It occurred to me today that I need a food processor. It was probably when I was trying to match the shade of the fucshia splatter of plums to a paint for my kitchen walls, since it seemed eversomuch easier than cleaning it up. I was making plum jam, again, but this time, the "easy" way. Since they are small Italian Plums, which means nothing more to me than difficult to understand and probably too exotic, removing the pits is, well, the pits. Now we know. So I decided to cook them down and run them through my food processor. Oh, except I don't have one. Or I do, but it looks remarkably like me, in an apron, smashing cooked plums through a colander with a ladel. The jam turned out really good, and so did the new purple kitchen. Once upon a time I owned a Bosch mixer/food processor. It did everything for me. Shredded cheese and mashed potatoes and made bread and whipped cream. Now I do everything the hard way, or I don't do it at all. Like bread. I had this abundance of cabbage this week and couldn't figure out what to do with it. My first brilliant idea was to make my own fermented sauer kraut - super easy and healthy! My family sneered at me with disdain, since they won't even eat clean sauer kraut from a jar. So I made a LOT of pico de gallo, and keep trying to think of reasons to invite people over to eat it. But I still had more cabbage. And then I remembered: KRAUT BIEROCH! Of course. Back when I was industrious, and had a food processor that would both shred the cabbage, and make the bread dough for me, I used to make Kraut Bieroch quite regularly, which is really just once a year, but still. Kraut Bieroch was the clear answer to my cabbage abundance, but there was the issue of bread. Chopping copious amounts of cabbage is one thing, kneading bread, by hand, another entirely. And not one I was interested in delving into, after making many quarts of plum jam, freezing 4 gallons of peaches and staring at the cucumbers that I intend to pickle tomorrow. But I had this stroke of brilliance - or at least lazy, time saving ingenuity. I bought a bag of rhodes frozen rolls, in leiu of a food processor, and thawed them out to make my Kraut Bieroch without the drama of bread dough. And guess what? It worked!!! My kids even liked it! Aspen helped make the second tray, so they looked a little bit like zombie Bierochs, but they still taste like the juicy little german dumplings that they are. Because I have now piqued your curiosity immensely, and because you now know the easy secret of making close-to-genuine Kraut Bieroch, I will faithfully share the recipe with you.

KRAUT BIEROCH

German Cabbage Burgers

1 head of cabbage

1 decent sized onion

enough garlic to fend off a pretty finicky vampire

1 lb of ground beef (or two, if you're not cheap and/or if you're iron deficient.)

Salt and Pepper to taste (I used Johnny's and Montreal Steak Seasoning, because it's good in everything.)

1 bag of Rhodes frozen dinner rolls (dough, not brown and serve)

Let the rolls start thawing early in the afternoon, so that you can roll them out before you bake them.

preheat oven to 350º

brown hamburger with the onion, diced up to disguise it as cabbage, so Aspen won't complain

when it's brown, add the cabbage, and your seasonings.

spray a couple of your biggest cookie sheets with Pam. Or chemicals, as Aspen calls it.

press the rolls out with your fingers til they are flat and a few inches across, I did them one at a time.

put a spoonful of your cabbage-burger mix on to the flattened roll and then pinch the edges together, like a cute little dumpling. It's tricky figuring the first couple out, getting the thickness just right and not catching any slimy cabbage in the edges, cause they won't stick together then. flip the closed bierock upside down on the greased cookie sheet and do all of the rest. Pray they don't all spring apart and ooze greasy goodness all over each other, in which case they are still edible, but slightly more messy.

Stick them in the pre-heated oven and bake them until they are golden brown. I have no idea how long this is, because I neither used a timer nor looked at a clock, but since I had time to sit on the couch and catch up on Facebook, I would guess 20 minutesish.

These are really good plain. Or, if you ask some people, with ketchup. Kizzie even ate them without making weird faces. And I felt like I had pulled a fast one on the culinary imps that seek to thwart my food processer-less cooking.