It Was An Excellent Plan...

Race for the Cure Results: Okay, so I didn't make 30 minutes, but I wasn't too far off. I completed the Race for the Cure 5k in 37 minutes, 19 seconds. Yes, I know that's a really big spread for a 5k, but it was my first one ever, and I learned from the experience. More importantly, almost a million dollars was raised for breast cancer research and awareness. That's. Just. Awesome!

Now, onto the food...



I had this great idea this week about writing about two entries. Just as I was getting ready to cook tonight, though, my husband says to me, "Hey, honey, what do you think about me letting you loose in Bed, Bath, and Beyond while I go shop for football gloves? I'll buy you Starbucks..." Admittedly, that's not exactly how the conversation went, but that's what it came to. How could I say no??? That being the case, I only have one recipe for you folks this week.

Cabbage Soup

• 1 cup chopped celery
• 1 cup chopped onion
• 1 medium head cabbage, chopped
• 8 cups water
• 1 beef bouillon cube
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 2 teaspoons pepper
• 1-1/2 pounds ground beef, browned and drained
• 2 cans (15 ounces each) tomato sauce
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
• 1/4 cup ketchup

• In a large Dutch oven or soup kettle, cook the celery, onion and cabbage in water until tender. Add bouillon, salt, pepper, beef and tomato sauce. Bring to a boil; reduce heat and simmer 10 minutes. Stir in brown sugar and ketchup; simmer another 10 minutes or until heated through. Yield: 16-20 servings (5 quarts).

This recipe search came about because I had a bunch of random ingredients that I needed to use--cabbage and ham mainly.

Sidenote: Does anyone know of any website or anything that lets you input what ingredients you have and then get recipes that include those ingredients?

As I said, I had ham, so I used that instead of ground beef. Also, the ham was already sweet, so I cut out the brown sugar. Finally, I've tried recipes before that combine cabbage, tomato sauce, and sausage, and the tomato sauce just tasted terrible in those dishes, so I cut it out too. I also added a little extra something...accidentally. I don't know what was wrong with me that day, but I ended up adding two tablespoons instead of two teaspoons. Yeah, there was definitely some added heat to the soup; it was kind of hard to eat. Otherwise, it was really nice, though. Even better, it was really cheap. Maybe try it with the tomato sauce, you might like that combo better than me.

I'll have my other recipe next week!