Last week, I posted my picture of my produce basket and I cannot wait to see what I get in my basket tomorrow!!! Two weeks ago (I guess three now) I got cabbage in my basket. So, it sat in my fridge for over a week because all I could think was...I don't want boiled cabbage and I don't like coleslaw....but then I stumbled across a recipe for Bierocks and thought they looked incredible. So, I made them on Sunday to take to church. Oh. My. Gosh. They were so good. And if you don't believe me, the amount of time they spent on the table will tell you--gone in about 4 minutes. Really. I had to half mine with someone even. Remember my meal planning efforts. Well, I saved about 6 of the pockets for our dinner on Monday night, but Keen wanted one before church (and I wanted to make sure they were edible, so I let him have one!)- down to 5. When we got home, he warmed up 3- 2 for him and 1 for me (remember I only halved one at church!!)- so if you are keeping count. Down to 2. Instead of trying to make them last till dinner the next night, we each took one for lunch. Guess what we had for dinner?? I wanted to write eggs and pancakes, but that would be a lie. I bumped another meal, but guess what we ate on Thursday night?? Scrambled eggs- yeah.

Here is the recipe for the Bierocks. I decided it was a weekend meal- too much prep to ever do during the week. Also, overall not much time in actual labor, it was just lots of steps, then waiting for an hour, or two, or thirty minutes. It took me much longer, but that's because I had to figure out my food processor. I know, I've had it for how long. I couldn't even figure out how to get the pushy thing off so I could get more cabbage in there. Really. As I went to clean it, I thought I broke a piece but turns out, it was a little push lever to get the pushy thing off. By pushy thing, I mean that part that goes up and down and you use to "push" the food down when shredding. I'm sure it has a name and I bet you all know it but I would have to go look at the manual to see it and believe me, I looked through that thing about 100 times on Saturday. So- pushy thing. Needless to say, some of these steps took way longer than they should have. I also didn't think to take some pics until I was already putting filling in the pockets. I can describe what I did and then add my pics in when they are relevant:

Made the dough according to directions (ps- if you are like me and have a jar of yeast because you make your own bread, 1 yeast packet is about 1 1/2 tsp. of yeast). I even used my Kitchen Aid mixer-- yeah, probs the 5th use for that big guy. After this last weekend, there will be a lot more use for the Kitchen Aid and the food processor- we're friends now.

So, made my dough, put in fridge for 2 hours. As I was getting ready for the next step, I noticed that I also could have let it rise for 1 hour- so would have taken that route. Guess I should read directions better next time. Cooked the beef, shredded (through a tiny little whole) cabbage, carrot and onion. I actually pureed the onion first on accident- then proceeded to cry for the next 20 minutes as I continued with the rest of the recipe because there was literally, onion-ness everywhere. Apparently, that's what happens when you puree an onion. Lesson learned. (On a side note, I have an awesome tool for slicing/dicing onions, hear its similar to a mandolin- BUT- if you cut an onion in half, put in the fridge for 10 minutes, then remove to cut, its way less pungent. It works. I have to do everything I can.)

Ok, brown meat, add veggies and some salt and pepper. Simmer for 30 minutes. It will look like this:

As you can see, I had already started making some pockets before I remembered to grab my awesome camera. I had taken the dough and just grabbed to make dough balls- I got 18 balls. Then I would flatten them out, put some of the filling in and press the edges together so they look like this:

Here is what they looked like when they came out of the oven:

Yum!!!!! So good. And I made a new friend during the process. He even has his own spot on the counter now.