"We love Laarbruch" Facebook Group and Cabbage Rolls (Ironically a typical dish eaten by Germans)

I was a member of a group on Facebook, called “We love Laarbruch.” When I first joined, years ago, when they had as little as 50 odd members, they are now over 2000, it was with the soul intention of meeting up with old friends, and if the truth be known it served it’s purpose, all of my friends from school eventually joined the group and we are now Facebook buddies.

Quite often, people on there ask for recipes, traditional German ones, and I have a lot of those, after 24 years in Germany I have managed to collect 100’s of them, and I was sharing them. It got a little tedious though, translating and typing up these recipes. Whilst chatting to one of the other members, I mentioned my blog, and he suggested that every now and again (once or twice a month) I post my blog on the page so that he could skim though what I had posted, neither of us was really interested in becoming Facebook friends, I don’t know him, and he doesn’t know me, what was the point? So, once or twice a month, I posted on the page, this last time I posted, several people complained, moaned and groaned, about me “Spamming” I would hardly call it spam, I am not selling anything and I am certainly not forcing anyone to read something they have no interest in. I left the group after being accused of spamming, but they carried on the thread, keeping it at the top of the page, the longer it was at the top of the page, the more blog hits I got. I am a little confused to say the least. Possibly a little saddened, I am so proud of what I have achieved here, maybe they think it’s stupid, or maybe they are jealous I don’t know, but wouldn’t it have been better, to ignore or delete my post and move on rather than try and diminish something I have worked so hard to accomplish, shame on them for trashing one of their own!

Over the years I have had cabbage rolls, always store-bought with a powdered sauce – now I am not knocking either – certainly ideal for busy days when speed and ease are the name of the game, but what about those days when you do have time? What would you rather, quick store-bought or taking the time and making your own from scratch? I know that I would rather make my own and think of the pride you will feel at the end of it…..

Cabbage Rolls

4 Large cabbage leaves

¼ lb ground beef

¼ lb bulk pork sausage

¼ cup onion chopped

½ cup cooked rice

1 tsp Worcestershire sauce

¼ tsp Dijon mustard

1 egg

1 cup tomato sauce

2 tbsp brown sugar (optional)

1. In a large saucepan, cook the cabbage leaves in boiling water for 5 minutes, then drain and set aside. In the meantime cook the beef, sausage and onion over a medium heat in a skillet until meat is no longer pink, then drain and stir in the rice, Worcestershire sauce, mustard and egg; mix well.

2. Cut out the thick vein from the bottom of each leaf, making a V-shaped cut. Place about 1/3 cup of the beef mixture onto each of the cabbage leaves, next over lap the cut ends of leaf. Fold in the sides, then starting from the cut end, roll up to enclose filling, if need be secure with cocktail sticks. Place seam side down in a greased baking dish.

3. Pour juice over rolls; sprinkle with brown sugar if desired. Cover and bake at 350°F/180˚F for 50 minutes. Uncover and bake for another 10 minutes.

Servings: 2