The second time around

I like trying new recipes. But sometimes they feel like a lot of work.

When I have a recipe down from making it often — like my favorite pizza dough for Friday night pizza, for example — everything works like clockwork. It’s easy to, say, whip up a homemade salad dressing for the accompanying salad while the dough is rising or the pizza is baking.

But when I am cooking a new recipe, it doesn’t take much for me to feel behind and overwhelmed.

Take into account that I am not the world’s greatest pre-reader of recipes. I have been known to start a new recipe an hour before dinner only to come across a dreaded line like, “Marinate in the fridge overnight.”

However, even relatively straightforward recipes seem to go much better for me the second time around.

I recently made cabbage rolls for the second time. I understand this is a fairly traditional comfort food dish, but it’s not one that I grew up eating so I wasn’t familiar with it. The first time I made it, I was a bit overwhelmed. How the heck do you get these cabbage leaves off the head of cabbage in one piece so I can use them tortilla-style to wrap up the filling? And, Are you kidding, I have to cook the rice before I put it in the cabbage rolls and put it in the oven? And, Just how many dishes am I going to have to get dirty to get this meal on the table?

But the other day I had a head of cabbage in the fridge, waiting patiently. And I decided to give cabbage rolls another shot.

And wouldn’t you know, this time I felt like everything came together quite simply. Cooking the rice didn’t irritate me since it was going on in the background of my other preparation. I realized it’s easy to throw the whole head of cabbage into a pot of boiling water and peel off the leaves with some tongs one by one as they get soft enough. Oh, and both times I baked these rolls in the oven rather than simmering them on the stove or putting them in the slow cooker.

So if you find yourself with a pound of Svec Farm ground beef and a cabbage chilling in your fridge, go ahead and try these cabbage rolls.

And then try them again in a few months. I think you’ll find it’s a lot easier the second time around.

(Now, am I the only one with the Tony Bennett song stuck in my head? Because while cabbage rolls weren’t something I grew up with, Tony Bennett sure was.)