It is not that I dislike dishes made from vegetables, it is more that working without meat (which I have not yet found a good source for) leads to some questionable substitutions. I swear I have had stuffed cabbage before and liked it. It certainly was not stuffed with lentils.
I embarked on a dinner journey too late in the evening to reasonable begin making stuffed cabbages and pasta sauce from scratch. The sauce had to be made because many of the commonly available brands have chili in them, or they appeal to a flavor palate that is very different from mine. I was pretty successful at making the sauce. Good tomatoes are easy to get, as is tomato puree, and that with some caramelized onions and garlic, along with various dried spices, makes a pretty decent tomato sauce! I discovered the first time I did this that the sauce was extremely acidic, but I thought that might work well with the sweetness of the cabbages, and I threw some raisins in for good measure.
Since I don't have access to ground beef, I decided to stuff them with a mixture of rice and lentils. This, of course, meant pre cooking the rice and lentils, which took another half hour. I also don't have any broth at the moment. At the very least I have to make some veggie broth soon, because plain rice and lentils is not, to me, an appealing combination. I was already a couple hours into this process, and I decided to soldier on - after all, the sauce was good, and I do like cabbage.
De-leafing the cabbage started off well. I was able to get about eight leaves off in tact. The recipe I was using called for 12, but it wasn't going to happen, plus, I had a feeling I had already exceeded capacity on my casserole dish. By the time everything was baked, I was well beyond dinner, but, from the outside, things turned out well.
I embarked on a dinner journey too late in the evening to reasonable begin making stuffed cabbages and pasta sauce from scratch. The sauce had to be made because many of the commonly available brands have chili in them, or they appeal to a flavor palate that is very different from mine. I was pretty successful at making the sauce. Good tomatoes are easy to get, as is tomato puree, and that with some caramelized onions and garlic, along with various dried spices, makes a pretty decent tomato sauce! I discovered the first time I did this that the sauce was extremely acidic, but I thought that might work well with the sweetness of the cabbages, and I threw some raisins in for good measure.
Since I don't have access to ground beef, I decided to stuff them with a mixture of rice and lentils. This, of course, meant pre cooking the rice and lentils, which took another half hour. I also don't have any broth at the moment. At the very least I have to make some veggie broth soon, because plain rice and lentils is not, to me, an appealing combination. I was already a couple hours into this process, and I decided to soldier on - after all, the sauce was good, and I do like cabbage.
De-leafing the cabbage started off well. I was able to get about eight leaves off in tact. The recipe I was using called for 12, but it wasn't going to happen, plus, I had a feeling I had already exceeded capacity on my casserole dish. By the time everything was baked, I was well beyond dinner, but, from the outside, things turned out well.
It is not so much that they were bad, as that they were not worth nearly 4 hours of work. Lentils are not meat. But I will take them for lunches anyway.
On the plus side, I was able to use the copious amounts of leftover rice and lentils (still no way to measure things!) to make "fried rice." This was much more successful. And faster :)
