Tempeh Stuffed Greens with Tomato Sauce

Poor cabbage - it really is the ugly duckling of the food world. Especially green cabbage or even worse, a traditional, Old World European dish like stuffed cabbage leaves. Just that phrase conjures large, older men and women eating stinky cabbage, in the cold dark winter. Truly, not what you are fantasizing about while searching for sexy dinner and luscious looking meal ideas for this week of cupids and valentines.

Until you taste it...then the creamy filling mixes with the greens and sweet tomato sauce into one of the most delicious mouthfuls of bliss.

So just blindfold your love and feed them their first bite. Blindfolds are so sexy!

For the sharp-eyed readers you'll notice that my greens were not cabbage. In this version I used collard greens because of their abundance in my winter garden, but cabbage leaves would have worked just as well. Since my greens were so tender and fresh, I didn't blanch them before using them, but simply allowed the sauce to soften them. If you use large collard greens from the store or green cabbage, simply place a leaf in a pot of boiling water for 10 seconds and remove and drain. Cut out the stem after blanching, not before.

New Year, New Chapter

Hello dear readers! In case you hadn't noticed, my posts on this blog are fewer and farther between because I am otherwise occupied...starting my new business!

From Kirsten's Kitchen to Yours, Catering and Personal Chef Services is officially launched!

The website is now live, orders are being taken, and I am so excited about my new chapter of working for myself, creating light filled food for people!

If you want more regular updates, please like us on Facebook where you'll hear about the fun things I'm making, as well as view photos of the weekly Farmers' Market shopping sprees that will now be part of my regular routine, lucky me!

The blog will not go away but the posts will be less frequent than the every four days that was my routine for more than 3 years. The business website includes a link to the blog, so the connection will continue.

Hugs!

Veggie Grain Bowl with Shitake Sesame Dressing

 

Some people claim that salads are boring. Sure, that's true if you make them with the same ingredients and glop on the same dressing day in and day out. This dressing is as far from boring as the sun from the moon!

I had an inkling to recreate one of my favorite salad dressings in a bottle - Shitake Sesame Vinaigrette. There wasn't much thought that went into it, just a hunch and I struck gold! Saute some garlic and fresh shitake mushrooms, add the usual suspects and Presto, fantastic dressing that you will want to drown, I mean drizzle, over salads from now until July!

Pictured above was my take on a grain n' veggie bowl: place some cooked grains in the bottom of a bowl and pile on lots of vegetables cut into bite size pieces, and then add your favorite dressing. As you can see, nothing that out of the ordinary besides the dressing.

Cucumber, Pepper and Red Cabbage Salad with Carrot Ginger Dressing

This was one of those gorgeous delicious salads that came together quite by accident. Accidental in that I had no plan for it to taste so good nor to be so easy to put together. It is what happens when you have red cabbage, cucumber, and a bell pepper (green in this case) hanging out in the vegetable bin and you're starving. And you want something "gourmet" but you don't want to leave the house or pay for delivery.

And then I saw the carrots and remembered I had ginger. So carrot ginger dressing was made in a flash. Pulling out my Christmas gift of an awesome red mandoline, I made quick work of the cabbage and diced up the cucumber and green pepper. Noticing some fresh mint and basil, that was added to the mix and tossed with the carrot ginger dressing. Topping it all off were a small handful of pan roasted cashews and some lime juice. Heaven in a bowl!

Faux'roni Stromboli - DIY Vegan Pepperoni

Stom-bol-i. Just saying it makes my heart sing! Pizza dough wrapped around some cheese and meaty deliciousness is what makes something a Stomboli. Here it's vegan pepperoni and some mozzarella (dairy or vegan, your choice).

This is one of those recipes that is almost not a recipe, unless you're making the dough from scratch (yeah, I did, but don't feel pressured - this is comfort food at the best, so buy the dough if that makes it easier for you).

If you grew up in the Northeast, specifically the Tri-State area (NY, NJ, CT) then you'll remember stromboli along with pizza and calzones usually displayed at your local mom-n-pop Italian diner place. It's sad to think that Sbarro has mostly taken over those places, but I hope there are still some locally owned places making stromboli!

Vegan Pepperoni - DIY Pantry

Homemade, vegan, pepperoni.

Really, need I say more?

This is a recipe that combines various versions found around the web. It does rely on vital wheat gluten, but unlike some of the recipes I found, it is not a hard and rubbery version. With about three times the tomato paste and my own addition of chili oil because the first versions I tried lacked both fire and the tomatoey flavor that pork pepperoni has, I feel justified calling it my own recipe.

Happily this version freezes well because I ate nearly one third of the batch in one sitting, and my digestive system was screaming at me for that! It's great on pizza, sliced for snacking or tucked into your favorite pizza dough with cheese and baked in the oven (stromboli style, watch for it soon in this space!)