Remember my epic cabbage roll day? This is what I was kind of going for, only the cabbages at my local Wally World (where cabbage prices were the least expensive in my neighbourhood) were huge, so I only got one. Turns out I could have used a second cabbage because I had enough ingredients to double the recipe. Oh well.
This meal was interesting because I actually found a decent real butcher at Guildford Meats in the Guildford Mall. Great find! The butcher ground me up some fresh ground pork and even had something on hand called "bacon #2" which appeared to be the ends and scraps from bacon. It was a great price so I got half a pound.
Again, I kept track of pricing.
3/4 lb ground pork = $2.67
3/4 of 1/2 lb of bacon #2 = $1.82
1 large cabbage (the sucker weighed over 4.5lbs!) $2.17
green pepper = $0.49
1 large can Heinz tomato juice $2.87
3/4 lb ground beef (1 lb = $3 at Wally World) = $2/25
rice, salt & pepper, and onions = I have no idea
total price excluding rice, salt & pepper, and onions = $12.27
I got 16 cabbage rolls, so that equals $0.76/roll or 8 servings at $1.53/serving.
I basically followed the method I got from Mr. Anchovy, which is outlined in the epic cabbage roll post. Turns out I should have re-read that post before starting out because I had the same issue with mushy rice that I did that last time, and that really disappointed me. Next time, par-cooked or raw rice! Also, I found the tomato juice too thin as a sauce...Next time I might do a tomato juice-tomato sauce combination for a slightly thicker, richer sauce.
All in all, not bad, but definitely needs improvement. I was actually going to skip the bacon, but I'm glad I didn't because it adds such great flavour to the rolls.
My freezer is looking a little more full these days, which is a good thing!
