This is the Year (or, Autumn and Winter Seasons) of Making New Soups.
While some folks might plan to take up a new hobby, or learn a new skill during the darker and colder seasons, I have declared (to Mr. Gordon mainly), that this is the season of new soup! Makes perfect sense. I love soup, I love to make soup… So there you go.
I use Pinterest to bookmark recipes to try. Now, I bookmark way more than I’ll ever actually try out, but I do have some gems in there. This past weekend when I decided to “get my soup on,” I took a peek at what I had saved. I had “pinned” this link / recipe from Spend with Pennies: Cabbage Roll Soup. My mother made cabbage rolls often when I was growing up. We loved them. This recipe looked so easy and sounded so good, it was a no brainer! I just needed to pick up the cabbage and half a pound of ground pork. I pretty much had the rest in my pantry.
I followed the recipe with a couple of exceptions. While the recipe author recommended sauteing the cabbage for about 3 minutes, I went much longer – maybe 20 minutes. I wanted it to be really softened. I also used a pretty big “medium-sized” cabbage head. In the end, the soup was more “chunky” than soupy, but that’s what I intended.
Where she called for 1 and 1/2 cups of V8 or other vegetable juice, I used the tomato “juice” we had canned from last year. I also used diced tomatoes we canned in 2018 and 2019.
Where the author of the recipe called for uncooked long grain white rice, I used Basmati rice (my favorite). It’s a thinner grain, and in my opinion, it’s nicer in recipes. By the way, the kitchen smelled AWESOME.
I also let it cook longer than she recommended. She recommended 25-30 minutes. I probably simmered it for close to an hour. When ready, into the bowls and capped with a bit of Parmesan cheese (the first night, shaved; the next meal, grated).
The result? Excellent!
And yes, that’s Mr. Gordon’s homemade bread. Perfect addition!
The verdict: I loved it. Mr. Gordon loved it, too. It was also excellent the next day – even better, actually. We plan on having it again for lunch today. Yes, it’s a hard life. (Ha!)
So, first “new” soup made and the results were even better than hoped for! Again, you can get the Cabbage Roll Soup recipe here.
If you make it, pop on back to this post and let me know what you thought of it and also if you added anything else! Or, let me know if you have a “new” soup to recommend! I’d love to learn about it.
Happy Souping!
Sounds delicious! And I love your winter goal of making soups!
It was soooooooooo good, Kristin! Now, on to the next recipe to try! Hmmm… 😀
I will absolutely have to try this soup! I made cabbage rolls for the first time this summer. I don’t know how a Polish girl could grow up and never eat a cabbage roll, so I decided I had to make them. We all loved them, but they were a bit of work. So this soup seems like the best of both worlds…less time but all of the flavor!
Thank you for sharing 🙂
Hi Bekah! I am a fan of cabbage rolls, but like you, I think they are a lot of work! The soup is a definite compromise that works. 🙂
Question: Do you have other names for cabbage rolls in your world? I seem to remember some people in my family calling them “pigs in a blanket.” My girlfriend calls them Halupki and a former employer called them Golumpki.
Whatever they are called… they are awesome and the soup is too! 🙂
The only other name I had heard was Golumpki and my husband always knew them as cabbage rolls. Until I started looking up a recipe for them this summer, I had no idea there were so many variations of the name. It goes to show how popular they are in some cultures.
Ok Tracy, I might try this one as I have cabbage and was going to make cabbage rolls. Your dad eats the inside, not much of a cabbage eater. Anyway, since you did make the recipe different, that is now a recipe you can list. Certainly made a lot of changes so you have a “new cabbage roll” recipe. Good for you to try different additions. i do it all the time. Jill wanted my potato salad recipe a few weeks ago. I never measure so that was a toughie and she changed it somewhat also with different dressing and more mustard. LOL We are all that way. Different changes for different tastes. Bye for now.
Hi Mom! If you try it out, let me know what you think! So glad you gave your potato salad recipe to Jill. I have it too, but I can not seem to get my potatoes to come out as good as yours! I guess I’ll just need you to keep making it. 😉
Love you!