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May 7, 2008
First of Spring Recipes: Stuffed Napa Cabbage Leaves!
Anyone who has been reading for awhile knows that I simply adore stuffing vegetables. Another big theme with me is turning a CR-unfriendly food into a CR friendly food. Napa cabbage leaves, which are tough enough to be stuffed, are a great substitute for bread, and can even pretend to be pizza crusts. I've used them to make appetizers for parties before, since you can stuff them with quite a lot of food and still have a finger food that doesn't require fork and knife to eat.
Today, on a beautiful spring day, I'm stuffing napa cabbage leaves with a fun mixture that I made with Quorn, but that would also be quite delicious with chicken or tofu. I am marinating Quorn tenders and diced yellow squash in a sauce of cider vinegar, chili powder, garlic powder, a tiny drop of sucralose (you could use a tiny bit of Splenda) and fresh ground pepper, plus a bit of generic Louisiana hot sauce.
That's four leaves, set out in a little flower pattern on our pretty dishes courtesy of the parents of MR. On the side, I served a mixture of diced cucumber, green zucchini, and fresh flat leaf Italian parsley marinated in red wine vinegar with garlic and fresh squeezed lemon juice.
It's so nice to be home for a little while and to be able to cook again. We're finally having wonderful weather here, a little too warm for MR but I love it. I actually took a day off yesterday (gasp!) and though I did end up doing some work from home, I mostly relaxed. Took a two mile walk along the river (we have a lovely bike/pedestrian path). Scrubbed the kitchen floor. Today I'm going back to work but taking Pilates class first, and hopefully not working too late. Tomorrow and Thursday I think I think I think I am going to take off. Wow.
I even read a book yesterday. The Starvation Experiment, about Ancel Keys' experiment during WWII. More about that tomorrow. Brief preview: we are not starving. Those guys were starving.
Posted by april at May 7, 2008 6:51 AM
Comments
Hi April - just a few questions about your recipe. You didn't mention cooking the Quorn, squash or zucchini - are they served uncooked? Also, we don't have Quorn tenders in the UK - there is probably an equivalent - we do have Quorn - and I have googled it but from the picture on the pack it is hard to make out just what it actually is!
Posted by: Linda at May 7, 2008 1:22 PM
here is a stuffed spring dish from me, stuffed grape leaves. You boil the grape leaves if they are fresh (you can probably find fresh or conserved at greek groceries) and stuff them with a minced low-fat beef, a little bit of rice, finely chopped onions, parsley, salt and pepper mixture then cook on slow heat with a little bit of water and green plums or unripe (green) grapes for a bit of tanginess (you can use lemon or lime juice instead of the unripe fruit) adding olive oil after they are done. This is served with non-fat plain yogurt with chopped garlic mixed in, topped with red paprika flakes and dried mint leaves. I guess you can CR it buy replacing the beef-mince with minced quorn and omitting the rice. it's a staple mediterrenean/greek/turkish/armenian, basically anatolian dish, very tasty.
Posted by: zeynep at May 9, 2008 2:00 PM