Kathleen Behm Always Has Something Cooking

Kathleen Behm of Wyandotte is well-known for her cooking.

Small wonder. She and her husband, Mark, always have something going in the kitchen of the old house they’ve remodeled over the nearly 20 years they’ve lived there.

Kathleen grew up in Wyandotte—the eighth of nine children in the Podsaid family—and she loves her hometown, where, she said, everything you need is nearby.

She and Mark buy produce in volume when they find it fresh and at a good price, and then cook it up and share the goodness with their large extended family. Someone is always stopping by and visitors seldom go home empty-handed.

A “score” of huge cabbages she found at a farmers market led Kathleen to spend a recent morning making stuffed cabbage—two big pans worth. None of it will end up frozen, she said as she rolled blanched cabbage leaves around savory filling.

“They’ll eat it all,” she said.

She seldom uses a recipe, but sat down and figured out one to give Patchilicious readers for her stuffed cabbage.

That’s just one of the many dishes she is known for. Others include peach cobbler, apple pie, banana nut bread, all sorts of soups, cornbread, corned beef and cabbage, pot roast, eggplant Parmesan and lots more. She’s proudly Polish, but she can cook up just about any other ethnic dish you can think of, too.

She is largely a self-taught cook, and that’s what happens when you grow up in a big family, she said.

“If you grow up in a large family, you have no choice—it’s cook or starve,” said Kathleen, who works as a stylist at the in downtown Wyandotte.

All of her siblings cook, too. She has a sister who owns a couple of restaurants, and two other siblings who have done catering. Food is just something that’s all in the family.

Kathleen cans tomatoes and pickles every year, and freezes other fresh produce so she and Mark will have it on hand all year. She likes to shop at in Wyandotte, especially for meat, she said.

She said making stuffed cabbage is easy, and she makes it look that way, too.

“You just tuck the filling in, roll it and put it in the pot,” she said.

And voila! A delicious dinner for 10. No big deal when you’re used to cooking all the time for everyone. And by the way, any extra cabbage leaves she has she’ll cook up for another meal, frying them in bacon grease with onions and garlic to serve with noodles.

Here’s her stuffed cabbage recipe, which easily can be doubled — or tripled.                  

Kathleen Behm's Stuffed Cabbage

• 1 cup Minute Rice, cooked
• 1 large cabbage
• 1 1/2 pounds meatloaf mix (ground veal, pork and beef)
• 1 onion, diced
• 2 eggs, beaten
• garlic salt, pepper and Italian seasoning to taste
• 2 cans tomato soup
• 2 cans water

Score the cabbage with a knife around the core so it’s loose and leaves will pull off easily.

Blanch whole cabbage in boiling water for 4 or 5 minutes and drain.

Pull off outer leaves, cutting them away from the core, if necessary.

In a large bowl, combine ground meat, onion, eggs, rice and seasonings.

In the center of each leaf, put a couple of tablespoons of meat mixture. Tuck the leaf ends around the middle to make a roll. Put rolls into a large pan.

Mix tomato soup with water, and pour mixture over cabbage rolls.

Bake for a couple of hours in a preheated 350-degree oven.

Serve with mashed potatoes.