Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Fry up the ground beef with a bit of oil, the onions and the garlic. Personally, I like to add a bit of ground liver to this dish as well. You can't even notice it's in there. I pre-cook mine and store it in 1/2 cup amounts in the freezer. Yes, the L is for liver. :)
If you're adding rice, mix it in with the beef/onion/garlic mixture now (we leave it out since we're grain free right now, and it turns out just fine without it, but rice is a frugal and nutritious filler, tastes great and would help to make this meal stretch further). Add one beaten egg to the mixture and combine well.
In a bowl or pot, combine tomato sauce (and canned tomatoes, if using) and tomato paste. Stir in apple cider vinegar, honey, salt, pepper and chili or cayenne.
Chop about 8 cups of cabbage coarsely. I find that this is about 1/2 to 2/3 of a large cabbage. I like using green, but purple would be just fine, too.
In a large casserole dish, begin to layer- cabbage on bottom, meat/rice mixture, then drizzle with tomato sauce. Repeat all layers a second time. End with an extra layer of cabbage and sauce on the top.
Cover and bake at 350 for about 1 hour.