The outer cabbage leaves are enormous on the plants in the garden. I trimmed off some of them to get better airflow between the plants.
I washed all the leaves and cut out the thick ribs to prepare them for making stuffed cabbage rolls.
You can see that the leaves are still large after removing the center ribs. I placed some leaves into a large pan of boiling water and cooked them until they were slightly tender.
Meanwhile, I browned some beef and sausage in a pan with a little onion, salt, and pepper. I had 1 1/2 cups of rice cooking in the rice cooker and a jar of homemade tomato sauce waiting to be combined.
Once the leaves were ready it was time to make some cabbage rolls.
It has been a long time since I have made these for dinner. Plus it is the first time ever using the outer leaves of the cabbage plants before harvesting them in late summer.
I often make enough of a recipe for a few meals to throw into the freezer for later use. Today, I had enough stuffed cabbage for dinner and two freezer meals. I even had enough meat and rice mixture left over to save as a side dish.
Dehydrating Cabbage Leaves
There was still a stack of leaves that needed tending to. I decided to dehydrate them and turn them into powder.
I simply rolled up the leaves and chopped them into strips. This makes it easy to lay them out on the trays in the dehydrator.
After a few hours of drying at 122掳F in the dehydrator, the leaves were ready to be powdered in the blender.
I also had room to do a few green onions at the same time. Little by little I am filling up my jars to put into the pantry as the plants are harvested. It will be nice to add organic-grown greens and herbs to my recipes.
I have to admit that the richness of the cabbage leaves gave the rolls a robust flavor. I made some coleslaw and added sweet corn for dinner that night. I will be looking forward to having those frozen rolls in the future too.
Until next time, this is Sunscape
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