Hello beautiful foodie friends! I hope your weekend treated you well with yummy food, good company, and a relaxing day.

It has been quite slow on my blog for the past months because of a few reasons. My parents finally launched their NEW website. Super excited to share with you and mostly for those who appreciate lavender. 🙂 We have many great products listed on the website and we make everything by hand using our very own lavender plants.

Friends of the Earth Lavender Website 

I have been working on my next cookbook which I noticed has taken a  very long time to put together but this time I am putting in so much thought into the category sections. I wanted to get some feedback from YOU and ask what 5 Greek recipes would you like to see in my second cookbook? (It can be anything from sweet to savory.) Please feel free to comment below and I will be really happy to hear your ideas and comments.

The ideas have been flowing the past months to do a take on Back To My Roots # 2 but a book that will be about 200 pages. My other idea was to do a book on Greek seasonal cooking and I already have a name for that book. 🙂 I want to do my best to provide a unique cookbook but one that has simple recipes that anyone can make.

Today was kind of an emotional day because we were cleaning out our backyard and I found a suitcase that belongs to my yiayia. Those who know the history of my blog will understand how important my yiayia is to me. Inside the suitcase, you guys won’t even believe what I found! I found tons and tons of photos mostly when I was a baby in Greece and my yiayias dress! So here is the crazy part to the story. Most people who knew my yiayia tell me I resemble her almost 100 %. I took one look at her dress and it just felt right to try it on! You wouldn’t believe that her dress fits me PERFECTLY! I immediately went outside to show my parents and I could feel a sense of sadness in my father’s eyes but at the same time, I believe he was happy to see me in that dress.

Okay so the next posts to come you will see me in my yiayias beautiful blue dress and I will share some photos of Greece with you. Not only did this day turn around for me, but it just made me think how beautiful it is to be able to share this moment with my family and my friends.

Okay okay, let’s get to the recipe!! Lahanodolmades it is today on the blog.

What is lahanodolmades??

Greek stuffed cabbage rolls typically filled with minced meat filling and rice. These can also be vegetarian style. Now, these are usually served in the Fall or Winter but since we had cabbage I made them. 🙂

You guys remember dolmades? (Stuffed grape leaves?) Well, this is almost the same exact process but instead of using grape leaves you use cabbage. This recipe is very common in the Greek culture and actually in many other cultures as well.

I typically serve my lahanodolmades in a creamy avgolemono sauce or tzatziki sauce.

I must say when I made these the other night, I made the BEST avgolemono sauce ever. Keep in mind if you are making stuffed cabbage leaves and you want to serve with avgolemono sauce then the sauce must be on the thicker side. You don’t want wet soggy cabbage leaves. Read below for this delicious recipe!

Lahanodolmades 

Stuffed Cabbage Rolls with Avgolemono Sauce

Ingredients:

• 1 package of ground beef
• 1 small white onion diced
• 1 leek, diced
• 2 garlic cloves
• 1/4 cup of basmati rice
• 2 tablespoons of fresh dill and fresh basil
• 1 pinch of anise seed
• 2 tablespoons of chopped parsley
• 1 large white or red cabbage
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Salt & Pepper for taste

Creamy Avgolemono Sauce

Ingredients:

• 6 tablespoons of olive oil
• 4 tablespoons of all-purpose flour
• 2 eggs
• 2 lemons juiced

Directions:

1. In a large bowl mix together the ground beef and the rest of the 10 ingredients making sure everything is combined.
2. Remove the core from the cabbage with a paring knife. Place a large pot of water over medium-high heat. Place cabbage inside water and boil one side for 7 minutes, and another side for an additional 7 minutes. You want to make sure the cabbage leaves are tender enough so you can roll them. (Reserve the cabbage water.)
3. Place cabbage into an ice bath to cool down. Remove leaves and lay them on a large plate lined with paper towels.  You want to pat each cabbage leaf dry so that it’s easy to place the meat filling inside.
4. Add about a tablespoon of the meat filling to 1 cabbage leaf at a time. Exactly as you would fill a grape leaf, you would do the same with the cabbage leaf. Start the filling at the center bottom of the leaf, and fold the cabbage like an envelope. showed you a diagram of my dolmades below to follow.

5. Once you filled all your cabbage rolls, then it’s time to cook them! Now you have a few options here. You can cook them the traditional way which would be inside a large pot with a few leaves covering the bottom of the pot to prevent the rolls from burning.  Or if you own an Instant Pot or rice cooker you can easily cook your cabbage rolls in there. That will cut your time in half and it’s super easy too.
6.  Let’s stick to the traditional way for now.  Once you place 3 or 4 cabbage leaves on the inside bottom of the pot then place the rolls around the pot making sure the rolls fit nicely and tight next to each other so they don’t move. Pour the cabbage water over the rolls. Place 3 lemon slices over the rolls along with a drizzle of olive oil and some salt.
7.  Place an inverted plate over the rolls that way when they cook they don’t move around. Bring to a boil over high heat. Once the mixture starts to boil reduce the heat to low and cook for about 50 minutes to an hour. I like my rolls Al dente so I usually go about 40-50 minutes. Remove from heat and set rolls aside. (Reserve about 1 cup of cabbage stock.

See the pictures below for the rolling method. I used grape leaves as an example.

Creamy Avgolemono Sauce

1. In a small pot over medium heat whisk together the olive oil and flour until it forms a paste.
2. Cook for about 1 minute and then add the cabbage stock and whisk to combine. Remove from heat, and prepare the eggs.
3. Whisk the eggs together until light and foamy.
4. Gently add the hot cabbage broth to the eggs making sure to whisk fast enough not to break the eggs.
5. Add the lemon juice and seasoning, and whisk to combine. Your sauce should be creamy and slightly tangy.

**To serve place 3 or 4 cabbage rolls on a plate and drizzle the avgolemono sauce over the top. Sprinkle dried or fresh dill over the plate.

Kali Orexi!