Mr. Mom's Beef, Cabbage & Garbanzo Hot Dish

The other day I found myself wanting something that wasn't "too meaty" (my youngest daughter's term), which kind of morphed into a craving for stuffed grape leaves, a/k/a dolmades. But the grocery store here doesn't carry the ready-made kind, and I didn't have the patience to try making them myself.

So I thought about what goes into them: rice, meat, garbanzo beans, chopped tomatoes and some spices. It dawned on me that there's no reason I couldn't just combine all of those things into something else for dinner: a hot dish, or as they call that elsewhere, a casserole.

One of the things I do when I want to make something I haven't made before is go online and look at a bunch of different recipes, then combine the parts I like into something that sounds good. It almost always works.

And while this recipe does have meat in it, I have it on good authority that it's not "too meaty," a subjective analysis performed by Sarah at the dinner table. For my vegetarian daughter Rose, there's no reason you couldn't swap in Morningstar crumbles for the ground beef. (And for my carnivorous daughter Emily, we'll get to big chunks of meat on the grill another time.)

Anyway, I realized after I got it made that I'd kinda wandered away from the stuffed grape leaves inspiration, so I went back later and figured out a few additional flavors that might work. It tasted great as I made it—Kathleen even allowed as to how she's starting to like cabbage (!!!)—but CAUTION: I have not made it with the the parsley, cilantro and lemon juice yet. (I will and it sounds good, but you never really know until you actually taste it.)

Okay, enough yapping. Here's what I came up with for my beef, garbanzo and cabbage hot dish:

INGREDIENTS
    1 lb. ground beef (or lamb, if you want to get tricky)
    2 cups cooked rice
    ½ head of cabbage
    1 cup chopped onions
    2 cloves minced garlic
    1 can garbanzo beans
    1 can diced tomatoes (the garlic/olive oil kind)
    1 tsp. salt
    ½ tsp. pepper
    1 tsp. oregano
    ½ tsp. ground cumin

Some possible additions to make this into a "Dolmades Casserole"—sounds kinda fancy, huh?—aiming for the stuffed grape leaves flavors:
    ½ bunch fresh parsley, chopped fine
    ¼ bunch fresh cilantro, chopped fine
    2 Tbsp. lemon juice

    Heck, you probably could swap grape leaves (you can get them in a jar, soaked in brine) for the cabbage as well. Rinse 'em good first, though, or leave out the salt! (Edited Sept. 30: Grape leaves = BAD idea! They taste good, but they're too tough to put in a hot dish, even chopped up pretty fine. I'll be sticking with cabbage. The seasonings, on the other hand, were great!)

DIRECTIONS
1. Preheat oven to 350° F.
2. Brown ground beef in a little olive oil
3. Stir in onions and garlic. Cook until the onions start to get transparent.
4. Add the rest of the ingredients, with the cabbage and rice last. Stir until heated all the way through.
5. Add a little Swiss cheese, stir until melted, then everything pour into a casserole lined with breadcrumbs. Sprinkle the top with more bread crumbs and more Swiss, then bake uncovered for 35 minutes or until the cheese is melted and the breadcrumbs browned.

Hummus, pita chips and whiskey for sides.

Mentioning the whiskey reminds me: This time around, I was going to complain about distillers changing the designs of a couple of my favorite liquor bottles. It's still a sore point, but I guess I'll get around to it another time.