Golubke For You!

It's holiday time, and I'm not thinking about advertising. I'm thinking about golubke. That's pronounced "Ga-WUM-key" by my family in Chicago. It's a Polish dish. It's stuffed cabbage, actually, and from the reviews in my family - and I'm talking from parents and siblings to great aunts, nieces and nephews - my golubke is the world's best. The reason why is I "Tex-ify" it. Any which way you slice it, it's a whole mound of trouble, only worth doing once a year. Here's what I do. And, by the way, this process takes hours, so clear out the day and prepare to make a bunch. You can freeze it when you finish.
I get a couple of large heads of cabbage, a couple of pounds of quality ground beef and a couple of pounds of ground lamb, 3 whole eggs, some white rice, celery, onions, green and red peppers, a large can of tomato soup, mushrooms, a couple of cans of stewed tomatoes (Rotel makes for an extra "Tex-y" batch), some picante sauce and a couple of jars of Ragu spaghetti sauce.
I first steam the cabbage so that I can peel the leaves off intact. There's a trick to this. If you steam it too much, the leaves disintegrate in your hands. If you steam it too little, the leaves are tough, so you gotta tend to it constantly as you go, peeling back layer after layer of leaf until the cabbage yields only the smallest leaves. You may want to carefully shave the spines of the leaves, to ensure a tender wrap. At this point, you'll have about 60 decent sized leaves stacked on a tray.
Next, prepare the rice (about 4 cups) and finely chop the celery, onions, peppers and mushrooms, holding the mushrooms aside in a separate bowl. When the rice is ready, mix it with the celery, onions, peppers, can of tomato soup, lamb, beef and eggs. Have fun mushing it into a meaty dough. Add spices to your liking (I usually add some Tabasco, to give it a kick). This is the stuffing for your cabbage rolls.
Next pull a single cabbage leaf and place a chuck of meaty-dough in the center of it (about the size of a baby's fist). Fold the leaf over the meat and set it in a large baking pan. Keep it up until the leaves or the meat are completely used up (if you do it right, the meat runs out first). You'll now have one or two baking pans stacked tight with cabbage rolls.
Next, take the cans of stewed tomatoes, the Ragu, and the mushrooms, mix it together as you would a spaghetti sauce, season it to taste (I add a few heaping tablespoons of picante sauce to Tex-ify it) and when the pot of sauce has simmered under low-medium heat for about an hour (long enough to blend the flavors) spoon it out over the cabbage rolls so that the sauce covers every roll. I usually tuck some in between each, just to make sure every one is fully glazed in sauce. You're almost finished.
Now, you'll have a couple of baking pans filled with stuffed cabbage rolls, glazed in red sauce, ready to place in the oven at about 350-degrees for an hour or so. Check on your masterpiece about 45 minutes in and make sure you aren't burning the top. You'll want it bubbling around the edges, and you want the insides of the rolls to be fully cooked.
When you're satisfied it's finished, pull the pans from the oven and place a roll or two on your plate. Always good with a glass of cold beer. Golubke. Tex-ified. Mmm-mmm! You are gonna love it! Happy holidays!