Eat when you're young....

My Baba would always have some homemade treat at her home when we came for Sunday dinnner. She would ask if we would like to have some and then our mothers would always say..."no, no, no...it will spoil their dinner!" Well, Baba would tell them, "Let them eat while they are young because when they get old, they won't have the teeth or the stomach!!!" Now, how true is that!!

Sunday dinner was always the same at Baba's....chicken noodle soup (homemade noodles!), fried chicken, mashed potatoes, home canned corn, applesauce, pickles, coleslaw, homemade bread & butter and always the BEST apple pie (made from the tree's rejects)! I can still smell the food....someday I hope to smell it again because I know she is up there, with her family, in the "wash room" cooking!!

I hope to share with you (and have you share with me) some of my ol' tried and true, some new to me and whatever I may find along the way. I hope you enjoy it and if there are any errors, please know they are unintentional....so far, I'm just human....LOL!!

Baba's Halupky

1/2 Ground beef



1/2 Ground pork (or bulk breakfast sausage)

1 egg per pound of meat

1/3 cup Minute Rice per pound of meat (uncooked)

Onion, chopped (as much or as little as you like)

Mix this all up and refrigerate as you get the cabbage ready. Take the leaves off you cabbage, trim the thick vein and stack until you have them all off. I chop up the pieces that are too small to stuff and add them to the casserole that I put the halupky into.

Take your cabbage leaf, put  in meat mixture (judged by the size of the leaf, 1-3 tablespoons)at the broad end of the leaf. Fold the sides in and roll up to the other end, like an egg roll. You may need a tooth pick to hold it together (just be very sure to TAKE THEM OUT before serving!!)

There are many ways to handle this from here on out....some put the chopped up cabbage on the bottom of the casserole and some use sauerkraut. Lay the halupky on top whatever you use. I make mine in a very large roaster and I use both the chopped cabbage and drained sauerkraut. I layer the cabbage/kraut then the halupky and continue doing so until about 3/4 full, ending with cabbage/kraut on the top. You can use a can of tomato soup poured on top of everything, some use tomato sauce and some use nothing. Try it any way you want and you will find your taste.

You can bake this, covered, in the oven at 350* (time depends on how large a pan you're making, my guess would be 1 hour for a 9x13 pan;

cook it on the stove in a large pot, with lid, simmering until done (again, depends on size of the pot);

put them in a crock pot on Low for 8-10 hours;

use an 18 qt electric roaster and invite the neighborhood!!

I freeze mine before cooking them. Then I do the layering, when I am going to cook them, and put them in frozen and cook until done. Being frozen when I start they do take longer to cook, but they still come out DELICIOUS!!...and taste even better the next day!!

Enjoy, with God's blessings.....