Stuffed cabbage, "I hate it"

Fortunately I foresaw the cries of "I hate it" from the objectionable children and had made them chicken pasta to accompany their stuffed cabbage.  Tom and I were pleasantly surprised and made a large indent into it.  I was quite excited by stuffing it, and pleased with how it worked.  You blanched the whole cabbage in boiling water and I underestimated how large my white cabbage was, so it was a little undercooked in the middle.  Then you peeled back the leaves and cut out the middle and filled it with seasoned bacon and chestnuts.  I then folded back in the leaves and tied it up with string.  You then add a clear stock(chicken stock?),  and simmer in the oven for five hours.  It filled the house with cooking smells with cabbagy undertones which we hoped cleared in time for the Mummers play dress rehearsal we hosted here tonight.

I also made a chestnut soup today.  Elizabeth had very sensible advice today, you made a vegetable stock to cook the chestnuts in.  She then advised that you make the leftover stock vegetables into a soup too, so today I have made two soups.  Tomorrow I am attempting the recipe that will go down a treat with us all, I just have to decide how to use up the rest of the cabbage.