Sweet Pork and Beans Cabbage “Tacos”

This recipe is fantastic for quarantine food since it relies exclusively on long-lasting ingredients (well…that and pork, which lasts long if frozen), and it required very little effort, allowing you to make it while you do whatever work needs to be done around the house during the day (home-schooling, work, etc.).

As for the cabbage part of this recipe, you know if you’ve ever cooked stuffed cabbage that it can be a bit of a pain in the rear to peel the cabbage. The dunking, boiling, peeling, and redunking, reboiling, repeeling…over and over until you have enough leaves freed is just plain tedious. When we cooked our Goose Thighs in Parsnip Cream Sauce, we peeled our Brussels Sprouts from the bottom, and it worked. Since they are basically little cabbages, we figured we’d try that same method scaled up to a green cabbage. It will require a little more practice to perfect, but in all, it worked pretty well and was a lot less effort. Then, once we had our leaves removed, we steamed just those in the microwave.

Lastly, if you prefer to use a different filling (Chili would be awesome), you can still use the same cabbage method to really customize these!

Time: 7 Hours (Pretty much all of which is slow cooker time where you don’t have to do anything)

Ingredients:

• Cabbage
• Boneless Pork Loin Chops
• 1 Cup of Dried Navy Beans
• 1/2 Cup of Dried White Hominy Corn
• 3 Cups of Water
• 1/2 Cup of Diced Tomatoes (we used canned)
• 1 Diced Onion
• 2 Tablespoons of Apple Cider Vinegar
• 1/4 Cup of Brown Sugar
• Paprika (We used Spanish Sweet Paprika)
• Optional: Cayenne
• Optional: Sour Cream to top everything off at the end

Method:

• Add your beans, hominy, diced onion, diced tomatoes, and pork to your slow cooker. Then, add in your apple cider vinegar, brown sugar, paprika, cayenne (if using), and finally, pour your water atop everything.
• Turn your slow cooker to medium, and let everything cook for about 6.5 hours. At this time, your original soupy mixture should have firmed up as the beans and hominy have absorbed the water.
• When your pork and beans are nearly ready, it’s time to focus on your cabbage.
  • Peel the outermost leaves off, and discard them.
  • Cut the bottom off your cabbage.
  • Identify your “top leaf,” and track it back to the base of your cabbage. Working from the stem end and the top at the same time, slowly peel your leaf away from the cabbage head. Continue doing this until you have your desired number of cabbage leaves.
  • Steam/Boil your cabbage in a pot or a steamer in your microwave until soft and easily pliable, especially near the stem where the leaves are thickest.
• As your cabbage steams/boils, use two forks to shred your pork, and stir the meat in with the rest of your crockpot ingredients to fully combine and disperse..
• When your cabbage leaves are ready, put them on your plates, and scoop your pork and beans in the middle of each leaf. Top with sour cream if using.
• Wrap, devour, and enjoy!