Dinner With This Weeks Deals: Easy Cabbage Roll Casserole

I have shared my grandmother's delicious cabbage roll recipe with you guys before.  It's always been a new years tradition in my family to have her cabbage rolls.  On past New Year's I've made them myself, but it is a very time consuming, messy recipe to make, and yesterday I was home alone with the kids, and didn't think it would be wise to have my hands in raw meat for as long as it would have taken to get them stuffed and rolled.

I was chatting with my Aunt on facebook telling her that I didn't think I would be able to make them, and she suggested an alternative to the rolls, using the same ingredients in a sort of meat loaf type dish.

I decided to take that suggestion and go with it.

Ingredients:


half a green cabbage, chopped (can be as small or large as you like it)
1-1 1/2 lbs. ground beef, raw (or turkey should work)  *Use lean because it was a bit greasy.*
1-1 1/2 cups uncooked rice
1 can beef broth
1 can water (to cover rice)
1 can tomato sauce
season to taste

Directions:


Place chopped cabbage, crumbled ground beef, and rice into casserole dish.  Add seasonings and mix well by hand.

Before liquids are added, this is how it looked.

Pour in broth and water.  Pour tomato sauce on top.

Bake covered at 350 for about 1 hour or until rice is nearly cooked.  Uncovered and continue baking 15-20 minutes or until some of the water cooks off.

Fresh out of the oven.

It was delicious!

This was also a very inexpensive meal to make.

Cost Breakdown:
 1 1/2 lbs ground beef @ $1.69/lb = $2.53
*maybe 1lb. of cabbage @ 3lbs for $1 =  $0.33
1 can of tomato sauce @ 4 for $1 =  $0.25
1 can beef broth =  $0.49
rice, roughly half of a bag I got for $0.39 = $0.19

Total:  $3.79, and we will be having leftovers tonight, so that is just $1.90 per meal for a family of 4.