Recipe(tried): Slow cooker cabbage rolls

I was inspired to try cabbage rolls for 2 reasons:
1. They last ones I bought (frozen) were awful, and they were expensive to boot!
2. I was watching Food Safari, and they showed how to make Croatian cabbage rolls, with sour cabbage and roasted peppers (Ajvar), and man did they look good! and easy enuf, too!
So the funny part is, after seeing sour cabbage for years, and wondering what you make with it, I searched high and low and could not find a head of it! No-one had it in stock, and I really, really did an exhaustive search. But in the course of trying to find it, I did find regular cabbage heads on sale, so I bought two and froze them. If you freeze the cabbage, the leaves will come right off, and eliminate the need to cook the cabbage before rolling the cabbage rolls.

This is how I made them, and all my peeps loved them. It made enuf for two slow cookers full. I froze half the rolls, and half of the sauce, so I will have another BIG meal of them soon.

CABBAGE ROLLS

FOR THE ROLLS:
1 whole head cabbage, freeze for about 24 hours or so, and leave to defrost for about 36 hours (in the fridge) (about 3 pounds, get the biggest one you can find)
1 1/2 lbs extra lean ground beef fresh, not frozen, so you can safely freeze half the recipe)
1 large finely chopped onion
3 cloves garlic, crushed
1/4 cup of diced roasted red pepper, or some Ajvar
1 cup raw rice (I used shortgrain Calrose, rinsed in several changes of water and left to soak while I prepared the rest of the ingredients)
1 egg, beaten
salt and pepper
FOR THE SAUCE:
1 (800ml) can crushed or pureed tomatoes (I used the spiced diced tomatoes, but next time I will puree them in the food pro, where I chop the veggies
1/3 cup beef broth (I used vegetable)
1 can condensed tomato soup, undiluted
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon onion powder
2 cloves garlic, crushed (I used granulated garlic, because I forgot to chop extra when I made the filling).

Core the cabbage and unwrap cabbage leaves(in the sink, it will be very wet) and carefully peel each leaf away from the head. Cut the thick center stem from each leaf, separating the larger leaves into two pieces, if you wish. The smaller leaves can be left whole but, depending on the thickness of the centre rib, you may want to pare it down. (makes for easier rolling)

In a large bowl combine filling ingredients.

Place a few TBSP of filling on each leaf, and roll them, placing seam side down in the slow cooker. Make two layers of them, that will probably pretty much fill up your cooker (at least, it did mine).

Stir together the sauce ingredients, and pour half of it over the rolls in the slow cooker.

You can make two cookers full of rolls if you wish, or make the rest of the rolls and freeze them. I froze them in a big plastic container, and put the sauce in a Ziploc on top, so they are good to go whenever we are in the mood for them again.