Stuffed Red Cabbage / Godzilla in the Kitchen

This is apparently the year I discover cabbage. It has also been the year I discovered eggplant. Two vegetables that I previously bore no ill will towards, but had no pressing need to eat. I had half a raw cabbage leftover from making the Blue Cabbage Pasta that I used instead of the green cabbage called for in one of the two seed recipes that inspired this, and I am so glad I did. (Incidentally, for those of us who do not have the free time to make homemade pasta, which is usually also me, Blue Cabbage Pasta would probably be pretty darn tasty with some high-quality dried egg noodles, or perhaps fresh asian egg noodles from the refrigerator case that some groceries stock).   I guess I should be more specific when I say that I am discovering cabbage.  I am discovering red cabbage. It holds its own in a pot of boiling water, makes everything it touches a beautiful, petroleum-dye-free blue that does not stain one's countertops, and has a mild spicy zip that mellows into buttery goodness when cooked. Yes, I have a crush on red cabbage. 

Stuffed Red Cabbage

1/2 head of red cabbage
3 medium-sized potatoes
1 parsnip
8 oz. ricotta cheese (I would make it fresh next time--store bought always seems so grainy to me)
1 red onion
2 eggs
oil for cooking
salt to taste
cayenne pepper to taste (a brief sprinkle was fine for me)
1/2 jar of good quality tomato sauce (yes I used sauce out of a jar, so sue me)
toothpicks (are nice, but you could get by without them)

This picture does not even do it justice.

Wash the half head of cabbage.  Put it in a pot, and fill the pot with water until the cabbage is covered.  (This, by the way, is also how you avoid setting your house on fire when you try to put the turkey in the turkey deep-fryer.  Planning ahead: a valuable skill.  Displacement: thank you, Science.)  Set the cabbage aside, add a little salt to the water, and bring the water to a boil on the stove.  Then put the cabbage in and cook it until it's tender, about 6-8 minutes.  Remove it from the water and put it in a bowl filled with cool water.  (Just tap water is fine, it doesn't have to have ice floating in it or anything.)  Anyway, while your cabbage is boiling, peel and coarsely chop your potatoes and parsnip.  Put them in some boiling water and let them cook until tender.  Drain and set aside.  Returning to the cabbage: gently peel off the cabbage's leaves one by one until you've either peeled them all off or discovered an uncooked inner core to your cabbage.  (This happened to me, but it works out in the end.)  Set the cooked and intact leaves aside (6-8ish of them).  Take the remaining cabbage and chop it finely.  Slice the red onion.  Heat some oil in a large skillet, and saute the onions for a minute or two, then add in the cabbage.  Let it cook until the chopped cabbage is soft.  While that's happening, mash your cooked potatoes and parsnips and add in a little cayenne pepper, salt to taste, and your ricotta cheese and eggs.  Preheat the oven to 425F.  When the cabbage and onions are cooked, fold them into the mixture of mashed potatoes and parsnips.  Get out a 9-inch x 13-inch glass baking dish.  One at a time, gently take a cabbage leaf and lay it on a flat surface.  (I just used the bottom of the casserole.)  Fill the middle with a heaping spoonful of mashed potato mixture.  (About the size of a stress ball.)  Fold the sides of the leaf over the top to make a packet, then either secure it with a toothpick or just lay it seam-side down in the dish.  Repeat until you've used up all your whole leaves.  If you have potato mixture left (I did), nestle the remaining amount in around the cabbage packets.  Pour the tomato sauce over the top of it all.  Cover the dish with foil and bake for about 30 minutes. 
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If it wouldn't give away too much secret information about my kitchen (like that it is small, and has appliances that are from the eighties) I would post a picture of it post-cooking all this business.  It looked like Godzilla invaded Tokyo ergo my kitchen with a willful need to leave vegetable peels all over the place, was surprised by a funny joke with a mouthful of cabbage juice, and also ate off every dish in my house.  Grandmom is way neater than that when she cooks.  Her kitchen looks like one of those photos from a ladies' magazine where they show the glossy-smiled famous person looking matronly as she pulls a perfectly-baked something out of the oven, with nary a sticky mixing bowl or bloody styrofoam meat package in the background.  I don't know how she does it, even after all these years of watching her cook.  I even have a dishwasher, and my kitchen is clean by the end of it all, but Grandmom, although she has one, does not actually use her dishwasher and her kitchen is still spotless even when she is frying those delicious porkchop cutlets.  I chalk it up to Grandmom being Martha Stewart's original inspiration.  It's true.  Grandmom may not handmake her own ricotta cheese, and has to be coaxed away from the can of cream-of soup, but she is the undisputed Queen of the Kitchen.  So much so that Great-grandmom even snookered her into "helping" her make homemade grape jelly one year.  Did I mention Grandmom has five siblings?  Who else helped?  Nobody.  Afterwards, Grandmom told Great-grandmom (who she lived two houses down from, by the way) to "find somebody else next year."  Great-grandmom said, "Who?"  Grandmom whipped back with "Julie!"  Great-grandmom protested that "she was the baby" (mind you, they were all married and had children of their own by this point), but in the end Grandmom never helped make grape jelly again!