Secret Subject Swap: Buried Treasure

Welcome to another Secret Subject Swap. This week 12 brave bloggers picked a subject for someone else and were assigned a secret subject to interpret in their own style. Today we are all simultaneously divulging our topics and submitting our posts.

Here are links to all the sites now featuring Secret Subject Swap posts. Sit back, grab a cup, and check them all out. See you there:

Baking In A Tornado 

 Home on Deranged

Evil Joy Speaks

Writer B is Me

Discovering Me

Confessions of a part-time working mom

Dinosaur Superhero Mommy

Moms Don't Say That

Spinster Snacks
Black Sheep Mom 
Spatulas on Parade 
Just A Little Nutty 

My subject is: You’re gardening in your back yard one day and while digging a substantial hole for a rose bush, you find an old, exotic wooden box you’ve never laid eyes on before. You pry it open. What do you find? It was submitted by: Writer B is Me.

I’m going to start this post at the end.

What I found in that exotic wooden box is someone’s old family recipes. Don’t roll your eyes, bear with me, I have a story I want to tell you. It’s true and it’s worth hearing.

Crockpot Stuffed Cabbage Lasagna

You know that Baking In A Tornado has a facebook page, right? I started the page a little over a year ago to promote my blog posts and leave my personal page open for more personal things. But never ever would I have imagine not just how having a blog has changed my life (see A Gift), but how having a facebook page has too.

One day, quite a while ago, I got a private message on that page from a woman who made one of my recipes, the Potato Crusted Meatloaf. Her message is posted (with her permission) in Dear Baking. She took the time to tell me that her husband has a chronic illness, had lost his appetite, but when she made the meatloaf he had seconds. This epitomizes the reason I share recipes. It’s about the connections.

But the story doesn’t end there. Cathy remains a frequent commenter on my facebook page, but she and I keep in touch via private message as well. One day, a few months ago, she told me about a family wedding where the entire family got together and made her daughter-in-law’s grandmother’s Stuffed Cabbage. Everyone together in a room making a beloved family recipe. I imagined them talking and laughing and prepping as cooking is meant to be done, with love.

And the cabbage used had been grown by Cathy and her husband in their garden.

She gave me the recipe and I asked her if I could play with it a little. I didn’t want to be disrespectful to her daughter-in-law’s family, but I believe that recipes should be adjusted to fit your taste or your time availability or the level of your cooking ability.

I didn’t change the ingredients at all. That’s my nod to Jonna’s history. I just adapted it for the crockpot so you can put it in and go. I also deconstructed it and made it layered “lasagna style” to cut down on the prep time.

To me, this recipe is a one dish dinner, easily done in a crockpot and left alone to cook for the day. More than that, it’s a great way to get a vegetable into a child. It’s a flavorful but mild and creamy version of Stuffed Cabbage that doesn’t have the tang that some other versions have that might not work as well with small children.

And now, thanks to someone who had been a stranger, Cathy’s family and mine are connected. Through a recipe.

This is the reason that, of all the things I could have imagined finding in this old exotic wooden box, I chose recipes. Because whether we change them up or make them exactly as is, family recipes are a connection to our past, our family, our history. Putting your stamp on them just enhances the story. Making them for others and sharing them is a gift. They are truly a treasure.

*A version of this piece was posted on The Huffington Post as Living in a Social Media World: The Person Behind That Screen is Real  on 1-20-15.

 

 

 

 

PS: My heartfelt thanks to Cathy and Jonna.

Crockpot Stuffed Cabbage Lasagna

                               ©www.BakingInATorndao.com

                                                                                                                                               

 Printable Recipe
 
Ingredients:
3 lbs ground beef
1 envelope dry onion soup mix
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
Salt, pepper, seasoned salt to taste
1 pkg Rice-a-Roni, Spanish flavor
1 can diced tomatoes (needed to make the Rice-a- Roni)
2 lg (26 oz each) cans condensed tomato soup
1 cup sour cream
1 head cabbage; wash, wrap in plastic wrap, freeze and defrost
 
Directions:
*Cook Rice-a-Roni according to package directions.
*Mix the beef, onion soup mix, Worcestershire sauce, salt, pepper, seasoned salt, cooked rice, and ½ cup of the tomato soup.
*Wisk together the rest of the tomato soup and the sour cream.
*Cut out the core of the cabbage and separate the leaves. OPT: If you want the leaves to sit flatter, you can slice about 1 ½ inches up from the bottom but it’s not necessary.
*Spray your crockpot with non-stick spray. Put in enough soup/sour cream mixture to cover the bottom, then put in a layer of cabbage overlapping to cover the entire bottom. Spread half of the meat mixture over the cabbage, followed by 1/3 of the soup/sour cream mixture. Repeat the layers; cabbage, the rest of the meat, another 1/3 of the soup mixture.
*Top with a final layer of cabbage and then the rest of the soup mixture.
*Cook on high for 3 hours, then lower to low for 2 hours.
NOTE: Crockpot sizes and heat levels differ, you may need to adjust this recipe slightly to accommodate yours.