A Little Recipe Love and Sweet Freedom a la Mode by Jennifer Hallmark

Don’t you just love recipes passed down through the generations? I do, and I’m thrilled that Jennifer Hallmark was willing to share this recipe today. Check out…Halupki or Stuffed Cabbage Rolls


One of my favorite dishes Mom makes for the family is halupki. It was passed down from her mother. When Mom was a child, her mother, Lena, would rise early, cooking for a houseful of children. She would go to the slaughterhouse for fresh ground beef. As Grandma mixed the ground beef and rice, Grandpa would sneak bites of the raw beef mixture, certainly not recommended today. Grandma harvested cabbage from her garden across the road from the house. Enjoy!

Halupki or Stuffed Cabbage Rolls
Yield: Serves 8

2 ½ pounds lean ground beef
1 medium onion, diced
1 pound bacon, cut small
1 pound cooked rice
Salt, pepper, Nature Seasoning, to taste

Sauce
1 can tomato paste
1 can tomato sauce
2 tablespoons vinegar
Wash rice, cook only ten minutes. Drain excess water, rinse, then set aside. Fry bacon and onion until golden brown. Drain excess oil.

Put rice in large mixing bowl. Mix in ground beef, bacon and onions and mix well; add seasonings. Set aside.

Cut cabbage, core out about two inches deep and place head of cabbage in boiling water to steam until leaves can be removed easily. Repeat until you remove all cabbage leaves that are big enough to roll. Line the bottom of a large pot with leaves you don’t use.

Scoop filling and place in leave, tucking in ends and rolling. Pack stuffed cabbage in pot, then fill with sauce, adding hot water until barely covered. Place a plate on top, weighted down to keep stuffed cabbage from floating. Cook on medium low for an hour. Good served with hot sauce or ketchup.
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Sweet Freedom a la mode
Sweet Freedom a La Mode
For some, the fourth of July is a celebration of freedom; for others it is a reminder of bondage. Of pain. Of fear. Of hopelessness. But there is a hope that is deeper, a love that is truer, and a freedom that no one can ever snatch away. 

These pages contain numerous stories: a woman longing to start again but bound by the failures of her past; a young man who, upon reaching adulthood, must face his fears of death; a woman offered a chance of true love but held back by crippling insecurities. 

Is God even there? Does He care…enough to reach down and pull these men and women from the messes they’ve landed in, some of them by their own hand? 

Freedom. Peace-saturated, joy-infusing freedom. 

Jennifer Hallmark
Meet Jennifer Hallmark: writer by nature, artist at heart, and daughter of God by His grace. She loves to read detective fiction from the Golden Age, watch movies like LOTR, and play with her two precious granddaughters. At times, she writes. Jennifer and her husband, Danny, have spent their married life in Alabama and have a basset hound, Max.

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