Recipe: Cabbage Lasagna and Green Garlic Mashers

I’ve never been a huge cabbage fan and you may have noticed that I hadn’t posted a recipe using that oxheart cabbage we got for Valentine’s Day.  Well, the March issue of Vegetarian Times arrived in our mailbox last week and included a feature about cabbage with various recipes.  Below is my take on their “Cabbage Casserole with Leeks, Ricotta and Pine Nuts.”  I didn’t really read through the recipe before I started making it, and thought that it would make a nice topping for mashed potatoes (or mashers), but it turned out that the recipe was more like a lasagna with cabbage filling in for pasta.  The mashers made a great side dish for this hearty, yet healthy meal.

Ingredients for the Cabbage Lasagna

• 12 large leaves of oxheart cabbage (or savoy)
• 2 baby red onions, sliced (or 3 small leeks)
• 1 baby garlic, sliced
• 1/2 cup veggie broth
• 3 slices lemon
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 15-ounce can chopped tomatoes – we had fire roasted tomatoes with peppers, which made the dish spicy
• 3T chopped parsley
• 8 oz ricotta
• 3T toasted pine nuts

Blanch the cabbage leaves in a large pot of boiling salted water about 5 minutes or until softened.  Drain, pat dry and set aside.  Heat some oil in a skillet over medium high eat and add the baby red onions, baby garlic, and broth.  Place lemon slices on top and bring to a simmer.  Drop the heat to low and cook for 25 minutes.  Drain the liquid in a colander, remove the lemon and put aside.  Preheat the oven to 350.  Heat some more oil in the skillet, add the garlic and cook for about a minute before adding the tomatoes.  Cook for about 10 minutes or until most of the liquid is evaporated.  Stir in the parsley.

To assemble.  Oil a baking dish and the lay down a layer of 3 or 4 cabbage leaves.  Top with 1/3 of the tomatoes, 1/3 of the ricotta, 1/3 of the pine nuts and 1/3 of the onion mixture.  Repeat 3 times and top everything with a last layer of cabbage.  Bake for about 30 minutes.

Ingredients for the Mashers

• 3 russet potatoes, peeled and chopped into large chunks
• 2/3 cup milk
• 1/3 cup veggie broth
• 1 bulb of green garlic, chopped (including green parts)
• sour cream (to taste)
• pats of butter

Combine milk, broth and green garlic in a pan and bring to a simmer, turn off and let milk infuse.  While the cabbage is baking, put potatoes in a large pot, cover with cold water and bring to a boil.  Simmer until potatoes are cooked, 15-25 minutes.  Once soft, drain and return to the pot.  Let sit 30 seconds or so to allow the water to evaporate.  Pour the infused milk into the potatoes (making sure to get all the green garlic) and mash with a potato masher.  Add a few spoonfuls of sour cream to taste and mix in.  Add S&P to taste.  Serve with a pat of butter on top.

Recipe: Baked Penne with Random Vegetables

I had wanted to make a baked ziti, but didn’t have the tomato sauce or enough cheese, so this is what we made instead – it was great.

Ingredients

• 1 package organic penne from Trader Joe’s
• 1 carrot, sliced thinly on the diagonal
• 1 head of broccoli (from last week’s basket), cut into small florets, cut the stalk into bite-sized pieces
• 1 yellow onion, chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• half a package of mushrooms, sliced
• 2 veggie Italian sausage, sliced to resemble the carrots
• small handful of parsley, rustically chopped
• shredded Italian cheese mix from Trader Joe’s
• ricotta, a few dollops
• tomato sauce (we didn’t have any, so I made my own using some tomatoes from our garden that I had frozen last summer.  Freeze the whole tomatoes and to cook, just put them in a sauce pot and turn the heat up to high.  They will let out A LOT of water, but don’t worry, let everything boil and reduce for a while, add some salt, pepper, tomato paste and sugar, if the tomatoes need it and you have tomato sauce!  If you want to be picky, you can take out the skins, but i don’t mind them.)

Cook the pasta to al dente in salted water.  Add in the carrots about a minute after the pasta starts cooking.  Add the broccoli at the last minute, drain and set aside.

Meanwhile, saute the onion until golden in olive oil, remove from the pan.  Saute the mushrooms, veggies sausage and garlic until toasty.

Mix the pasta, veggies, onion, sausage and parsley together with a drizzle of olive oil, salt & pepper.  Transfer mixture into a baking dish, spoon tomato sauce on top.  Dot the top with spoonfuls of ricotta and cover with a couple handfuls of cheese.  Bake in a 350 degree oven for about 20 minutes, or until the cheese is melted.

This recipe made enough for dinner plus at least 4 lunches.

We served this with a simple salad of torn red oak leaf lettuce in a sherry vinaigrette.