Today is the start of Ina‘s and some other bloggers’ new monthly project: “Saisonal is(s)t besser” (or: Seasonal eats better). It takes place on every first Friday of the month in 2020. Since we have decided to eat more plant-based products for our own health and to have less negative impact on the environmental destruction, this project comes just at the right time.
I have listed a few seasonal products for February. As the project mainly takes place in Germany, I also added some U.S. products for the sake of completeness. I know that the U.S. is the much bigger country of the two and citrus fruit are not native to Northeast.
| Vegetables | Fruit | |
| in Germany and the U.S. | butter cap, mushrooms, Chinese cabbage, lamb’s lettuce, kale, leek, celery root, pumpkin, potatoes, parsnip, radish, Brussel sprout, red beet, turnip, Jerusalem artichoke, white cabbage, savoy cabbage, onions, scorzonera |
apple |
| also in the U.S. | broccoli, cauliflower, fennel, spinach | orange, tangerine, clementine, lemon, grapefruit, pear |
For a few weeks I really wanted to participate in the project, but wasn’t sure what to cook. Then I bought my slow cooker and everything immediately kind of fell into place in my head. First of all, I wanted to make something vegan. Second of all, something with cabbage. Thus vegan cabbage rolls. I also knew that Trader Joe’s sells frozen cauliflower rice – it is delicious and, at least for now, I try to even replace grains with vegetables when possible. The dish is rather simple, but very delicious. I particularly like that in this case it is totally worth it to make a big portion. Since everything requires a bit of preparation, making 6 cabbage rolls would take almost as much time as 20 rolls.
Vegan Cabbage Rolls
Ingredients
- 1 head of white cabbage
- 340 g riced cauliflower
- 250 g mushrooms diced
- 70 g walnut pieces
- 2 onions diced
- 6 garlic cloves diced
- 2 tsp. soy sauce
- thyme
- olive oil
- 6 smaller tomatoes diced
- salt pepper
Instructions
- Carefully pull one cabbage leave from the head after another.
- Boil about a liter of water in a bigger pot. Once the water is boiling, put in ca. 5 cabbage leaves. Let them simmer for about 7 minutes, until they are tender and easily bendable. Take them out and let them drain (e.g. in a colander). Repeat with all remaining cabbage leaves.
- For the filling: In a big bowl mix together one diced onion, three diced garlic cloves, the riced cauliflower, the diced mushrooms and the walnut pieces. Season with soy sauce, thyme and pepper.
- Take one cabbage leave and put about 2 to 3 tsp.s full of the filling in the middle. Carefully fold and roll up the leave. Put the roll into the slow cooker. Repeat with all remaining cabbage leaves.
- In a big pot heat up some olive oil. Add one diced onion and three diced garlic cloves. Fry until soft.
- Add the diced tomatoes and let simmer for about 10 minutes, until the sauce has thickened.
- Season with salt, pepper and thyme.
- Pour the sauce over the cabbage rolls. Be careful not to fill too much into the slow cooker (so that it won't boil over).
- Close the slow cooker and either cook the cabbage rolls on high for 3 hours or on low for 7 hours.
The only thing I might add or change the next time is that I would make a chasseur sauce because I think it would go exceptionally well with the mushrooms in the filling.
© janavar