Sunday Dinner

Back when Shawn was working Sundays through Wednesdays, I would get lonely Sunday nights and invite some friends over for dinner. It became a bit of a tradition. And while we haven't continued it consistently since his schedule changed, I do try to make a nice dinner each Sunday night. It's a slow and comforting way to finish our weekend, which has usually been hectic.

Given that tomorrow is St. Patrick's Day, cabbage was on sale at New Seasons. I've never been a fan of corned beef and cabbage, so I took the opportunity to try a cabbage dish I like and have never made: cabbage rolls. I realize there are about 5 million different versions of this simple dish, from about every country in the world. I ended up finding a recipe from Tyler Florence of the Food Network.

I was a little bit mad at myself when I realized that the America's Test Kitchen cookbook has a recipe for cabbage rolls and I forgot to look, but it's probably a good thing for me to branch out once in awhile. I DO wish I had read it at least for the method of how to remove the leaves, as this recipe tells you to remove them prior to boiling the leaves. NOT a good idea. I ruined most of them.

Despite the appearance (this is after I ate most of it and decided to take a picture), they were actually quite tasty. I would've preferred the tomato sauce to be a little more sour, as it mostly tasted like just canned crushed tomatoes (Muir Glen, which are delicious, but a little boring). I will definitely try out the Test Kitchen version next time I attempt this dish. Last night I just served it with the leftover rice from the mixture, which I quickly fried up in the leftover grease from the extra filling I sauteed. That was good, but I think the caramelized onion, green onion, and cheddar mashed red potatoes I made tonight trumped the simple rice.

On an unrelated note, I ran my first race of the year yesterday; the 2009 Shamrock Run. The Shamrock 15k last year was my first long race and I did really well then, averaging a 10:15 mile. that was much better than the 12-minute mile I was training at. I'm proud to say, yesterday I blew that out of the water, finish at 1 hour 31 minutes and 12 seconds--a 9:46 mile. I can't believe I actually finished a long race (going up Terwilliger no less!) in that time. Unfortunately, they give you ankle strap chips for this race. This was the result:
The first shot is of my poor ankle that was tortured by the velcro ankle strap chip they made me wear. The second is of me freezing my butt off 20 minutes after the race when Shawn and I were trying to find each other. At least I finished in one piece!