Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

I spent most of the day yesterday grocery shopping and cooking just so that we could eat black eyed peas and cabbage for good health and wealth!  It was a lovely day.  My friend DK came over and made the black eyed peas and corn bread for us and I made cabbage rolls and salad.  Mmmmm, it was yummy!  And the best part is that I have left overs for a few days.  No cooking today, just a day watching football!

I'll share my recipe with you.  It changes almost every time I make it (depending on what is fresh in the fridge.)

Cabbage Rolls

Carefully unroll the leaves of the cabbage.  Blanch a few leaves at a time in boiling water for 3 minutes.  Take them out and cool.

Saute onions, celery, carrots, mushrooms, and kale (I had some so I used the leaves from 2 stems-not too much.)  I added chopped cabbage towards the end.  Remove from pan.

Mix ricotta and tofu.  They will become almost indistinguishable.  Thus masking the tofu for those who don't like it, but adding tons of protein!  I also added fresh chopped parsley.  Next, I separated it equally into 2 bowls because I made a vegetarian and a real sausage version.

For the veggie version, I used 2 Italian Tofurky Sausages and cooked them in a saute pan.  I added water to keep it from sticking but also to make a savory gravy. Once cooked, I added it to a bowl of ricotta/tofu and mixed.  Repeat the same process for the 2 links of real Italian sausage.

I cheated a bit (there was already so much work!) and used jar tomato sauce.  In an 8x8 Pyrex-type pan, spread 4-6 spoonfuls of sauce on the bottom of the pan.  Scoop the sausage/ricotta mixture into one leaf of the cabbage, roll it tight, and place it in the pan.  Continue this process until the pan is full.  Spoon more tomato sauce over all of the cabbage rolls and spread evenly.

Cover with foil and bake in a 400 degree oven for about 30 minutes.  At that point, you can remove the foil and bake 10-20 minutes more to remove some of the liquid.  I added a sprinkling of mozzarella cheese on top too!  When the cheese is melted (or browned a bit, if that's what you like), then the dish is done.

We enjoyed a lovely family dinner with our guest, DK.  It was a great way to start the new year.

The Art of Creative Cooking

I like to cook a bunch of different dishes during the weekend so that we have nice home-cooked meals throughout the week. I don't have a lot of time during the week to cook healthy nutritious meals, so I stock up on the weekends. This weekend I cleaned out the fridge and cooked all of the fresh vegetables; honestly, they needed to be cooked or soon thrown out. I hate to waste food, so the cooking began.

I'm a West-Coast cooker, meaning that I can make something from the fresh ingredients that are in season (or in this case what's in my refrigerator). I've learned how to be over the past few years. I still use recipes a lot, but after 10 years of cooking, I'm finally starting to experiment. For example, I made "zucchini surprise" Friday night. I diced up some zucchini, finely diced onions, a bell pepper, and garlic and stir-fried them. I added some frozen green beans and an onion soup mix for seasonings and viola, a quick easy dinner. I served it over quinoa. I cooked the quinoa earlier in the rice cooker. For some added flavor, I added about a 1/3 of a can of tomato soup. It was very tasty.

I've also been making a lot of beans. Dried beans are much, much more economical than canned and my daughter loves them. I made 3 batches of beans this weekend: black, pinto, and kidney beans. Most of them went into the freezer so we have plenty for future meals. I also made BBQ lentils, spinach quiche, yucca and potato au gratin, steamed beets, more quinoa, and rice. We have a bunch of lettuce and fresh spinach so we've had fresh salad for dinner each night too.

I feel so domestic...and healthy:)