A carrot cabbage recipe

Judy L. over at Patchwork Times is having a fun little, weekly thing.  Every week she picks an ingredient and then you can make a recipe, write your blog post and then link up to Judy's blog - that way everyone can click on all the different blog posts and recipes in one handy place.  Fun, right?  So, this week - the recipe was carrots (next week is spinach).  You can read all the carrot posts here.
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So, I decided to make this carrot/cabbage casserole.  It is loosely based off a recipe I found on this website.  But, remember, I am in Austria right now and so many ingredients we take for granted (like Cheddar cheese!) is hard to find.  So, I improvised.  I used this cheese:

I used maybe 1/3 of it and saved the rest to bake to dip our breadsticks in later this week.  Also, I used 4 carrots, which my DH finely shredded.  I saved ALL the water that the carrots and cabbage were cooked in because I used the left-over water for cooking the rice that I made.
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DH is always very interested when I say I am going to try a new recipe.  We thought we would try carrot pudding, but haven't found any vanilla extract, despite being to several large stores.  So, we went with the casserole.  And DH shredded the cabbage on this board thing that I did NOT even know we had!  Yes, Austria - land of cabbage, I guess!

I never, ever, ever trust a new recipe and make new recipes as a "side" and have plenty of other options to rescue the day in case the new recipe is awful.  One thing I love - my rice cooker!  I use the top steamer basket all the time for veggies  (I often slice a clove of garlic for up there too) and almost always use broth for the rice.

When I got over here - the poor rice cooker was stored away - out of reach.  I had to rescue it.  DH told me that he hates it - why do I need that gadget?  You can make rice in a pan!  Yes, but this rice cooker makes excellent rice, even those specialty rices that are hard to cook evenly through-out.  After 2 meals with the rice cooker, DH agrees with me - it is a great kitchen gadget.  I love cooking the veggies on top and not throwing out the nutritious water - it drips right down into the rice.  I often put sliced garlic up top - yum.  Or sliced ginger straight into the rice.  

And our complete meal today!  That is a beef roll in the center - DH and I don't eat a TON of meat and will split one.  Rice with beef gravy, steamed zucchini and the casserole.
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NEXT time I will add more cheese, plus put cheese and bread crumb mixture on the top.  Otherwise, I think this was very good.  It is always nice to come up with a new way to cook food!
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And, just because I hate it when I go back to a blog post to refer to something and the link is broken - my own notes on the recipe:
1/4 head cabbage - finely sliced
4 carrots - shredded
Simmer them in 2 cups chicken broth for 30 minutes.
Melt 2 TBS butter, add 2 TBS flour to make roux.  Add 1/3 cup milk and 1 ladle of broth from cabbage mixture, plus shredded cheese.
Drain cabbage mixture - save water for rice!  Mix cabbage, cheese mixture and several large pinches of salt with a sprinkle of paprika together.  Pour into buttered casserole dish and bake 20 minutes.
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My all-purpose casserole dish that I use every week for roasting chickens, casseroles, roasting vegetables.  Mine is from the 1950's or earlier so you know they will last forever, I feel so lucky to have 2 of them!  I do not trust glass casseroles anymore since one shattered into a million pieces on me ones!