Bushels of Tomatoes and Cabbages.

All your hard work has paid off, the thrill of the harvest is upon you! But you can’t see your kitchen table because of all the vegetables you’ve brought in from the garden. First, way to go! You are on your way to creating healthy food. Second, here are a couple of recipes that will help you make good use of your produce. They can be frozen for use in the bleak mid-winter and are real crowd pleasers.

Hungarian cabbage rolls are a favorite at my house. I make them now when I have oodles of tomatoes and huge cabbages. Then, in the middle of winter, I pull them out of the freezer and cook them on low in a crock pot over night and serve them with mashed potatoes to soak up all the juice. I make my own tomato juice to cook them in by cooking cut up fresh tomatoes until they are soft, then putting them through a food mill to remove the skins and seeds, add a little salt and then freeze or can the juice for later use. This recipe can easily be doubled if you have an especially large cabbage. You can use either turkey kielbasa sausage or beef.

Cabbage Rolls

• 1 ½ lbs. hamburger or pork sausage (if you use spicey pork sausage, you don’t need to add all the following spices)

• 1 tsp. Salt

• ¼ tsp. pepper 

• ¼ cup chopped onions

• 1Tbsp.  chopped garlic 

• ¾ cups rice, uncooked

• 1 whole cabbage, wash, trim off outer leaves if they aren’t good quality.

• 1 link of Polska Kielbasa sausage (either turkey or beef). Cut into 2-inch chunks.

• 1 large can of tomato juice or 1-2 quarts of homemade juice.

1. Combine hamburger and rice with one whole egg and mix thoroughly. Set aside.

2. Immerse the cabbage into a large pot of boiling water. Boil until the tops layers of leaves look slightly cooked. 

3. Remove cabbage from pot to a large cutting board. 

4. Trim off outer layers of leaves that are soft, lay aside to cool. 

5. Re-immerse cabbage in boiling water and cook the next few layers of leaves, remove and cut off cooked leaves. Keep doing this until the cabbage is too small to use for rolls. (Refrigerate and use in a different recipe).

6. For each cooked leaf, trim down the hard spine so that the leaf can be rolled up. Discard spine (or give it to your kids to eat, they are delish).

7. Lay a loose handful of the hamburger or sausage mixture in the lower end of the leaf, roll once, tuck in both sides, finish rolling and tuck in the end. You can use a toothpick or skewer to hold roll closed.

8. Put sausage pieces in b

9. ottom of large kettle. Stack cabbage rolls gently on top. Pour over enough tomato juice to cover the cabbages.

10. Bring to a boil, turn heat way down and barely simmer for an hour or two until the rice is cooked. You can also do these in a crock pot for 4-6 hours.

11. Serve over mashed potatoes.

Clara’s Salsa

Here’s an excellent salsa recipe that my daughter came up with. You can hot water bath can it in jars or freeze it in baggies or plastic containers:

• 16 cups blanched, peeled, cored, chopped tomatoes

• 4 cups chopped green onions

• ¾ cups chopped jalapenos

• 2 cups chopped peppers, use a variety of sweet peppers

• 4 cloves garlic

• ¾ cup vinegar

• 1 Tbsp sugar

• 2 Tbsp salt

• 1 tsp cumin

• ½ bunch cilantro 

  
  

Mix, simmer until thick (2 hours). Hot water bath can for 15 minutes.

Zucchini Bread

(Good, easy, healthy, freezable – what’s not to love!) Makes 2 loaves

• 3 eggs

• 1 cup oil

• 1 cup brown sugar

• 1 cup white sugar

• 3 tsp maple flavoring

• 2 cups raw, grated zucchini

• 2 ½ cups flour (I use half whole wheat)

• ½ cup wheat germ

• 2 tsp soda

• 2 tsp salt

• 1 tsp baking powder

• 1 cup chopped walnuts 

• Sesame seeds

Mix in order given. Pour in greased, floured bread pans. Sprinkle with sesame seeds. Bake 1 hour at 350 degrees.

Photo Credit: Joy Johnson (1,2,3,4,5)