Garlic IS my favorite ingredient for everything including over popcorn! It keeps us healthy and flatuating! Not sure if that's even a word, so I adopted it! 

-Follow above directions. Cut the core out of the cabbage and simmer in a pot of hot water, sound familiar? (1 cabbage) In fact, do what I did and de-core both cabbages at the same time ( I have four hands) cook (6 cups of rice) "at the same time" and separate for both meat and vegetarian dishes. Now, if I would have written that in the first place......a whole lot of space would have been saved in this post! Confused yet? I completely am! Anyhow moving a long....for the three cups of rice mix - 

-no meat, GARLIC, onions (1-2) salt/pepper, basil, green onions, halved cherry tomatoes (20) red pepper (1) grated cheddar cheese and in fact indulge - I'm honestly a human garbage can, so experiment and add what you want! The funnest fact about cooking is experimentation! My first dish when I was a child was a layered casserole consisting of ground meat on the bottom, soaked then baked slices of vinegar potatoes was the next layer topped with Kraft dinner and peas! I still remember my mom saying how yummy it was! However I think she was being nice to me! 

Now.....we have the loosened cabbages from simmering in hot water. Peel the leaves and place aside. We have both meat and vegetarian mixtures ready and waiting to be rolled, um SO ROLL! The trick with these famous cabbage rolls is the sauce! Isn't sauces the best!? 

The homemade sweet n sour sauce!  

If I haven't lost you yet the sweet n sour sauce is the key! mmm mmm yay to sauces.....SO....

We have a lot of cabbage rolls here. So after they're rolled and placed into their nestling spots (pans) mix a large batch of sauce consisting of 4, 8oz cans of tomato sauce. Add vinegar (1 cup) brown sugar (1 cup) GARLIC and salt/pepper to taste. OK - so you have to taste the sauce. You want it tangy but sweet. If it's lacking something, add more of the above ingredients. Again, experimentation is great but just a little at a time. Don't get too excited dumping in too much vinegar or something! Now pour your sauce over all your cabbage rolls! Bake for an hour at 350. Serve with sour cream, and grated cheddar cheese! Heck, serve with anything! If your children or husband don't like cabbage, tell them it's lettuce! Problem solved! 

I realize this must of been the hardest recipe to follow (if you continued to read) So just come back to it, re-read it until you're dreaming of cabbage rolls, then experiment on a beautiful crisp fall day! What could go wrong except for this weird recipe post!? To conclude I do blame my father for my quirky weird sense of humor. AND I think our little man (seen below) agrees! OR maybe he's going to run away yelling, "No dinner Mom! No dinner!" Either way, Bon Appetite!