Veggie cabbage rolls make a hearty meal
Simply Vibrant cookbook features meat-free recipe perfect for chilly weekends
Vegan, vegetarian and gluten-free tomes make up the bulk of cookbooks that arrive at the Star nowadays. While more options are always great for home cooks, I find many of the authors have restricted themselves to MacGyver-ing comfort food dishes by subbing out essential flavours and textures. The result is often a flavourless and overly complicated version of the original. So what made me want to cook from Simply Vibrant ($35, Roost Books), the second vegetarian cookbook from mother-daughter lifestyle bloggers Anya Kassoff and Masha Davydova of Golubka Kitchen, is its more relaxed approach to plantbased cooking.
As Kassoff writes in the intro, if cheese, eggs or ghee makes the dish taste better, she’s gonna use it. Their recipes also contain ingredients that are relatively easy to find.
At most, they require a trip to the Asian grocer to find kombu (dried kelp) to make soup, or to the bulk food store for spelt flour to make pizza dough.
Like most vegetarian cookbooks, there are recipes for salad bowls, curries, wraps and pastas, but what sticks out in Simply Vibrant are the numerous recipes that take grains and seeds beyond grain bowls, such as Stewed Rhubarb Amaranth Porridge, Blueberry Buckwheat Pancakes, Coriander Millet Porridge with Rosemary-Grape Compote and Teff And Apple Pancakes.
While I’m patiently waiting for grapes to be in season to make the Fig and Grape Pancakes, for this week’s Cook This Book I made the vegetarian cabbage rolls from the U.S.-based, Russian-born duo.
The rolls are a hearty Sunday meal option perfect for this seemingly endless winter.
Add rice and boiling water. Bring to aboil. Reduce to a simmer. Cover and let cook for 30 minutes or until rice is almost tender. Add lentils. Stir and cover. Continue to simmer for another 15 minutes or until lentils are tender. Taste and adjust seasoning as necessary.
Using emptied pot used to blanch cabbage, line bottom of pot using reserved torn and small cabbage leaves. Chop cabbage core into small pieces and sprinkle on top of leaves. Set aside.
On a plate, assemble cabbage rolls by spooning 2 tbsp to 3 tbsp (30 mL to 45 mL) of mushroom-rice filling on to centre of a cabbage leaf. Fold lower end over filling, then sides and roll up tightly. Repeat with remaining leaves and filling.
Arrange assembled rolls in a single layer in pot. Cover with a third of crushed tomatoes. Arrange another layer of rolls on top and cover with another third of crushed tomatoes. Repeat with remaining rolls and tomatoes. Cover pot and bring tomato to a boil over high heat. Lower to a simmer and cook for 1 hour, or until cabbage is tender.
Remove from heat. Let cool slightly. Transfer to serving plates and top with yogurt or sour cream. Refrigerate rolls in an airtight container for up to 5 days or freeze for up to a month.
Makes 14 to 16 cabbage rolls. Cook This Book is a bi-weekly column that looks at the latest cookbooks hitting the stands. Email karonliu@thestar.ca.