These cabbage rolls are stuffed with ground beef, onion, raisins and rice, then topped with a scrumptious tomato-based sauce.  Paula suggests serving them with a dollop of sour cream, but I forgot that part and definitely didn’t miss it.

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Stuffed Cabbage

Prep Time: 25 minutes

Cook Time: 1 hour

Total Time: 1 hour, 25 minutes

Yield: 4 to 5 servings

Serving Size: 2 cabbage rolls

• 2 Tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 cup chopped yellow onion
• 1 medium head (about 2 pounds) green cabbage
• 1 pound ground beef
• 1/2 cup cooked rice
• 1/4 cup raisins (I use golden)
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 can (16 ounces) tomato sauce
• 1/2 cup beef broth
• 1/2 teaspoon paprika
• sour cream, for serving (optional)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Spray a 13- by 9-inch pan with cooking spray or oil.

In a medium skillet, heat the oil over medium-high heat. Add the onion and cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Set aside to cool.

Meanwhile, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Using a small, sharp knife, cut in a circle all around the stem of the cabbage and remove the core. Place the cabbage in the boiling water. After about 2 minutes an outside leaf will come loose--pull it off and out of the water using tongs. After another minute the next leaf will come loose. Remove and repeat until you have 8 to 10 leaves. Pat the leaves dry with paper towels. Cut out the thick part of the rib from the bottom of each leaf, but don't cut more than a third of the way into the leaf.

In a mixing bowl, combine the beef, cooled onion, rice, raisins, and salt. With the stem side of the cabbage leaf facing you, place a scant 1/3 cup of the beef mixture in the center of each cabbage leaf. Fold the bottom edge over the mixture and then fold the sides over and roll into a tidy packet. Place the cabbage rolls, seam side down, in the prepared baking dish.

In a bowl, mix together the tomato sauce, broth, and paprika. Pour evenly over the cabbage rolls. Cover with foil and bake for 1 hour. Optional: Serve the cabbage rolls with a big dollop of sour cream.

Source: Paula Deen's Southern Cooking Bible

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1.4

http://penniesonaplatter.com/2012/02/23/stuffed-cabbage/

Copyright Pennies on a Platter 2007

In her book, Paula takes the time to explain what southern cooking is all about.  Having been born, raised, cooking and eating in the south, she knows her stuff!  Then, she (with the help of her coauthor, Melissa Clark) divides the chapters up by their different courses, beginning each with an introduction that outlines her favorites while providing her personal experiences and tips.  And, no, the entire book is not all about butter, bacon and grease.  There are some surprisingly somewhat healthy dishes, too!

The first recipe I want to share from the book is Jambalaya.  I’ve already made this a few times in the short month we’ve been here.  Ben absolutely loves this dish, while I like it as well, but can’t take much of its heat.  So, if you’re like me and can’t handle too much spice, you might want to turn it down a notch by reducing or eliminating the cayenne pepper, or choosing a more mild sausage.  I also left out the shrimp, because although I do like different types of cooked shrimp, I didn’t feel like putting the money into an ingredient I don’t love.

You’ll love how quickly and easily this dish comes together!  The most tedious part is measuring out the rice mix ingredients, but you can always make that ahead of time and store in an airtight container for up to 6 months until ready to use.

Tomorrow, I’ll be back with another Paula recipe and then make sure you come back Friday for a chance to win your own copy of Paula’s new book!

I typically do not participate in the festivities surrounding Mardi Gras, but this weekend we had the opportunity to drive 3 hours due south, to the gulf coast where my cousin lives, and attend a family-friendly Mardi Gras parade.  I didn’t know what to expect, but when we arrived at my cousin’s house, he and his wife had Mardi Gras t-shirts for me, Ben and Judah to wear to the parade!  So, we scarfed down some pizza, threw on our shirts, and headed to town.

The event was so much fun!  I couldn’t believe all of the bead necklaces that were thrown from the floats, along with some other “goodies” such as moon pies, stuffed animals and even beer!  Judah sat on cousin Tim’s shoulders the entire time and quickly learned his way of charming the parade attendants into tossing him some more necklaces.  He was decked out in beads by the end of the parade, so much so that I had to worry if his neck was hurting!  But, boy, did he enjoy it!

Ben and I were able to capture some fun photos of different characters in the parade.  We were both surprised to see men adorned in beads, galloping on their horses while chugging their Coors Light when the floats were done.  It was quite hysterical.  Overall, the whole parade was a fun cultural experience for us, and we can’t wait to attend again next year!

And, next year, I’m going to make this cake again!  King Cake is one of the age-old recipes associated with the Carnival season.  Traditionally, a plastic baby or small bean is hidden inside the cake where the person who ends up with the piece with the trinket either is favored with good luck or must provide the next king cake (whichever the party decides).  You can read more about the history of Mardi Gras and King Cake here.

I made this to bring with us to my cousin’s house where we ate it after the parade.  Since the parade was rescheduled from Saturday to Sunday, we ate it when it was two days old, but a quick warm up in the microwave was all it needed.  I managed to have a piece the day I made it, though (you know, because I’m a food blogger and need to take photos while snatching a quick taste.)  And, I must say, it is definitely best the day it’s made.  In fact, it’s pretty amazing.  Extremely soft on the inside with a succulent cinnamon swirl.

Even though this cake is supposed to be for the Carnival season, it was so good that I am tempted to make it any time of the year and vary up the icing colors to match any party.  Definitely a great alternative to your typical birthday cake.  And, guess what?  The recipe looks long, but it’s actually very easy!

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Mardi Gras King Cake

Prep Time: 3 hours

Cook Time: 25 minutes

Total Time: 3 hours, 25 minutes

Yield: 8 to 10 servings

Serving Size: 1 piece of cake

For the dough:
• 1/4 cup warm water (between 100 and 110 degrees)
• 1 package (2 1/4 teaspoons) active dry yeast
• 5 Tablespoons granulated sugar, divided
• 2 Tablespoons unsalted butter
• Pinch of salt
• 8 ounces sour cream
• 1 egg
• 3 to 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• Oil for hands and bowl
For the filling:
• 4 Tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
For the colored sugars:
• 1 1/2 cups granulated or superfine sugar, divided
• Food coloring - yellow, green, purple (or a combination of blue and red to make purple)
For the icing:
• 2 cups confectioners' (powdered) sugar
• Pinch of salt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 Tablespoon unsalted butter, melted
• 4 Tablespoons whole milk or heavy cream

To make the dough:

In a mixing bowl, combine the warm water, yeast and 1 Tablespoon of the granulated sugar. Allow to sit for 5 minutes until it blooms. Meanwhile, in a small saucepan over medium heat, heat the butter, 4 Tablespoons of the sugar and the salt while constantly stirring. Once the butter is melted, stir in the sour cream and heat to luke warm.

Once the yeast is active, whisk in the warm butter and sour cream mixture, the egg and 1 cup of the flour. Whisk until smooth. Using an oiled wooden spoon, mix in small amounts of the remaining flour until a soft dough is formed (about another 2 cups of flour). The dough should be tacky, but not sticky.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface. With oiled hands, knead dough until elastic, about 5 to 10 minutes. Alternatively, use your stand mixer fitted with the dough hook to knead for 5 minutes. Add more flour by the teaspoon if needed. The dough should clear the sides of the bowl.

With floured or oiled hands, shape the dough into a ball and transfer to a well-oiled bowl, flipping once to cover with oil. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and allow to rise in a warm, draft-free area until it has doubled in size, about 1 1/2 to 2 hours.

For the filling:

Near the end of the dough rising, make the filling. Combine the melted butter, cinnamon and sugar in a medium bowl. Stir until fully incorporated.

Once the dough has doubled in size, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and roll into a giant rectangle, about 18 inches by 14 inches wide.* Spread the cinnamon sugar mixture evenly over the dough, leaving a 1-inch border around the outside of the dough.

Roll the cake up jellyroll-style and pinch the seams tight. Carefully transfer the roll to a parchment- or silicone- lined baking sheet, seam-side down. Pull the ends together to form an oval or circle, then press to completely seal the shape.

Cover the cake with a clean kitchen towel and allow to rise for another 30 minutes. During this second rise, preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

After 30 minutes, remove the kitchen towel and bake the cake in the center of the preheated oven for 25 minutes or until golden brown. Allow to cool completely on a wire rack before icing.

For the colored sugars:

While the cake is cooling, make the colored sugars. Place ½ cup of sugar into three separate small bowls. Drop green food coloring into one bowl and stir until evenly mixed and colored. Use the back of a small spatula or spoon to grind the sugar granules together and against the bowl for even coating, until there are no clumps. Repeat for the other two bowls of sugar to create one bowl of yellow sugar and one bowl of purple sugar (a mix of red and blue food coloring).

For the icing:

Once the cake is completely cooled, make the icing. Whisk together the powdered sugar, salt, vanilla, melted butter and milk until smooth. The icing should be at a consistency where it can easily drizzle onto the cake, but not run completely off of it. Whisk in more powdered sugar to thicken, or more milk to thin.

Transfer the cake to serving platter. (At this point, you can stick a dried bean or little plastic baby in through the bottom of the cake if you wish to carry on this Mardi Gras tradition. This is obviously completely optional.) Slide pieces of wax paper under the sides of the cake so that it can catch any overflow of icing or sprinkles of sugar, but make sure the wax paper can easily be removed.

Drizzle the icing evenly over the cake and allow to ooze down the sides and middle. Immediately (before the icing has a chance to set) sprinkle on rotating strips of the colored sugars. Work this step speedily, as the icing sets very quickly. Slide the wax paper pieces out from under the cake and discard. Serve within 1 or 2 days, warm or at room temperature.

*Recipe Note: Careful not to roll it out too thin. I think my dough should've only been about 16 inches by 12 inches as it decided to burst (or stick it's tongue out at me during baking). But, I remedied it by cutting off it's "tongue". :)

Source: Adapted from Brown Eyed Baker, originally from YumSugar

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1.4

http://penniesonaplatter.com/2012/02/21/mardi-gras-king-cake/

Copyright Pennies on a Platter 2007

I chose to make these cream puffs for the shower, filled with strawberries and mascarpone.  Cream puffs with a plain pastry cream filling seem to be the quintessential shower food, but I wanted them to be even more special for Courtney, which is why I chose this filling.

Always wanting to try my hand at cream puffs, the intimidation of the pate a choux (the dough) was enough to stop me.  If only I would have read a few recipes a while ago, my fear would have quickly subsided.  It’s only an easy method of boiling water and butter, then stirring in some flour and eggs one at a time!  The only tricky part is the elbow grease involved when stirring in the eggs, but even that can be bypassed by using a food processor to do the work.  (Let’s just make it clear that I did not go the “wimpy” route and definitely used up all of my elbow grease for the week.  And, let’s make another thing clear, that I honestly don’t really think using the food processor is indeed “wimpy”.  Can’t have any of you mad at me now.) 

You can spoon the dough into individual mounds, or pipe them from a zipper bag or pastry bag.  I prefer the piping method, but make sure you have the right sized hole.  My experience was a little frustrated while I had to pipe the dough three times before I got it right.  The first time the hole I cut in the bag was too small, so the bag burst.  I scraped it all back up, got a new bag and cut a MUCH bigger hole that ended up being too big.  So, I scraped the dough up again and grabbed one more bag, thinking to myself that the spooning method was going to be my next move if the third time wasn’t a charm.  Finally, I found my sweet spot and was able to pipe beautiful mounds just to my liking.

Let’s talk about the filling…ooohhh, the filling!  We had some leftover in the fridge tonight after dinner, along with extra strawberries.  Right now, I’m tempted to go back into my fridge for what’s left and run my finger right through it for another lick.  It’s THAT good!  Sweet, yet subtle enough to not overpower the puffs, allowing room for the strawberries to add in the right amount of additional sweetness.

Josie (our wonderful host) and Courtney both have roundups of the complete bridal shower spread, so make sure you head over there to check out other amazing dishes!

Courtney, I can tell this group of wonderful bloggers is especially excited for you in this time of anticipation for Baby C’s arrival.  You are going to love being a mommy and you’ll be GREAT at it!  Praying for an easy labor and delivery, and a healthy sweet baby!  Congratulations!

But, today I’m happy to finally provide something that you can make yourself for lunch or dinner.  And, make it quickly!  So quickly that we had this for dinner one night and then two days later I threw it together again within minutes for lunch so that I could take photos.

This is a great vegetarian option, even if you’re not a vegetarian.    And, despite how it may seem, they are very filling!  These are individual sized pizzas. Use the smallest flour tortillas you can find (is 6-inch the smallest as store-bought?)  I make my own tortillas, and shape them to about 5 inches for this recipe.  But, 6-inch will work as well.  If you can’t find small tortillas, then go ahead and make big pizzas, then cut into wedges to share.  No bigs.

1- Whitney taught me to dance.  It’s true, you can ask my mom, my dad and my older sister who had to put up with me dancing around in our living room.  Now, some of the music I was dancing to were Christian a-cappella bands (believe it or not, I could really groove to some of that stuff!) while others were jams from the day.  There was a lot of Whitney in this mix.

2- Whitney taught me to sing loud and proud.  I can’t sing.  Whenever I say this to my best girlfriend (who is an amazing singer) she always responds to me with “you can carry a tune!”  That always empowered me, but never satisfied me.  I always wanted to be a singer, but God decided to bless everyone around me, yet not me, with that gift.  But, despite my seagull sounding voice, I can always belt it out with Whitney. And, hey, I even learned that if I turned her up loud enough on my stereo, that I sounded just like her.  Who knew? 

3-Whitney gave me an opportunity to share my faith.  During my early years of high school, I was sitting in our high school auditorium listening to a motivational speaker, who ended her presentation with a video where Whitney’s “Greatest Love of All” song was the soundtrack.  The message from the motivational speaker was focused on positive change in our youth and learning to love yourself.  My friend, who was next to me, starting bawling because of the powerful words in Whitney’s song.  After the assembly, she confided in me about the rough path she recently chose and I was able to pray with her.  Whenever I hear that song today, I’m reminded of this beautiful moment so long ago.

4- Whitney was in one of the first R-rated movies I ever saw.  Can someone say “The Bodyguard”?? 

There you have it.  My positive Whitney reflections.  Now, let’s get on to these COOKIES!  (No, I have no better transition than this…)  For one of our first Valentines Days together, Ben bought me an entire package of the Lofthouse sugar cookies you find at most grocery stores decorated for every season and holiday.  Some might think this is sweet, but once I tell you that HE ate every single one of those cookies, you will quickly change your mind.  It didn’t necessarily bother me that he ate the cookies, because I don’t like them.  But, it did bother me that my Valentines gift that year was actually a gift for himself!

Every time we walk by these cookies in the store, I’m pretty sure I see drool falling from Ben’s gawking mouth.  I decided long ago to search for a recipe to make them homemade for him sometime, but that idea slipped my mind and never came to fruition.  Then one day, Annie popped up with a recipe and I quickly bookmarked it, yet unfortunately didn’t quickly make them.  Finally, after almost a year later, I made them this weekend for Valentines Day, in miniature form.

Guess what?  Even though these are pretty much an exact replica of the store cookies I nearly can’t stand, I actually really really like these!  They are definitely better than the store-bought Lofthouse cookies, a testament agreed to by Ben himself.

Instead of throwing away any broken crayons, unwrap them and save them in a ziplock bag for an activity like this.  You can use any silicone mold.  Once you have quite the collection of crayons (I needed about 6 ounces to fill the pan I had) chop them up into small pieces (recommend plastic cutting board), drop them into the molds and bake in the oven at 230 degrees F for 15 minutes.

You can see Judah had a great time filling the heart pan with the crayons.  He didn’t do it perfectly, but that’s what moms are for, right?   After the crayons were gone, he decided the bowl would be his hat for the rest of the project.

I found heart containers (above) at Walmart that fit the crayon perfectly (package of 8 for $1.99) but then it made the crayon too big to fit in the envelope.  So, I wrapped Judah’s heart crayons in cupcake liners that I also found at Walmart (see the very first picture above) and then sent them with a Valentines card in regular postal mail.  The message inside each card said something like “I made you this crayon so I can color with you next time I see you.  Love, Judah.”   

Source: Inspired from this Pinterest pin (unsure of original)

The blocks of candy melts actually come with a microwave safe container to melt your chocolate in.  So, this was super easy to clean up.  Just melt in the microwave, pour into the lined pan, then toss the disposable container.  Easy peasy!

Okay, so maybe that’s not exactly how I enjoy this drink every time I have it.  Maybe I also like to sip on it while sitting alone at my dining room table, laptop in front of me, glancing out the window every few seconds, daydreaming about how one day I’d like to be lounging in a log cabin with this mug in hand, feet kicked up, snow falling outside, me warm inside…you get the picture.

In any case, this hot chocolate mix must make its presence into your home and replace any other store-bought packets.  It’s creamier and richer than any pre-mix I’ve ever tasted.  What a great gift option, as well!  Just package some mix into small mason jars or cellophane baggies, then gift it with written mixing instructions.  I’m sure you’ll make someone’s long winter much more enjoyable if you do!

These are also fitting for any party where you want to serve a few miniature sized desserts.  Because of the espresso, they complement just about any other sweet fare.  Plate them on a cake pedestal for an attractive presentation, where they are easily snatched up by fingers, no serving utensils needed.  And, as always, the best part is how simple they are to prepare!