It's exciting to be Polish.

And, if you are me, it is exciting to stuff food items with other food items. This combination of exciting things obviously dictates a golobki feast! Golobki is stuffed cabbage rolls. It is Polish food. It is good. There are gazillions of different stuffed cabbage rolls from all over the world, but this is the one my mom occasionally made me when i was growing up.

i would like to add some unsolicited advice here about regional foods, connecting with your ancestry, and advanced chefery in general. it's complicated so bear with me.

salt your effing food, people.

My family has a "traditional" Polish feast every year on Christmas eve. It is called Wigilia. If it were to be your first Polish food experience, you may never go back for seconds because for some reason, my family hates salt. Luckily, similar to your common "kids table" at Thanksgiving, the 707 Nelsons and Team Martinola created a "salt lovers table". and that is how i know that Polish food is actually quite tasty.

Back to Golobki. it is cabbage stuffed with rice, ground beef and pork, and baked in a tomato/beef broth. it sounds so unbelievably bland, right? it is not.

so i have two Polish cookbooks that were Ma's. one has a picture of Golobki on the cover and the recipe mom used. The other has no golobki recipe but it does have at least 7 recipes for various meat items suspended in gelatin. why do i not throw the pickled herring infested book away?


First! Boil some water. salt it. cut out the core of a head of cabbage and plop it into the boiling water.

in a matter of minutes, the outer leaves will start to seperate from the head. remove them and place them on a paper towel to drain and cool.

Normally, your meat mixture would be a pound of ground beef and a pound of ground pork, a cup of cooked white rice, and one sauteed onion. but i am from Mill Valley so my mixture is this: One zucchini, grated, 1 cup of minced mushroom, 1 cup of brown uncooked rice (why waste time cooking rice that you are going to cook again? is that the root of all of those Polish jokes?) and i also added 3 minced garlic cloves to the last 30 seconds of my onion saute. AND SALT.

your cabbage leaves should be cool by now. if the rib is so thick on your leaf that it can't lie flat, take a pairing knike and shave off some of the rib. lie your cabbage leaf flat and fill with enough filling that you can just make a little burrito out of it. obviously, the outer leaves will hold more filling than the inner.

here they are all lined up, waiting for the next step.
butter! the recipe calls for 3 Tbsp of butter to saute the rolls in, but i used half butter have olive oil because i am also Italian. saute seam side down til slightly brown and flip to do the same to the other side. this really makes each little love loaf its own little secure entity. it gives the golobki the confidence to stand up to the rest of the cooking process.
place in baking dish seam side down. poor beef broth to almost cover the rolls. you will need a lot because the rice will soak it up. Get a whole box of broth and plan on using the whole thing. on the side, take 1/2 Cup of beef broth and mix with 4 ounces of tomato paste. blop that mixture over the top of the rolls. cover with tin foil and bake at 325 for as long as you can without burning your dinner. i would say an hour, at least. but the longer everything hangs out together, the better it will taste.
ugly on the outside.
ugly on the inside, too.
but delicious all around. I know that it may seem weird to you to not actually use any beef meat but still use beef broth. i don't like beef. but i do like beef broth. i wish someone would make a french dip sandwich with turkey meat, but still give me the beef juice to dip it in. anyways, it is healthier, easy, and yumtastic so if you want to live a life as exciting as mine, give this recipe a try.

don't forget to salt.

i am making a Moroccan inspired chicken stew tonight. if you are lucky, i will forget to take pictures.

easter - a day to stuff your face in the name of JC

i may have overdone it. see, i have been spending the last few months attempting to get my blood pressure under control. turns out the meds i had been on in SF weren't really working. also turns out Moose makes me crazy, which may or may not have an impact on my blood pressure. anyways! a month ago, i was put on 2 meds. they worked. they also caused an impressive rash. so i went to an allergist who declared i was not allergic to either of these meds. i believed him cos i saw how not rashy i became when they poked the meds under my skin. i continued on one of the meds and it *almost* kept me at a good bp level. except that it didn't. so my doctor added my second med back on and i went all rashy again PLUS dizziness this time. so no gym, no fun,no nothing for the last few days. i don't do well if i can't do all. i just don't.

and then there was easter! here is what we had to eat:

green salad
fruit salad
cream cheese danishes
cherry danishes
potatoes
bacon
sausage
goat cheese and prosciutto strata
raspberry and lemon french toast strata

too. much. good. food.

there were 6 and a half of us. us, the jungs, mel and beth. mel had double plans so greta and i texted him after a while to see if he was going to come back and play with us. being three years old, she does not suffer from the "fat finger" iphone affliction the rest of us struggle with. she is an excellent texter.



we played "Apples to Apples" which is in second place for fun (first place will always be catchphrase), but in first place for being incredibly enjoyable whilst not causing couples to contemplate divorce after playing.
Beth introduced this game to us. look how happy neil is to be spending easter with his sister.now look at how happy neil is to be spending some time with the entire box of "apples to apples" cards i spilled on the ground:
Greta is a dancer. she is into it. sometimes she closes her eyes when she dances. i kind of feel like if she were stranded in the forest and could only communicate with the wildlife via dance, it would just be a matter of moments before mice would be bringing her crumbs to eat and butterflies would be braiding her hair.
moose thought he was a part of the show and bowed for us all
Greta will be getting a puppy soon. getting a 12 week old puppy is one thing. having a 75 pound two year old puppy want to cover you with kisses is another thing. G is learning how to say "NO" like a big girl and moose is FINALLY learning not to knock G over just because he loves her so much. jesus H, people. it's just exhausting. so this new level of vague disinterest mixed with slight amusement is a godsend. G wanted her picture with each pooper.

and with matilda:




she is going to absolutely love having a dog in her life, and i can't wait to meet their future pup. they will be getting a pup from a rescue, unlike our President who has greatly greatly disappointed me by not adopting like he said he would.

and then it was time to eat again. seriously. we had an 8 hour day today.




easter may be the new thanksgiving. shocker, i know. but if 40 can be the new 30 then thanksgiving had better watch its back. i'm just saying,

WTF?

Remember all of that sunny garden building? This is what 6000 pounds of rock looks like:

If you like, i can tell you how 6000 pounds of rock feels, too. Whilst Neil was at work, i had the honor of moving most of this rock out of the alley and onto our property.

I built raised beds with some of the rock. They look pretty gray and benign now, but when they get wet you can see that they are actually quite colorful and assorted. This is why we needed to build a fence:
Moose doesn't now how to discern a rock garden bed from a dog bed.

Then we had 10 yards of soil delivered. This is what 10 yards of soil looks like:

As with the rock, i had to move the soil from the alley to it's new home. Neil built an amazing arbor over where the fence will be and....





WTF winter? Seriously. WTF is up with you? We had a great spring in March and now we have fallen back into winter. Yesterday it thunder snowed. i didn't even know that thunder snow was an actual thing! I only hope that all of the little buds that were starting on my lilac bush hold on tight because i would really like to see them do their thing come mother's day.

And since mother nature is kicking my ass, i have taken to making the green happen indoors. Here are 25 Genovese Basil Sprouts and 25 French Marigold sprouts:
Neil talks to the basil every day when he gets home from work. He does not address the marigolds.
is that what it is going to be like when we have kids? "hello son!" *daugher waves frantically for Neil's attention. Neil ignores daughter* whatever dude. say hi to your daughter....i mean the marigolds. i think. whatever.

i have bell pepper seeds going. and i also have seeds starting for flowers. seeds are cheap! did you know that? when i think about all of the money i have spent at nurseries on plants, i kind of want to punch myself in the face.

here are my lobelia, mexican sunflower, tropical milkweed, and white swan echinacea seeds all sprouting about:



i am totally into it. like crazytown into it. i think that is what happens when you live somewhere that has real winters. you crave spring. you watch your little basils pop up and you greet them with love and you promise them out to your friends, knowing that you will be saving your friends a bit of cash as well and life is kinda good and stuffs. well, at least Neil does this. I actually greet the marigolds with love as well BUT THAT IS JUST ME.


Have you met Midge? She is the middle cat. sometimes i wonder if she feels neglected. Especially when i find her Hugging The Couch. Note to self: pet Midge every once in a while. She is the marigold of cats.