New Years food and tradition. Luck, Life,Money and Love.

Hoping that last year was great, your New Year is better and that your last year is still far away!
New Years Eve is also my husbands birthday so we have a lot to celebrate. For our NY/BDay dinner I made cabbage rolls and black-eyed pea fritters.

I thought it would be pretty to alternate purple and green cabbage. (Note. Purple cabbage is more difficult to get tender enough to roll up, so I gave up on it.)

To prepare the cabbage start a large pot of water to boiling. Cut the core out of the cabbage and submerge it in the water. Cook bout 20 min. In another pot have ice water. After the 20 min shock the cabbage. When it is cool enough to handle gently peel the outer leaves off. If they don't seem pliable enough to fold up throw them back in a couple min and then shock them again. Repeat until you get down to the little leaves, use those to line the bottom of the baking dishes.

Filling

cook 2 1/2(dry) cups white rice

thaw 1lb sausage and 1lb burger

sauté 1lg onion with 4 cloves diced garlic

In large bowl mix cooked rice, thawed meat, onion/garlic mix, 1/2 t pepper, 2 t dill weed, 1/2 t sugar and 3/4 t salt.

Oil a 13x9 baking dish. Place one layer of cabbage leaves (the ones that are torn or too small to roll).

Lay cabbage leaf out, stem side towards you. The size of the leaf will determine the amount of filling that it will hold. A couple tablespoons. Roll up once then tuck in sides and roll to edge. Place in pan seam side down.

Mix 2 cans condensed tomato soup with 1 quart tomato juice.

Pour over rolls. Just enough to moisten but don't drown.

Cook at 350' for about an hour.

In Europe cabbage represents money.

In Cuba, because pigs are not known to go backwards, pork represents forward movement.

In Spain they eat 12 grapes at the stroke of midnight. Each grape you eat represent a month. If that grape is bitter than that month will be bitter. We covered that by drinking a good wine. That way all months should be a pleasant combination.

In South America black eyed beans represent money.

In Japan noodles represent long life. I'm wrapping left over stuffing and cabbage in eggroll wrappers. Don't know what that will say for the rest of the year, but their really good to eat.