Unstuffed Cabbage Rolls (the real kind)

Here is my version of unstuffed cabbage rolls.  Cabbage rolls are supposed to be in a kind of sweet and sour tomato sauce and that other recipe didn't have that.  I worked this version out two nights ago for supper and it was so good.  

Ingredients:

1 1/2 pounds ground beef

1 large onion, chopped

1 small cabbage, chopped

28oz can crushed tomatoes

1/2 tsp salt

1/8 tsp ground black pepper

1/4 tsp garlic powder

1/8 tsp ground cloves

4 tbsp light brown sugar

3 tbsp lemon juice 

Preparation:

In a small stock pot, sauté ground beef and onions until ground beef is browned through, drain if needed.  Add chopped cabbage and sauté until cabbage starts to soften, about 3-5 minutes.  

Add tomatoes, salt, pepper, garlic powder, cloves, brown sugar.  Bring to simmer over medium high heat then reduce heat to low, stirring occasionally.  Add lemon juice.  Simmer for 20 to 30 minutes until cabbage is tender.  Serve over rice (and by rice, I mean good buttered rice).

[Notes: I say use a stock pot because my cabbage was probably more medium than small but we really like cabbage and cabbage is cheap and an excellent way to stretch a meal and make it huge.  But if your cabbage is actually small, a good big deep sided skillet would work.  And if cloves aren't your thing, nutmeg or even cinnamon would be good in this, too.  I use any of the three for regular cabbage rolls.]

Enjoy!!!  

July 11th and our Big Girl

This is not going to be perhaps the happiest of posts.  Not that I'm feeling that maudlin today, I just feel the need to note the day.  Well, note yesterday, that is.  Yesterday was July 11th.  Jay's bestest friend Rob's birthday (Muy Happy Birthday, Roberto (tardio)).  But its also the date that last year we found out that one of our babies was not going to stay here with us.  We didn't even know they were girls yet.  We had been hoping to find out on that day at St. Francis but instead the doctor saw something wrong.  His reaction was terrible.  I'm sure he's usually a good doctor but his bedside manner on that day was horrible.  He didn't tell us well and then made me feel like I was overreacting for instantly bursting into tears when he wanted to double check his diagnosis.  We did talk to our OB while in the office with the doctor in Cape.  My main question for him, and I remember exactly what I said, "I just don't see how the other can be fine if the one is...." and I trailed off.  He reassured me that we would find out more and do everything we could to make sure our other baby was healthy.  It would be another nine days until we would find out they were girls and it was Norah I was so worried about and Aislynn to whom we would say goodbye far too soon.

We sat in the hallway after the appointment.  I sobbed, Jay was fighting it back to be strong for me. I had to run back into the office to be sick in the bathroom.  The nurse who had been so wonderful while the doctor was so terrible came in and basically held me upright while my world shattered and came up from my stomach.  Her name we Betsy and she even called that evening, after she was off work, just to make sure we had made it home okay.

The following days and weeks were just survival and doctor's appointments.  We found such support during that time.  Our doctor opened his heart to us and helped us see that everything we were feeling was fine.  One of my unexpected breakdown moments came the following Monday.  Our doctor's appointment with Dr. Meyer, our wonderful OB, had been on a Friday.  I got a phone call on my way home from work on Monday from Dr. Meyer's nurse, Jen, saying that my ketones had been too high on Friday and she wanted me to come in right then to have that tested.  If they were still so high, I would need IV fluids and have to stay there for at least a few hours.  I lost it.  For those playing the home game, when the body is not being fed enough carbohydrates, it starts digesting body fat.  Ketones are the byproduct of that process and are very bad for growing babies.  And I felt like I may have been further harming my poor babies.  My ketones were actually fine when they tested them and Jen let me cry for a while sitting outside the lab room while she just sat there.

I'm not sure why I suddenly found the need to recount those days for you.  Hope you don't mind.  I wasn't as sad yesterday as I was afraid I would be.  Its not only that I miss Aislynn, and oh my do I miss my girl.  I also miss that feeling before we knew.  Before we knew how bittersweet having our girls would be.

But how do we carry on?  We carry on by taking care of what Aislynn gave us: Norah, our huge healthy girl.  When I last weighed her at my mom's house for the purposes of figuring out Tylenol dosage, she was 21 lbs.  Dude, right?  And because when we registered for a car seat we had no idea to check for weight limits, we are now looking at buying a new one that will convert to forward facing when she is ready for that.  On my birthday, Monday I walked into the living room, having been summoned by my fussy girl's displeasure at my absence, and I find this child sitting up.  Like sitting up on her own, having gotten that way on her own.  She is doing this kind of side-winder scooting crawl thing to move around the room and had been half sitting, propped up on one arm thing for a while.  But now today she is acting like sitting is no big deal.  Have we had some head thumps on the floor?  Yes.  We have even christened the entertainment center with a good head thump.  But she is sitting up.  I am very proud.  Even though I know she hasn't really grown that much in the last week but she looks so much bigger sitting up on her own with her two teeth and silly sounds.  Aislynn must be so proud of her sister.  Jay and I sure are.