vegan creamed corn and stuffed cabbage

Note: This post was previously published here as a part of my freelance work, and was written by my darling boyfriend, Adam. 

Stuffed cabbage is the epitome of Eastern European comfort food. From Kensington to Krakow, every Polish grandma has this dish in her repertoire. Traditionally, cabbage leaves are wrapped around ground beef or pork and baked in tomato sauce (and heaps of butter) to create this beautifully simplistic staple.  If you’ve never enjoyed the traditional, rustic-style stuffed cabbage, try this recipe.

Indeed, it’s hard to improve upon such a time-honored classic, so we simply adapted it to what’s available in your recent CSA pick-ups.  In place of tomato sauce, we used last pick-up’s Winter Sun Farms frozen corn to make a creamy corn sauce. Normally we’re averse to frozen food, but this corn—as apposed to the factory-farmed institutional variety—was harvested locally in August at it’s apex of ripeness and flavor.  It’s delicious.  We pureed it with coconut milk and man, it’s a knock out.  The richness and subtle sweetness of the coconut milk sings a beautiful harmony with the corn’s summery-sweet melody.

We also uncovered some Winter Sun Farms frozen edamame (from many CSA’s past) in our freezer and decided it would work well to round out the dish.  Any type of hearty bean will work just as well.  This vegetarian stuffed cabbage, like its more traditional cousin, is deeply flavorful, filling, and, most importantly, comforting.

“Creamed” Corn:

Prep time: 5 minutes

Cook time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:

1 medium onion, diced

2 cups (1 bag) Winter Sun Farm frozen corn

2 cups coconut milk

2 Tbl white wine vinegar

1 Tbl thyme

1 tsp red pepper flake

Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

In a large sauce pan, sweat onions in olive oil over medium heat until they become translucent.

Add in frozen corn, vinegar, thyme and pepper flake and cook for about five minutes or until the corn is thawed and tender.

Pour in the coconut milk and bring it to a simmer.  Let the corn cook for about 10 minutes.

Puree using an immersion blender, adding more coconut milk if necessary to achieve a creamy consistency.

Season to taste with salt in pepper and reserve for later.

Stuffed Cabbage

Prep time: 15 minutes

Cook time: 45 minutes

Yield: 6 stuffed cabbages

Ingredients:

2 cups brown rice, cooked previously 

1 medium onion, diced

1 cup shelled edamame beans

1 head of cabbage

Directions

Blanch edamame in boiling water for 1 min and shock in a bowl of ice water. Sauté the onions on medium heat in olive and cook until tender, then mix in the blanched edamame. Mix onions and beans with rice and reserve as the stuffing for the cabbage

Remove the outer most leaves of the cabbage and discard.  Gently tear a few leaves off and trim any large stems or veins away.

Blanch cabbage leaves in boiling water until they become soft, pliable and translucent, about 2-3 minutes. Transfer them to a bowl of ice water to shock them.

After blanching about 10 or so leaves, place them on a clean towel to dry.

Lay a cabbage leaf flat on a cutting board and spoon about 1/4 cup of rice and edamame onto the center of the leaf.  Fold the leaf’s right and left sides vertically over the filling, then roll the leaf horizontally like a burrito.  Repeat until all filling is used.  

Place the stuffed cabbages into a 11’x7’ baking pan and top generously with the “creamed” corn.

Bake in a 350F degree oven for about 45 minutes or until browned.