Cabbage Casserole

Here’s one more casserole recipe. Many people make their cabbage casseroles with rice, but in my opinion barley is better with cabbage. Grains can also be left out if you prefer only soy and cabbage. Light textured soy protein has a nutty taste, which goes well with cabbage, but dark is almost as good. You can also add couple of desilitres sauerkraut to the casserole.

Cabbage Casserole

1 dl barley (or rice) + water for boiling
1,5 kg cabbage
3 tbsp oil
1,5 dl textured soy protein + water for soaking
1 tsp each salt, black pepper, marjoram and lovage
1 onion
3 dl water or vegetable broth
margarine

Boil the barley according the instructions on the package. Roughly chop the cabbage. Heat 1 tbsp oil in a big pan and sauté the cabbage until soft. Mix textured soy protein with salt, pepper, marjoram and lovage and add enough hot water to cover it. Soak until soft. Chop the onion. Heat the remaining 2 tbsp oil in a pan and sauté onion and soy until the onion is soft and translucent (5-10 minutes). Stir in barley. Add more salt or other spices if needed.  Grease a dish with margarine. Put a layer of cabbage in it, next half of the soy and barley mixture, more cabbage, rest of the soy and barley and finally cabbage on top. Pour in the water and put some margarine on top. Bake in 175 Celsius degrees about an hour.

Cabbage Stew

By quick googling I found out that cabbage stews are eaten around the world. They’re also eaten here in Finland and here’s my vegan version. It wouldn’t win a beauty contest, but it’s simple and easy weekday dinner. Here it’s served with beet salad, pickle slices and bread. In Finland cabbage dishes are often served with crushed lingonberries or lingonberry jam, but I forgot we had lingonberries in our fridge. Well, maybe next time.

Cabbage Stew

1,5 dl textured soy protein
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
2 tbsp soy sauce
hot water
1-2 onions
2 garlic cloves
2 tbsp oil
1 big carrot
2 potatoes
piece of parsnip (50-100g)
600 g cabbage (1/3 of cabbage head)
3 dl water
1 tsp each: marjoram, parsley and lovage
salt if needed

Mix textured soy protein, garlic powder and pepper in a bowl. Add some hot water and soy sauce and mix well. Let sit until soy protein is soft. Chop the onion and garlic. Heat the oil in a pot and sauté onions, garlic and textured soy protein until onions are soft and translucent. Meanwhile peel carrots, potatoes and parsnip. Slice carrot and cube potatoes and parsnip. Cut the cabbage into strips. Add all the rest of the ingredients to the pot and simmer until all the vegetables are soft (half an hour maybe?).

Porridge Leftovers

Yesterday we made a big batch of Inkoo Porridge. Leftovers were spread to a lightly greased dish and refrigerated over night. The porridge gets firm when it cools down, just like polenta. Today I cut the porridge in squares and fried in oil. They were crispy on the outside and soft on the inside, and I think they were better than the actual porridge.

The Inkoo Porridge squares were served with a tomato based lentil sauce. Not so Finnish, but vegan and it was great with the porridge squares. First I sautéd chopped onion, garlic, caraway seeds, paprika and minced mild chili in oil. Then I added a can of crushed tomatoes, water, some cabbage and a grated carrot. When it started to boil I added red lentils, basil, marjoram and thyme and simmered until lentils and vegetables were done. Last I seasoned it with salt and freshly ground black pepper and then we ate it with the fried Inkoo Porridge squares.

Cabbage Quiche

Recently I found out that what I’ve been calling a pie is actually a quiche. In Finnish we have only one word that means both of them and pie was the only English word I knew. If I’d had to define “pie” I would have said it has crust on the bottom and filling on top and occasionally it has crust on top too. But I also found out is that pies don’t necessarily even have crust in the bottom! I’m not sure if I have understood all the names that you English speaking people have for pies and things like that. Like can quiche be sweet? And what’s the difference between flan and quiche?

Then about today’s recipe. It’s been published in this Finnish blog that I’ve been reading for a while. She makes beautiful cakes and other baked goods. Most of the recipes are useless, since she nearly always uses gelatin or meat, but this cabbage quiche recipe was easy to veganize. It was delicious too, I strongly recommend trying it.

Georgian Cabbage Quiche

crust:
100g margarine + little more for greasing the dish
1 dl whole wheat or rye flour
2 dl wheat flour
1 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp water

filling:
500g cabbage
1,5 dl water
1 big onion
1 pickled cucumber
2 garlic cloves
0,75 dl tomato purée
2 dl oat cream
2 tbsp apple vinegar
2 tsp marjoram
1 tsp salt
1 tsp chili powder (ours was extra hot and I used less than half tsp)
1 tsp paprika
pinch of black pepper

Start with the filling. Cut the cabbage into strips and put them into a pot with water. Bring to boil and simmer 15 minutes, stir occasionally. Make the crust while your cabbage is simmering. Crumble margarine, both flours and baking powder with your hand in a bowl. Add the water and mix together. Grease a dish and spread the dough in it. Bake 10 minutes in 200 Celsius degrees.

Chop the onion and add it to the pot when cabbage has been simmering 15 minutes. Simmer 5 more minutes. Dice the pickle and mince the garlic cloves. Mix all the filling ingredients in the pot and spread on the prebaked crust. Bake 30-40 minutes more or until it looks like ready to eat.

Gluten free option: Use gluten free flour or this crust recipe. Use soy cream in the filling if your oat cream is not gluten free.

Cabbage Wraps

These wraps are quicker to make than regular cabbage rolls. We used carrots in the filling, but I think sweet potato would be great too.

Cabbage Wraps

8 cabbage leaves
4 very big carrots
4 big garlic cloves
4 fresh chili pods or to taste
4 dl cooked black beans
1 tsp Moroccan spice mix
1 tbsp lemon juice
salt
1-2 onions

Cut the stems of the cabbage leaves thinner to make them easier to roll. Steam or boil until they are soft, about 5 minutes. Put them on a towel to drain the excess water. Peel the carrots and garlic cloves. Cut the carrots in big chunks and boil them with garlic until soft. Drain, add chilies and puree with blender. Add beans, Moroccan spice mix, lemon juice and salt. Chop the onion(s). Put couple of tablespoons of the filling on each cabbage leaves and sprinkle some onion on it. Roll and serve.

German Style Cabbage Soup

We decided to eat soup yesterday without any plans what kind of soup it would be. So we just bought carrots, cabbage and celeriac and thought they’d make a good soup with some sort of protein source, like seitan or beans. Nomad did some research in the Internet and found a German ham and potato soup recipe and we made a vegan version of it.

I made double batch of basic seitan, but used less soy sauce and no vinegar in cooking broth. Then we used the same broth to make the soup. But I think broth from bouillon cubes would be just as good, especially if you have premade seitan or don’t want to make 8 balls.

Red Cabbage Soup with Seitan
serves 8

2,5-3 l vegetable broth + bay leaf + some pepper corns (or use seitan cooking broth)
1 tbsp dried parsley
2 balls basic seitan
3 carrots
6-8 potatoes
about 200g piece of celeriac
1 big onion
half red cabbage head (quarter of a big one)
(salt if needed)

Put the broth (with bay leaf and pepper corns) and parsley into a large pot and bring to boil. Meanwhile cube the seitan, carrots, potatoes and celeriac, chop the onion and cut the cabbage into 5 cm strips. Put everything to the pot and simmer covered 20-30 minutes or until vegetables are soft. Add more water if needed.

Non-fried Spring Rolls

Spring rolls are usually fried, but non-fried are good too. And they’re easier to make. The filling of the non-fried rolls can be either raw or sautéed, I prefer sautéed. We had some last year’s plums in our freezer and I used them to make dip for the rolls. It needs improving, so I’m not posting a recipe for that. You can use store bought sweet chili sauce as dip too.

Spring Rolls

10 rice papers
1 carrot
1 celery rib
3 dl shredded cabbage
1 tbsp oil
1 tsp dried mint
1 tbsp soy sauce
stalks of 1 onion, chopped
3-4 dl mung bean sprouts

Grate the carrot and slice the celery. Heat the oil in a pan and fry carrot, celery and cabbage couple of minutes. Add soy sauce and mint and simmer until the vegetables are tender but crispy. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in bean sprouts and onion stalks.  Take a dish that is bigger than the rice papers and fill it with water. Put one rice paper to the water and let it soak until it’s soft. Put it on the table and put the second rice paper to the water. Put some filling on the wet rice paper and wrap. I like to do that on a towel, so the table won’t be flooding when I’m finished. If you need instructions for wrapping, check this tutorial. Serve the rolls with a sweet chili sauce or other dip.

Cabbage Deliciousness

Cabbage pie tastes good and it’s super cheap to make. With salad it makes a nice light meal and leftovers are easy lunch next day. If you want to make a pie as big as a baking sheet, double the recipe.

Cabbage Pie

Filling:

1 onion
1 shallot
2 tbsp oil
2l shredded cabbage
1 tbsp molasses or brown sugar
1 tsp marjoram
0,5 tsp thyme
2 tsp parsley
0,5 tsp freshly ground black pepper
0,5-1 tsp salt

Dough:

2,5 dl water
25 g yeast
2 tsp molasses or sugar
pinch of salt
1 dl rye flour
2 dl whole wheat flour
4-5 dl wheat flour
1 tbsp oil

Brushing:

cold water

Start with the filling. Chop the onion and shallot coarsely. Heat the oil in a large pan (wok is good) or pot and sauté the onion and shallot couple of minutes. Add shredded cabbage, cover with lid and simmer until the cabbage is soft. Stir now and then.

While the cabbage is simmering, put the lukewarm water, yeast, molasses and salt into a bowl. Stir until yeast is dissolved. Add rye flour, whole wheat flour and about 3 dl wheat flour. Mix well and start to knead. Add more flour while you knead and in when you’re nearly done, knead the oil in. Cover with tovel and let rise until doubled.

Season the softened cabbage with molasses, herbs, salt and pepper. Punch down the dough and divide in two parts, one should be slightly bigger than the other. Take the bigger piece of dough and roll out about 25 cm x 35 cm rectangle. Spread the cabbage filling on it, but leave a 2-3 cm border of dough on each side. Roll out the smaller piece of douhg to a rectangle that is same size as the filling and cover the pie with it. Turn the edges of bottom dough on the edges and on top of the upper dough. Secure with fork. You may need brush some water between the doughs to make them stick well. Brush the pie with water and make few holes with fork. Bake about half an hour in 200 celsius degrees.

Almost Instant

As far as I know, Japanese ramen always contains some kind of meat. My vegan version of ramen is made of whole wheat noodles, tofu and vegetables. This time I used carrot, bamboo shoots and red cabbage, which dyes everything pink, but you can use any vegetables you have.

Tofuhead’s Ramen

8,5 dl water
1 vegetable bouillon cube (preferably MSG free)
2 tsp miso powder
7,5 dl vegetables, cut into strips (cabbage, carrot, onion, green beans, bamboo shoots etc.)
350g tofu
100g whole wheat noodles
soy sauce for serving (optional)

Bring the water to boil and dissolve the bouillon cube and miso powder in it. Add the vegetables and tofu and simmer 2-3 minutes. Add noodles and simmer 3 more minutes.

Chickpeas, Fruits and Quinoa

Pineapple, banana, apples and other fruits are often used in dessert and other sweet things or salads, but they are great for savoury dishes too. Nomad isn’t the biggest fan of fruits in his main courses, but this time I was cooking only for myself so there was no need to care about what he likes. I had bananas and a can of pineapple chunks at home, and whipped up this stir fry.

Fruity Stir Fry

2 small onions
3 large garlic cloves or as much as you like
1 fresh chili (I added chilipowder too, because I didn’t have any ripe chilies and the green one I had, wasnt’t very hot)
1 tsp cumin
2 tsp curry powder
oil for frying
8 cm piece of zucchini
250 g cabbage
2 dl bamboo shoots
4 dl cooked chick peas (canned will be good too)
1  small can of pineapple chunks
1 banana
1 tbsp wheat flour
2 dl water
1 tbsp apple vinegar

quinoa, barley, rice or other grain of your choice

Slice onions, chop garlic coarsely, julienne zucchini and shred the cabbage. Heat the oil in a wok. Add spices and fry them about a minute, stirring all the time. Add onions and garlic, fry couple of minutes and add cabbage. If you are using hard winter cabbage, let it become a little soft before adding zucchini, but if you have soft summer cabbage add the zucchini right away. Fry the vegetables untill they start to become soft. Then add bamboo shoots, chick peas and pineapple chunks with juice, vinegar and 1,5 dl water. Bring to boil. Mix wheat flour with remaining 0,5 dl water and pour it to the wok. Stir well, add sliced banana, stir again and let boil 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Serve with quinoa or other cooked grains.

Conclusion:

The food was tasty and I suppose it was pretty healty too, which is always a good combination. But even if I was satisfied with the result, I think it could have been better. I will make this again when my chilis are ripe and use a hotter chili or maybe two different kinds of chilis. I think I will also add some ginger and another banana.