A Day in the Kitchen

Yesterday was one of those days when I got motivated to cook. I got a deal on yellow Hungarian peppers, so I thought I'd make stuffed peppers. Then that became stuffed peppers and cabbage rolls, and then that became sweedish meatballs, and canned lecso as well. My daughter took a little caption of some of the ingredients sitting on my counters. Believe me this was just a small portion of the mess in my kitchen. I had to core the peppers, slice the onions, and peppers for the lecso, cook the cabbage to make into leaves, and precook the rice partially. I minced garlic fresh from my garden, and so on and so forth. Started at 8 am and finished around 8pm. Now I have enough dishes in my freezer in the event I cannot cook during my hip replacement surgery. I also had some food to share with my son -in law who ate 4 cabbage rolls right away with some sour cream. Apparently, there are no weddings, or Christmas without cabbage rolls in Hungary. I did not know this until I watched a video to glean even more tips on making the best cabbage rolls ever. I still think that my method is the best, learned from a Hungarian chef. Some of my secrets include parboiling the rice,, cooking the cabbage in water with a little vinegar in it, and using sweet and washed out sauerkraut at the same time. Here is the closest recipe to what I use, but it isn't exactly the same. When I heard that my Hungarian relatives make 200 jars of Lecso every year, I was inspired to put some in jars myself this year. I made about 10 jars, but it is something that totally makes sense to have on hand during the winter months when peppers, and tomatoes are hard to come by. These 3 simple ingredients, peppers, tomatoes and onions make the staple for spaghetti sauce, chili, soups and many other dishes.
Today was another interesting day, when I could showcase my cooking to one of my daughters new friend. He wanted to meet me, so I obliged.