Pickles in the soup

Polish Dill Pickle Soup

Made: July 22, 2012

Ingredients
- 5 tablespoons butter or margarine
- 5 medium carrots, shredded
- 2 large potatoes, cubed (about 2 cups)
- 3 large dill pickles, shredded
- 1 cup flour
- 1 cup sour cream
- Salt
- Pickle juice

Directions
- Combine 5 cups water, the butter, the carrots and potatoes in a saucepan
- Bring to a boil and cook until the potatoes are tender
- Add the pickles and continue to boil
- Meanwhile, whisk together the flour, sour cream and salt in a separate bowl
- Add enough water to make a paste, then slowly, to avoid curdling, add the mixture to the soup to thicken
- Bring to a boil, then remove from the heat
- Add pickle juice, to taste

I used my dutch oven instead of a saucepan, I like having the room, just in case. Although, my "paste" stayed paste in my soup, so I had clumps all around. So next time I might either add in the pickles after the paste or make the paste a cream. Either way, it had a really good taste.

For the pickle juice, I had 2 jars of pickle spears. I used about the remains of one jar and half of the other with about 10 pickle spears used overall.

(Recipe used: foodnetwork.com)

Gołąbki's

Stuffed Cabbage rolls

Made: January 24, 2012

Ingredients
- 1 large head of cabbage
- 1 pound lean ground beef
- 1/2 cup uncooked rice
- 1 can (15oz) tomato sauce, divided
- 1/3 cup finely chopped onion
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
- 1/8 teaspoon cinnamon

Directions
- Preheat oven to 350F
- Bring a large saucepan to a boil
- Cut 4 large cabbage leaves from a head of cabbage
- Add cabbage leaves to boiling water; reduce heat & simmer until leaves are softened
- Combine ground beef, rice, 1/2 cup tomato sauce, onion, garlic salt & cinnamon in a large bowl; mix well
- Place about 1/3 cup beef mixture on stem end of each cabbage leaf
- Fold sides of leaves over beef mixture and roll up
- Place cabbage rolls, seam side down, in an 8in baking dish
- Pour remaining tomato sauce over cabbage rolls
- Cover with foil
- Bake cabbage rolls until beef mixture is no longer pink, 50-60 minutes
- Spoon sauce over rolls when serving

I need to work on my rolling technique

Since I usually try to cook for my Granny (which everyone knows by now), this was without onions. But all-in-all it came out just like they did when I bought them at my Church's polish festival :) I didn't have tomato sauce, so I used Diced tomatoes in sauce and then tomato paste to top it off with. :) The hardest part was getting the leaves of cabbage off in one piece. :( And I need to work on how to roll things correctly. They always seem to come out weird, but as long as they're tasty!

Recipe used: Easy to bake, easy to make