Stuffed Red Cabbage Leaves with...

Shannon W. has a daily "Stump The Cook" article in which she posts 5 ingredients and you must come up with a meal. I love doing these. They're a lot of fun and I love being creative with food.

I will admit that I have not tried all of these recipes, but every now and then I come up with one that just begs for me to go home and put it together. Shannon says I should be posting these. Someone else said I ought to put them together for a cookbook. I might just do that.

But today's recipe just made me hungry. So I decided it needed to be a post all its own.

Stuffed Red Cabbage Leaves with Ginger-Lemongrass Puree and Broiled Asparagus

You will need the following ingredients:

1 lb ground lamb/beef mixture or any mixture of ground meat that you prefer
shallots

fresh ginger

one small/medium whole red cabbage

fresh lemon grass

(Rice-A-Roni or some other brand) boxed wild rice mi

minced garlic

olive oil

salt

pepper

asparagus spears

Directions:

Prepare the wild rice mix according to package directions and set aside.

For the Ginger-Lemon Grass Puree you will need

1/2 cup of chopped lemon grass

2 tablespoons chopped shallots

1 tablespoon of chopped ginger

1 1/2 to 2 teaspoons of minced garlic - according to your taste. I like a lot of garlic.

1/2 cup of olive oil

salt and peper to taste (about 1/4 tsp of each would be fine)

Puree in a blender. Set aside.

Clean your cabbage and carefully remove the leaves from the main stem. In a bowl of boiling hot water with just a pinch of salt added, blanch the leaves just until they are soft and easy to work with. Set the softened leaves aside in a colander to drain.

Brown the ground lamb/beef mixture in a skillet. Remove from the pan when done and drain well. While the skillet is hot, quickly stir-fry a half cup each of finely chopped shallots and lemongrass along with a pinch of the minced garlic.

In a large bowl combine the beef/lamb, wild rice mix and the carmelized onions and lemon grass. Mix well.

Spoon bout three tablespoons of the meat mixture onto separated, blanched red cabbage leaves, roll up, being sure tuck the sides in and secure with a toothpick.

Place each roll in a foil-lined baking pan. Drizzle with olive oil. Bake in the oven at 350 for about 20 minutes. Remove from the oven.

Turn the oven on broil. Place the asparagus stalks on a broiler rack, separated, drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with a small amount of salt and peper. Place in the broiler for two minutes on each side.

Serve the cabbage rolls topped with the Ginger-lemongrass puree with the asparagus on the side.

If you like, serve with a soft, warm crusty bread.