Good morning. While I was wandering the aisles at the grocery store the other day I had a very uncomfortable moment of consciousness when I looked down into my grocery basket and saw very little fresh food.
It’s that time of year – the dead of Winter – when it seems like the possibilities for local, fresh food are next to nothing – and it’s bumming me out.
Mostly because it’s that time of year when I want to be retooling my food intake – going for the greens, heading away from anything processed. Now that I’m on the no coffee-no sugar edict from the doctor, it’s even higher on my list.
I’ve conceded that the bananas from Ecuador are going in the cart. But, wanting to eat as local as possible, I went digging around to see what fresh B.C. goodness could be on the menu.
According to the BC Association of Farmers’ Markets, apples, cabbage, pears, rosemary, sage, turnips, Winter squash are in season while you are also still able to get cold storage potatoes and onions.
From greenhouses, you can get tomatoes and peppers too. I’ve also happily found a few greens options like chard.
Looks like I’ll be getting the local veggie goodness going ASAP.
But, of course, this time of year is the ultimate in food for me because it is, well, cabbage season. It has been said amongst my family members that cabbage cannot be the only vegetable we eat from December to March. I disagree (although have conceded the need to eat other things).
Since cabbage is just about the easiest local veg to find right now, I thought I’d share my favorite, easy cabbage roll recipe – once again passed down from my lovely grandmother who dug cabbage almost as much as I do.:)
Ingredients:
- 1 green cabbage (with big leaves)
- 1 pound of sausage or ground pork
- 2 C cooked rice
- 1 small onion
- 3 cloves of garlic
- Fresh sage
- 1 tsp of marjoram
- 1 can of tomatoes or a jar of your favorite spaghetti sauce
DIRECTIONS:
1. Cut the core out of the cabbage and submerge it in a pot of boiling water for about 10 minutes to soften the leaves. Take it out and let it cool for a bit before peeling the leaves carefully off of the head. Cook your rice.
2. Meanwhile, dice the onion, crush the garlic and brown in a bit of butter. Add the sausage/pork and brown everything. Mix in the marjoram, salt and pepper to taste. Add rice.
3. Start filling the cabbage rolls with the pork mixture. Roll them up and place them in a pan.
4. Pour the tomatoes/spaghetti sauce over the rolls and bake them at 350 for about 35 minutes. Then, put the broiler on high and broil them for 2-3 minutes to get them a bit crispy.
5. Serve and enjoy.
Have a great Wednesday.
I mis-read the title… I thought you were making Local Veg Cabbage Rolls, and I was excited to see what you were going to stuff them with! These still sound yummy though!
Stacey,
I’ve made these as well with Winter squash instead of the pork sausage and they are wonderful. Thanks for the reminder.
I actually posted two cabbage recipes this week for the exact same reason! It is hard to find good local(or localish) options this time of year. I haven’t ever made cabbage rolls though, yum!
Delicious! We’re big cabbage eaters here to
Sauerkraut, cabbage rolls, fried cabbage, coleslaw… if you can cram cabbage into it, we’ll eat it! LOL. I was actually just reading about a winter carrot that can be grown late summer and overwintered in ground no problem even under all the snow & frost! It’s called Napoli and I can’t wait to try it this fall.
Yum! Last winter I stopped rolling them and started shredding the cabbage and now I make cabbage roll stir fry – so good!
If you look really carefully, you can also find Belgium Endive, gorgeous Salad Greens (a mix of baby spinach, arugula, radicchio, frisee and other goodies), Savoy Cabbage, Kale, Baby Carrots (the real thing), Leeks,Beets, Parsnips, Carrots, Kiwis, Mushrooms… And I know that there are more yummies coming in the next couple of weeks- provided we get a bit more sun!