I’m not sure what possessed me to do cabbage this week, but with a recipe called Contest-Winning Cajun Cabbage, I couldn’t resist adapting it. This recipe came from Bobbie Soileu at Taste of Home. I would describe the original recipe as a Cajun style cabbage roll, deconstructed. I love a great take on cabbage rolls. If you don’t like cabbage rolls, you don’t know what you’re missing. One thing I thought when I entered this recipe into my calculator was that it would be higher in calories with a lot of vitamin C. I was right about the vitamin C part. The calories were a lot lower than I thought. The sodium is nearly 1000mg per serving. It’s also tomato-based. If you can handle the tomatoes, I would say to keep them in. Just use a low sodium variety of canned tomatoes and sauce. But you know we are going to change that. Here are the original stats:
- 348 Calories
- 16g Fat
- 68g Cholesterol
- 931mg Sodium
- 449mg Potassium
- 29g Carbohydrate
- 25g Protein
- 22% Vitamin A
- 140% Vitamin C
- 23% Calcium
- 19% Iron
The calories are ok. The vitamin A needs to be raised and the sodium lowered, but that’s it. I will use up some meat I have in the freezer. A friend of ours who bags a least one deer every year (unlike the main character in Escanaba in da Moonlight) gave us some ground venison. I will be using this instead of the beef. Here are the changes I made:
- I exchanged the ground beef for ground venison.
- I replaced the diced tomatoes with green chilies with fresh jalapenos and diced red bell pepper.
- I replaced the tomato sauce with a can of pure pumpkin puree.
- I deleted the added salt.
- I replaced the white rice with brown rice.
- I deleted the Colby cheese.
- I made this in a slow cooker versus the oven.
One final note, you want to chop the cabbage instead of shred it for this recipe. The reason being the shredded cabbage may cook down too far and disappear. You definitely want to see and taste the cabbage. I chopped the cabbage into around one inch pieces.
Here are the final stats:
- 286 Calories
- 7g Fat
- 253g Cholesterol
- 96mg Sodium
- 675mg Potassium
- 32g Carbohydrate
- 25g Protein
- 175% Vitamin A
- 201% Vitamin C
- 10% Calcium
- 24% Iron
Here is the final recipe:
Cajun Cabbage – Your Level Best Style
Serves 8
- 1 pound ground venison
- 1 medium green pepper, chopped
- 1 medium red bell pepper, chopped
- 1 medium onion, chopped
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 fresh jalapeno
- 1 15oz can pure pumpkin puree
- 1/2 cup uncooked long grain brown rice
- 1 cup water
- 1/2 teaspoon dried basil
- 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon each white, black and cayenne pepper
- 4 to 6 drops hot pepper sauce
- 1 small head cabbage, chopped
- In a skillet, cook the venison, bell pepper, onion and garlic over medium heat until meat is no longer pink; drain.
- Add the ground venison mixture to a slow cooker. Stir in jalapeno, pumpkin, rice, water, seasonings and hot sauce.
- Add in the cabbage. Cover and cook for 4-5 hours on low.
Your Level Best 