She's been aching to cook her "real" food as she likes to call it. My mom was never really a very good cook. She could make a really good pasta sauce and meatballs, lasgana... anything with pasta and cheese, my mom made well. No wonder we were all fat.
Like a mother hen, I watched over my mom. I couldn't stand in the kitchen when she chopped the onions, after all, my demented mom was using a sharp knife, one that I had just sharpened.
I sat in my office, working as I heard my mom chop, chop, chopping in the kitchen. She was singing her "La Di Da" type song, one that always reminds me of Curly on the Three Stoogers. Curly always sang the La Di Da song when he cooked, just like my mom.
Here's how my mom made her Golumpkies, not how I remembered but they came out very good. Ok, so I threw in a little ground thyme when my mom wasn't looking, it needed it.
Ma's Golumpkies
1 lb ground white turkey meat (she would normally use ground pork)
1 lb ground dark turkey meat
1 Savoy Cabbage Head
4 eggs
1 medium onion diced
2 large cans of diced or whole peeled tomatoes
reserved water from the cabbage pot
Salt
Pepper
3/4 cup uncooked Black rice (normally, she'd use Minute Rice but we don't eat that kind of rice anymore.)
1 1/2 cups cold filtered water
Cook the black rice. Put the rice and the water into a pan that has a lid that fits. Allow the water to boil with the rice for about 10 minutes. Shut off the heat and allow the rice to continue to steam cook in the pan. Do NOT open the lid to check on the rice for atleast 30 minutes.
Let the rice cool. You can put it in the fridge if you need it to cool down more quickly.
Put the head of cabbage into a pan of water, cover the pan and boil the cabbage in order to soften the leaves. If you cut out the core of the cabbage, it will be easier to peel the leaves off when the cabbage is cooked. When the cabbage is cooked, the leaves will be firm and soft, take the cabbage out of the water and peel the leaves off the head of cabbage. Lay the leaves flat on a plat to cool. Reserve the water that the cabbage was cooked in.
In a large mixing bowl, add the turkey, onion, eggs, salt and pepper. Mix well. Add the cooled rice and mix in the rice evenly.
Roll up about 1/2 cup of meat mixture into the end of the cabbage and roll it like an egg roll. Make little cabbage packages.
Place the cabbage rolls in the bottom of a big pot. Layer the rolls gently so that they are easy to scoop out with out falling apart.
Put in the 2 cans of tomatoes. Use the reserved water from the cabbage pot to add enough liquid to cover the cabbage rolls.
If cooking in a pressure cooker: Cook on medium pressure for 10 minutes. When the pot starts to hiss, let it hiss for 10 minutes and then let it depressurize naturally. Don't speed up the cool down.
Place the rolls into a crock pot if you want them cooking slowly all afternoon and ready for dinner.
When I had a job outside the home, I would put the raw cabbage rolls into a crockpot, adding all the liquid. I'd cook it on low all day. When I'd get home from work, the cabbage rolls would be ready.
My mom's cabbage rolls were very good. I was suprised. Ok, so I did sprinkle about a teaspoon of ground thyme over the crockpot when I transfered the pressure cooker contents to the crockpot.
My mom, she was so pleased with herself. I was too... today, I'll have her make chicken soup.
Yesterday, my mom used the pressure cooker to cook them initially and then I put them into a crockpot so that the cabbage rolls cooked slowly all afternoon.
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