Hungary Hungry

I'm really liking this pre-made dinners routine. I've probably saved $25 bucks by having food ready to go in the fridge after a long day's work.  In addition to saving money, I'm glad I was inspired by Vegetarian Times' Cook Up a Storm article because I was getting bored with my standard fare. The last two meals reminded me of my Iron Range roots with a memory of Eastern European classics: cabbage rolls (sarma) and mushroom paprikash. I'm also happy to report Vegetarian Times has the recipes up for these dishes now (linked below.)

Tonight, we dove in to the mushroom paprikash. The only thing to make the dish vegan is to sub vegan sour cream for dairy. Easy enough. I'm getting to be a bit of an aficionado of vegan sour creams and I definitely have my favorites. The challenge is my favorite has palm oil in it which can be problematic for habitat destruction for orangutan. So, I tried a new brand this time: WayFare Sour Cream. It worked just fine in this dish, but it's a little more yogurt texture/flavor than sour cream to me. You can also make your own sour cream with silken tofu (New Farm Vegetarian Cookbook has a great recipe.)

My fiance commented that the paprikash had a good depth of flavor which really means it was satisfyingly delicious featuring tomatoes, mushrooms, onions, white wine, paprika and creamy goodness with the sour cream stirred in.

Last night, we baked the Middle Eastern cabbage rolls. I forget how much I love cabbage rolls. These were interesting with a sweet and salty stuffing of green lentils, currants, onions and kalamata olives. The tomato sauce was warm and inviting with cumin, marjoram (sub oregano if you don't have it) and allspice.

The photo isn't as appealing as the cabbage rolls. We had enough leftovers for me to bring them for lunch the next day and they were even better heated up in the microwave.

I'm already getting separation anxiety. We only have one more dish to go before my cooking storm passes as a distant memory caught on this blog.

Sunday: Broccoli Tomato Pizza
Monday: Zucchini Corn Cannelloni
Tuesday: Thai Sloppy Joes
Wednesday: Cabbage Rolls
Thursday: Mushroom Paprikash