Unstuffed Cabbage, or Cabbage Unrolls

I'm married to one of the pickiest eaters in America, which has made it all the more important to me to present our children with a variety of tastes and textures early on in an effort to keep their culinary horizons broad.  Thankfully, he agrees with my mission and has agreed to some very important rules:

1. Dad is not allowed to sneer at, say "Ew!" to or otherwise show any signs of revulsion to any food he is presented with.
2. Dad is not allowed to suggest in any way that vegetables are disgusting.
3. If the baby looks a little less than enthused with a first bite of a new food, Dad is not allowed to say, "I know, that's gross!" or sympathize in a manner suggesting that a second bite should be completely shunned.

So long as he applies these three simple rules to mealtime, my job is easy:  Cook without stereotypes.  That means to cook without stereotyping my child or the food.  One vegetable that I notice receives more undeserved hatred than most is cabbage.  I've heard it described as "Mushy," which immediately leads me to believe that those who primarily don't like cabbage have only had it poorly prepared, and are primarily children.  Though I can assure you that picky adults even think they don't like cabbage, despite having it shredded and added to salads for his lunch sometimes...

Cabbage could easily be described as a super-food.  It's full of antioxidants, it has anti-inflammatory properties, it's full of powerful enzymes that help keep your digestive tract healthy, and has been the subject of many studies regarding it's anti-cancer benefits.  Full of Vitamins A, K and C, folate and fiber, cabbage should be a normal part of anybody's diet.

Introduction to Cabbage

Up until today, my daughter has never had cabbage.  The opportunity never seemed to arise, and I'm sure in my earlier days of motherhood full of worry, I came up with the potential for gas as a reason not to give it to her.

I decided today to introduce it with a take on one of my favorite classics, stuffed cabbage. Stuffed cabbage traditionally contains a filling of beef and rice or barley with onions, wrapped in a boiled cabbage leaf and finished in a casserole dish with tomato sauce.  As it is primarily a Central European dish, it's not unusual to have it served with potatoes of some kind.

In making it baby-friendly, I tried to keep a fairly even ratio of meat to grains and cabbage, whereas you would normally get a large portion of meat in an adult version.  I prepared brown rice for the filling, but because my pans are horrible and let out too much steam apparently, it burned ten minutes before it should have even been done cooking, so I used whole wheat noodles in place of it.  I mashed a potato with butter and whole milk and served the Unstuffed Cabbage over it.  

Like my Inside-Out Ravioli, preparing pocketed foods for babies is the best, because you don't really have to stuff anything, but you still get the spirit of the dish!  

Unstuffed Cabbage, or Cabbage Unrolls

Ingredients

Half of a small yellow onion, chopped (the very small variety that fit in the palm of your hand)

Quarter of a small clove of garlic, diced

Equal portions of ground beef and prepared brown rice

A few good-sized leaves of cabbage

Tomato sauce, a low-salt commercial variety or homemade

Tiny sprinkle of pepper

Small pat of butter

Technique

1.  Melt the butter over medium heat in a pan, and then add the onions to caramelize, stirring often.  When they start to become golden, add the garlic.  Don't cook too much longer, as burnt garlic is horrifically bitter. Remove from heat, drain and set aside.

2.  Wipe remaining grease from your pan, and then brown your ground beef.  Sprinkle with a tiny bit of pepper, or any other spice you'd like to introduce your baby too.  Keep it extremely subtle, however, and do not add salt.  Drain your beef, and set it aside with your prepared brown rice.

3.  You can prepare the cabbage one of two ways:  Steaming or boiling.  Steaming maintains the most nutrients and enzymes and is the superior option, however.  Do not overcook, but cook it enough so that it's tender.  When this is done, set it aside as well. 

4.  Dice all your components - you don't have to use all the onions if it looks like too much. You can dice it all together, or do it separately.  I prefer to dice the beef separately to ensure that the pieces are small enough that she can chew them, and then dice everything else and mix it all together.

5.  Spoon the mixture back into the pan, add enough tomato sauce to moisten it up, and heat through.  Don't heat it too much; cooking in such small amounts and then dicing them cools your ingredients off quite quickly and you just want to warm them with the sauce.  Give it a quick taste to make sure it's not too warm, and then spoon over a small mashed potato and serve.

My daughter absolutely loved her first taste of Cabbage Unrolls, and when the bowl was empty, she kept pointing to it and looking at me with a huge grin on her face.  For her, that means "I want more!" and for me, that means "We have a winner!"

The Baby Pantry: Peas

Peas On Earth, Good Will Toward Man

I always took this tiny green orb for granted, thinking of it in terms of novelty more than nutrition - a cute little dash of color swimming through the gravy of a chicken pot pie, a crunchy snack with each little wrinkle full of snow-white wasabi, a bowl of bright green pebbles at the salad bar that I'd always consider but never actually spoon over my lettuce.

It wasn't until I was deciding what vegetables I'd first like to introduce to my daughter that I actually gave the pea a little more consideration, and what I learned was pretty impressive.  So much so that the first vegetable I ever pureed for my daughter, and the first solid she received after mastering rice cereal, was the not-so-simple pea.

I purchased a bag of organic frozen peas and quickly boiled them, then pureed them with a little of the cooking water.  Lovingly, I ran them through a strainer to weed out the tough skins and I marveled at the smooth, beautiful bright green paste that remained.  The smell was sweet and earthy, the taste was fresh and sunny.  It had been a long time since I tasted the pure flavor of a pea, unencumbered by butter and salt, molested not by gravy or sauce, and it was marvelous.  Peas, indeed, are underrated.

While she eats peas happily now, Evelyn did not agree with me at the time and she grimaced as the first spoonful settled on her tongue.  Choking it down, she tentatively opened her mouth for a second bite, and then proceeded to cry when she received it.  I really should have considered the flavor when making my decision for a first vegetable.  We moved on to summer squash.

The Mighty Pea

Though your infant may not like peas initially, especially if he's given commercial peas which are overcooked and taste like tin and disappointment, don't discount them yet.  Your baby will learn to either like them or at least tolerate them over time as more flavors are introduced and his palette becomes more refined, and it will be well worth it for the nutritional value.

In two tablespoons of peas alone, your infant receives more than 100% the daily recommended intake of Vitamins A & K, a quarter of the recommended intake for folate, and roughly 20% of the recommended intake for magnesium and phosphorus, as well as providing some Vitamin C, iron and potassium.  Throw in a little dietary fiber, and who knew that little unassuming pea was so healthy?  

Keep Them Around

The next best thing to fresh is frozen when it comes to vegetables.  Sometimes, frozen is even better than fresh when you consider how long it may take to transport fresh vegetables to your grocery store, a trip in which they can quickly lose many important nutrients.  I would suggest getting fresh peas when you can, but always keep a few bags of frozen peas in the freezer - they cook up quick and can be added to nearly anything.

Don't use canned peas.  In fact, pretend that you don't know what a can is when it comes to vegetables.  Not only is the flavor bland and tinny, but there is hardly any nutrition to be had in overcooked canned vegetables.

Ideas, or "Ipeas"

Peas make a great single-ingredient puree for younger infants.  Simply boil or steam fresh or frozen peas until tender, then puree in a blender.  Press through a strainer to remove the skins, which are too tough and chunky for the gummier variety of baby to eat.  Use the puree by itself, mix with a favorite infant cereal, or add to other vegetables or meat.  There is a lot that can be done with a simple puree.  If you make too much, freeze it - you can always plop a cube or two into your soup for some added vegetable nutrition.

As your infant gets older, and gets some teeth, peas can be cooked and diced/mashed with a fork and added to nearly anything.  Mix them into mashed potatoes, serve them with noodles and a little Parmesan cheese, or simply add to them to a mixed vegetable side along with a grain and a protein.

Let's face it - peas have difficulty being the star of a dish, but that doesn't mean it isn't possible.  I am loathe to give a recipe including actual measurements, as that simply isn't how I cook (I'm a "taste as you go and it'll be great" kind of cook), but I can offer up for your experimentation a twist on the traditional pesto:

Green Pea Pesto

Simply add Parmesan cheese, garlic, a little lemon juice, a little basil and a tiny bit of pepper to cooked peas in a ratio that tastes good to you but that wouldn't be too strong for your little one and blend it together with a little drizzle of oil.  These ingredients are best saved for older babies, a year of age or more.  Remember to taste it as you go with a clean spoon to make sure the flavors aren't too strong - what might be sort of bland to you won't be to your baby.  Serve this with small pasta shapes, diced whole-wheat spaghetti or brown rice for a tasty baby dinner, or smear onto some whole-wheat toast with some cheese melted on top for older children.