This is my entry for #Veganwednesday by @heart-to-heart
When I was four years old my mother and I came over from Thailand to join my Canadian father who went back to Canada to prepare for our arrival. Up until then I had never tasted anything other than my mother's amazing Thai cooking.
When I was five they bought a house and rented part of it to a Hungarian lady, whom would introduce me to a few non Thai dishes. She made the most amazing cabbage rolls and she always shared them.
My mother started going in and out of the hospital for cancer, when I was five and my father was not much of a cook, so the Hungarian lady always made sure that an abundance of her cabbage rolls were delivered when she she made them. It was always exciting when I came home from school and saw them on the counter in a clear casserole dish.
She made them with cabbage of course, ground beef and onions, then she baked them with tomato sauce. I would imagine that she had some seasonings in the mix, such as Hungarian paprika.
Later in life I would encounter the German cabbage roll. They were made with ground pork and/or sausage. One German friend said he liked them only with sausage.
My boyfriend's German mother use to make them with ground pork, but now she makes them without meat for us since we have gone vegan. She usually puts in vegan ground or mushrooms. She then puts them in the oven with only a little tomato sauce compared to the ones I've had in the past, then she tops them with sauteed sauerkraut and onions.
I use to work for a company years ago that made ready made foods for the supermarkets, and one of the things we made from scratch, right down to freezing the fresh cabbages in hundreds, was cabbage rolls. We rolled and rolled and rolled.
Today I was feeling like having some vegan cabbage rolls but I was not willing to go through the trouble especially since the kitchen is not mine. We are staying with my boyfriends parents.
I decided to make cabbage roll soup unrolled instead, using the same ingredients that I would use if I made the rolls. I used vegan sausage, chopped up cabbage, rice, chopped tomatoes onions and veggie soup broth. I also added fresh dill, parsley, Hungarian paprika, onion powder, garlic powder, salt and pepper. What made it perfect for my taste was adding sauteed onion and sauerkraut to the soup.
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I understand that the rolls themselves have a certain quality to them that is enjoyable, but I really loved it this way. It was so much simpler and faster. I really would not have wanted to do without the sauerkraut and onions on top.
