Stuffed white cabbage leaves with lentils

This is a first. I like stuffed cabbage leaves but I always use this dark green curly cabbages (like Savoy) to make them, and I never used the round and firm white cabbages that are used to make coleslaw. But I happened to have a big white cabbage and the outer leaves were sort of green... I managed to remove 7 leaves before the cabbage become to compact to pull apart. Then I washed them and boiled them in salted water (which I later used to make vegetable broth for an Asian noodle soup - never waste!). I also boiled a few more cabbage leaves that got broken while I was trying to pull them away: they were going to be used in the filling.

For the filling I used some cooked cabbage leaves, a couple of slices of vegetarian bacon, chopped parsley, breadcrumbs, smoked salt, chili flakes, coriander seeds and smoked garlic. I mushed everything with my hands and divided the filling between the 7 leaves, and then I rolled them up.

I prepared a soffritto with a shallot, half a carrot, a celery stick, and some chopped parsley, all sautéed with a little olive oil. 

I added the cabbage leaves and let them sauté on one side only for a few minutes.

Then I added one cup of tomato passata (Italian tomato sauce) and one cup of vegetable broth. I covered the pot with a lid and let the cabbage rolls simmer for 30 minutes.

After 30 minutes I added the content of a can of Italian brown lentils (their water included) and simmered everything for another 30 minutes.

Well, I just managed to taste one, the other six were two each for the kids and the babysitter (I was teaching that night), to be eaten with bruschetta (actually, just a baguette cut into slices and the brushed with olive oil, sprinkled with salt and baked until golden and crispy, the kids just love it!!). The result? I was pleasantly surprised: I am not a fan of white cabbage, but in this way it tasted great! Pity that I could not get more leaves out of it, maybe I need to boil the whole cabbage and then try to pull off the leaves... next time I will try. Or maybe I will just go back to use my usual Savoy cabbages! :-)

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Roasted New Zealand Yams

Sometimes I am really happy to be a vegetarian: it means that I don't have to try wild specialties like huhu grubs. Not that many New Zealaders would either, you can't buy them in shops (I think) and you have to forage for them in the bush (they eat rotten wood) or go to special wild food festivals like the Hokitika Wild Food Festival. But I found a better, and vegetable alternative, with New Zealand yams.

Yam are much bigger than huhu grubs, and I got the red and the apricot colour varieties, I thought that they looked really pretty. After boiling them the colours had faded, a lot, and the look was... well, like in the photo above. I left them on the kitchen bench and went to get the kids from school. As soon as they arrived home the went" "Huhu grubs????". No, they have never eaten them, but they saw them and know what they look like. They giggled a lot, they said that yams really looked like gigantic huhu grubs.

Just boiled they didn't appeal to me, so I roasted them with olive oil, smoked garlic, smoked salt, coriander seeds and a few chili flakes, and they went down a treat. In this household my husband is the only one that has ever eaten huhu grubs, I asked him if the flavour was similar to these yams, he said: "No, these  taste much better!"

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Three soups

Roasted leek and Potato Soup with Leek Broth

Generally I sauté the potatoes and leeks in the pot to make this soup, but I wanted to try something different. So I cut the potatoes (Agria) and leek in big chunks, placed them in a roasting dish lined with baking paper, added olive oil and salt and roasted everything for about 30 minutes. I didn't want the potatoes to become brown, just lightly roasted on the outside, and soaking up the flavour from the leeks.

I washed the green leaves from the leek (the ones that are too hard to be eaten) and place them in a pot of  water with some rock salt. I cooked the leaves until I got a fragrant and light leek broth. I removed the leaves and added the content form the roasting pan, oil included. I cooked everything for other 30 minutes, then blended the soup with an immersion blender.

Pumpkin and Smoked Garlic Soup

Another good soup combo: Pumpkin and smoked garlic.

Here I just cooked some pumpkin (add a carrot for a brighter orange color) in vegetable stock, and before blending I added a couple of cloves of smoked garlic. More garlic salt and spices can be drizzled directly on the plate.

Potato and Broccolini Soup

And then broccolini (from my garden), and potato soup.

Simmer the veggies in vegetable stock, blend and drizzle with

extra virgin olive oil.

All these soups are vegan, inexpensive, easy to make, gluten free, and healthy :-).

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©