cabbage and potatoes on the stove

With my finger tightly bandaged, I set about cutting up the rest of the veggies.

Oh well, back to my usual method of just cutting things up, and throwing them in to cook and hoping for the best.  Before I put the cabbage in, I had to cut up onions, and cook them for a while in butter, which I did, then I threw in the cabbage.

rest of veggies in the mix

At that point, with my cut finger, and it being late, I just figured that this would turn out how it turned out.  I quickly cut up the carrots and the garlic cloves, and tossed them in.  I put in the caraway seeds and the bill, both of which weren’t fresh, but oh well, but didn’t put in any cider vinegar, as it smelled old.

Meanwhile, the potatoes were done, and I mixed in the yogurt, but didn’t have any cottage cheese, but I figured that was ok. I didn’t really like cottage cheese all that much. Once the potatoes were mixed with the yogurt, I poured it into the pan, and mixed it all together, and then put it in the casserole pan to cook.

Finished casserole

I put sunflower seeds and paprika on top, but I wasn’t sure how much I was supposed to put. I stuck the whole thing in the oven, and hoped for the best.

When it came out, I tasted a little. It wasn’t bad, so I figured it would make some good lunches and dinners. At that point it was after 1 a.m in the morning, and despite the cook book saying to serve it hot, I stuck it in the fridge to cool.

Next time I make this, if I do, I will have my Cuisinart, and have a nicer looking casserole at least.

And it came right in time, because I had picked up a half a cabbage head from my CSA. I had no idea what I was going to need to do with it, or what I was going to make with it, but I knew I was going to use the Cuisinart.

First, I had to find a recipe. The one that Camp Joy (my CSA) had on its blog was for tofu cabbage salad and zucchini chocolate chip cookies, neither of which I wanted to make. I went through all my cookbooks, and found one for Solyanka in the New Moosewood Cookbook. True, I had no idea what this was going to taste like, and I didn’t have all the ingredients, but that has never stopped me before.

I grabbed what I did have out of the fridge. A bunch of small potatoes, also from the CSA (the recipe called for 4 medium. I had about six or seven potatoes of all shapes and sizes. Hey, I’m sure this is going to be a sort of peasant dish, and I’m sure they couldn’t always find all the stuff they needed either.  I cut them up, put them on to boil, then set to work cutting up the onion.  I was now ready for the Cuisinart.

I pulled it out of it’s box, read through the warnings, read through what I was supposed to do and not do, such as “don’t touch the blade”. Right, I won’t touch the blade.

I dropped my onions in, turned it on, and pressed the button. Nothing. Unplugged it, tried a different outlet. Nothing. Tried every outlet in the kitchen, and one that was running the fan in my office, that I knew was working. Still nothing.

Rats, I would have to cut everything up by hand after all

Shredded cabbage

Rats, I reached in to pull out the onions, and of course I TOUCHED THE BLADE. So, now, I had potatoes boiling, and cabbage to cut, and I was sucking on my finger, racing to the bathroom to bandage it up, and go back to work.

I shredded the cabbage as quickly as I could, and poured it into the pan with the onions, and cursed my fate.

More on the actual making of the Solyanka tomorrow.

Tomato sauce

As I believe I mentioned, I made the tomato sauce again, but this time I followed the recipe to the letter. When I took it out last night, it was more green than red, but rather than tossing it, I put it away, and tried to think what to do with it. Then, when I looked over the polenta bake recipe, I saw it called for spaghetti sauce, so I thought, bingo, this is what I’ll use it for.

It didn’t look quite as bad as it had last night, when it had been rather green, Now, it had take on a more tomato color, and smelled fine, so I decided to use it. Not all of it, just a cups worth, which was what was called for. I was gong to try to follow the recipe.

cooked polenta

The other bit that called for something already made was a package of prepared polenta. Well, I had the grits to make polenta, so just deiced to do that. Polenta isn’t that hard to make. You basically put 3 cups of water to one cup of grits, and cook it over the stove, letting it absorb the water. Once it was done, the recipe said it had to be fried. I should probably have done this the way they asked, but I am stubborn, so just took my griddle, and fried it with that. The recipe called for it to be deep fried, but I didn’t think that was necessary. Perhaps it would have made for a crisper base, and perhaps I’ll do that next time, but this time I did not.

Casserole

The rest of what I had to do was fairly straight forward. I had to chop 3 carrots, 1 large zucchini, 1 large yellow squash, 1 red onion, 1 red bell pepper.   I didn’t have the pepper, nor did I have the squash, so I used the summer squashes I had, and a yellow rather than a red onion, and threw the whole thing into the frying pan to saute. The recipe said to saute for about 5 minutes before putting int he sauce, but I let it go about 10. Then I mixed the sauce in, and lined the bottom of the baking dish with my fried polenta, which wasn’t as crispy as I’m sure it was supposed to be. Once the veggies had cooked a bit more, I poured it into the dish, and sprinkled 1/2 cup for veggie rennet Parmesan cheese that I had just shredded up. Then, I popped the whole thing in the oven for 30 minutes at 350F.

The polenta was a little underdone, but the cheese and veggies and sauce were quite good, so I may make this again, and perhaps follow the recipe for what to do with the polenta a little more closely.