Cabbage Rolls

Since cabbage rolls have always been one of my favorite dishes, I am really happy to discover that I can still enjoy them despite having given up eating meat. My aunt Emeline used to made cabbage rolls; they were kind of her thing. She used to steam the cabbage leaves in the dishwasher! I boiled mine in a big pot of water and they were easy to work with.

Vegan Cabbage Rolls

Sub the Meat for Lentils

Obviously there is no ground beef in these cabbage rolls. They're made with lentils instead, and they're actually pretty amazing. I've eaten them for supper twice and for lunch twice and I clean my plate every time.

Recipe Tweaking

Original recipe here
I stayed true to the original recipe with the exception of leaving the raisins out of the sauce. I think I would have liked the raisins, but Laura wasn't feeling it, so we decided to skip them. If I made them again, I would use less black pepper and a tiny bit more allspice.

Other things you could do would be to use other types of spices, or your favorite marinara instead of the sauce in the recipe. You could also use any kind of rice or other grain you want for the filling, or even add some veggies, like chopped spinach or kale.

Cabbage Rolls in Roast Pan

Takes Foreffingever

I have two complaints about making cabbage rolls. The first is that they are friggy and time-consuming. I don't think these can be made in an hour. The cabbage has to be cored, boiled and cooled. The rice and lentils both need to be cooked for the filling. There is chopping for both the sauce and the filling. For this first time, everything was measured. Then there is the wrapping, which can be a bit of an exercise in trial and error, especially at first. Then, finally, there is the cooking, which I think was about 45 minutes to an hour. You can't just come home from work and say, "Let's have cabbage rolls for supper!" and expect to eat before 9:00 pm. Not happening. No, these are a Sunday afternoon endeavor. But, worth it.

Makes a Huge Mess

The very worst part (my second and loudest complaint) about making cabbage rolls is that it creates a lot of dirty dishes - definitely not a one-pot meal. I think I dirtied a mixing bowl, a pot for the rice, a pot for the lentils, a pot for the sauce, 2 baking dishes (because I don't have a large one and had to use the small roast pan and a covered casserole dish), the grater, all the measuring cups and spoons, a wine glass and a big pile of utensils. Besides that, there was sauce splattered all over the stove, and bits of filling all over my work space and torn and shredded pieces of cooked cabbage all over the counter. And dishes everywhere. Not my ideal work environment, since I'm a "clean as you go" kind of kitchen bitch, but that doesn't seem to be entirely possible with these since there are too many things on the go at once. Wish I'd gotten a picture of it.

But again, it's worth it. And makes about 18 rolls.