Cabbage Soup

 An updated version of an old favorite

You'll need:
A pound or so of  ground beef
Small head of cabbage
A potato or two, cubed
Onion, sliced
1 cup Celery, sliced
1 cup Carrot, sliced
Garlic clove, minced
Canned tomatoes, including juice
Tomato paste, 2 Tablespoons
1 Tablespoon Pepper
1 Teaspoon Parsley
Crushed Red pepper or cayenne to taste
Beef bouillon appropriate to your amount of water. 

Brown your ground beef, skin away fat
Add water, bouillon and everything else

Allow to simmer for a couple hours or until the vegetables are tender. 

Gather ingredients

Brown beef

 Break up the beef as it cooks. 

Add onions

Chops your vegetables

Add to the pot as you get them done.

Cut cabbage into spoon friendly size. 

Add to the pot.

Add water to cover.

Stir it up to combine everything. 

Add bouillon to the water. 

 The tomatoes here only come whole when canned. 

So I'm breaking them up by hand. 

Pour tomatoes into the pot. 

Juice and everything goes in. 

 Tomato paste. 

  Upon tasting, I thought it needed a little kick, so in goes crushed red pepper. 

When tasting to adjust flavor, if you feel it needs salt, add bouillon instead. 

Yum!! It's so chock full of veggies it is very satisfying, 
almost more like a stew than soup! 

Russian Pirozhki

This is a recipe given to me by my friend Bill Frisch way back when I was in college. RIP Mr. Bill.

PLAIN poppin' can biscuits (20) - the plainest you can find. Nothing layered or special buttery
4 Tablespoons butter
3 cups chopped onion
1.5lb. lean ground beef
3 hard cooked eggs
3 Tablespoon dill
2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
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Melt butter and saute onion until soft, add meat and break up as it cooks.

As the meat cooks, roll out the biscuits into circles, roughly 4 inches wide. Use flour as needed to keep from sticking.

Chop the eggs well. When meat is done, mix together. Add spices. Preheat oven to 400*.

Re-stretch circles if you need to. Put a scant less than 1/4 cup of meat mixture into each circle and seal. Crimp edges with a fork.

Lay side by side on a buttered cookie sheet or a baking stone (no buttering needed there). Bake about 20 minutes or until nicely browned. You can also deep fry them, if you'd prefer.

Eat plain or dip in horseradish sauce. Yum! Recipe makes 20 large pirozhki. These are big too, with side dishes, 2 or 3 is enough for a meal.

Good cold too! Easy pack and go lunch!

Hard Boil some eggs.

Cook your meat with onions, breaking it up small. 

Simple Pop Can biscuits.

Roll them out with a little flour, so they don't get too sticky.

Try to keep them round. 

About 4 inches, 10cm wide.

Roll out the whole package of biscuits. 

Finely chop the hard boiled eggs.

Keep going...

That's about right!

When meat is done, mix in the eggs and spices. 

A little less than 1/4 cup for each biscuit round.

Fold over to match ends of circle.

Seal with a fork.

Looks nice!

Bake on parchment paper, baking stone or buttered cookie sheet. 

I like to brush them with a little melted butter to make them look pretty. 

Delicious!

Grandpa's Quick and Simple Chili

For dinner tonight, we won't be going any place fancy. We'll be going back to my childhood. Come along for the meal. :)

1 - 1.5lb. ground beef
2 15oz. cans kidney beans, including liquid
2 15oz. cans tomato sauce
2 cans tomato soup
1 onion, chopped
oil
1 garlic clove
1 Tablespoon crushed red pepper flakes
1 teaspoon each: sweet basil flakes, oregano, cumin
1/2 teaspoon cayenne powder
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Gently saute onion and garlic in about a tablespoon oil in a dutch oven. Once the onion is translucent, add the ground beef and cook until no pink remains. 

As the meat cooks, open all the cans, measure out your spices.

When meat is cooked, add canned goods (including liquids) and spices. Mix well. Bring to a simmer and cover. Allow to cook till heated through or until everyone is ready to eat. Stir every so often to keep it from sticking to the pot bottom. You can leave this on to simmer for a couple hours or more, easily. It gets better and better. 

Everything but the beef comes out of the pantry...

Onion and garlic saute in a bit of oil in the pot.

After the onion softens, add the beef.

Continue cooking and breaking ground beef apart until it's completely cooked and no pink remains.

As the beef cooks, open all the canned goods. Measure out all your spices. Have them ready to go. P.S. I used one can kidney beans and one can black beans. Feel free to adjust to the moment.

Don't the spices look pretty? :)

Once the meat is completely cooked, add all the canned goods. Pour in beans, with juice.

All the canned goods poured in.

Add a little salt.

Spices go next. 

Swoop... in they go! :)

Stir the spices in well.

Looks good, but it needs some heat. Let it come to a simmer...

Put the cover on and simmer it for as long you need to. If you can eat right way, it's done. I make this every year on Halloween. If it needs to wait while everyone goes trick-or-treating, it'll stay hot while you wait. :)

As the evening goes on, everyone can eat as they are ready to. The pot will stay hot and the chili only gets better as the time wears on. It's even better the day after! Enjoy!