Farro cabbage rolls * Recipes

A good combination of nutrients is as vital as alternating meals, and the Mediterranean cuisine might be a good resource, being rich in vegetables, cereals, legumes, fruit. The great variety of delicious and light recipes is helpful also when introducing food we are not used to have in our ordinary diet.
Farro, that in English is called also emmer, spelt and einkorn even if there is not a proper equivalent of the Italian word, deserves a special mention. Extraordinary cereal used by the Italics and Roman peoples, and more recently main ingredient in  the preparation of delicious soups of Oscan, Etrurian, and Sabines tradition. Eating soups every day might be boring, and also our ancestors were well aware of that, so contemporary cuisine has been rediscovered in its essentiality, with vegetables or as an alternative to meat main courses, for side dishes, first courses and even desserts, such as salads, dark green vegetables and in the cooking of delicious cabbage rolls. Its wheat is perfect for cakes with hazelnuts, honey and dried fruit. Boiled farro matches with fresh apples, extra virgin PDO Sabine olive oil and minced cheese. 
Cabbage is rich in vitamines and elements that help fixing proteins, but its strong taste might be difficult to soften, cabbage and farro rolls balance the flavours, creating a food that is a good combination of nutritients, good to eat. I've tasted the cabbage rolls and wrote down the recipe, as they were really good and a great alternative for a vegetarian main course.

Farro

Cabbage

Extra virgin Sabine PDO olive oil

Salt

Freshly picked chicory

Sun ripened small hillock tomatoes, freshly picked or bottled
Black light bittery olives (typical of Sabine) 
Freshly grated ginger

Freshly grated organic and freshly picked lemon

Chilly

Carrots

Fresh Tofu

Cocktail sticks or toothpicks

Wash accurately the cabbage, scald lightly in salted water the bigger leaves for 2' or 3'  then dry in a colander; wash accurately te chicory, boil it or steam the carrots; boil the farro (usually it doesn't but might need a pre soak); chop tofu in small cubes and pit the a hadful of olives. In a pot warm lightly a spoon or two of oil with chilly, add the minced chicory, farro and the olives, then the tomatoes, salt and sprinkle with fresh ginger. Let cool, oil the baking pan, prepare the leaves on a large plate. Add tofu, part of the boiled or steamed carrots chopped in cubes, and some grated lemon, to the tepid compound lay it on the leaves and stuff a closed roll, fix with the toothpicks or cocktail sticks dust with bread crumbs and grated lemon rind. Put in the warm oven (200°C) for about 30'. Garnish with black Sabin olives, round chopped carrots dressed with olive oil and fresh savory. 
 

Politically correct.

©2010.2020
Special thanks to the WR community

Soy steaks with almond cream and field mushrooms

One of the ingredients that you get acquainted with when you go vegetarian is soy in all its nuances, such as the 'steaks'. Not inviting polystirol wizen sponges aspects and even less tempting taste of cork sawdust, nothing against the producers of soy. The good thing, is that you can disguise the typical taste,  annoying for many, so to make them a tasty alternative to meat.

Sauces, dippings, spices and delis can transform also the most sawdusty soy steaks in a delicious dish that tastes good also for the most meateater of the meateaters.

Now, be careful with sauces and dippings: when you start a vegetarian diet you also learn to count calories. Training is a good idea but controlling the calories is an even better one.

Lasagne, melanzane parmigiane, cereals and legumes soups, risotti and timbales are definetely tasty and balanced but cannot be considered low-calorie, so, at least for the everyday diet, a low-fats and low-calorie cuisine is advisable. The grilled tenderloin with fresh salad or carrots, the fish fillet baked or grilled sided with seasoned oranges, the tuna salad, perfect solution for so many lunches and dinners, especially when the bathroom scales needle was being nasty, are a sweet memory quite difficult to replace. 

To obtain the same proteine, minerals and vitamines intake of one of these dishes it is vital to combine many nutritious, and trying to avoid cooking with a quantity of calories that would fade the number of calories of a decadent chocolate cake. 

Once tested the pizzaiola soy steaks we can start elaborating something new, just for a change. For instance steaks with white wine, cream and mushrooms. Wait a moment, there's something wrong.. the cream, the wine and the soffritto will add to the not-low-calorie steaks a quantity of calories that could turn nervous the needle of the bathroom scale sneery smirking at the dinstance between the ideal and the actual weight after having tasted this course, eventually with a glass of good wine or a sparkling soft drink for non drinkers, and preceding it with a good truffle risotto and a good slice of pie.

Easier to eat the whole decadent chocolate cake with whipped cream and buttery icing....

Or dripping calories.  

Avoid the soffritto with butter and oil, lightly warm the extra virgin PDO olive oil with a bit of chilli, mutuate the cream with the salty almond cream that can be bought in some organic shops, skip the risotto and for the pie, if we really cannot do without, try to keep it warm till merenda time and meanwhile get a slice of white mellon with drops of lemon and fresh mint leaves. Not to say to avoid as much as possible alcohol and sparkling soft drinks, using mainly hot or cold herbal teas, infusions and natural mineral water.

Dehydrated soy steaks

Extra virgin PDO olive oil
Cuisine chef almond cooking cream

White wine (Falanghina)
Salt
Field mushrooms
Chilli
RInd of Seville orange
Crumbs of almonds, haelnuts, walnuts
Vegetables cooking water or vegetable broth to rehydrate the steaks

Soften the steaks in a big pot with the water used for cooking vegetables, vegetable broth or salted and spiced warm water, for the time needed, one to three hours, with the consistence of a wet not hard make-up removal sponge, easy to chop, On the boxes they often say to boil them for 20', not a good idea, dry inside and overdone externally. Squeeze and chop in 3cm cubes, warm the oil with the Seville orange rinds and chilli, depending on taste, but remembering that soy easily picks the spicy flavour. Quickly saute, add wine, about a glass, and evaporate the aclohol, add the mushrooms previously cleaned, sliced, ,salted, lower the heat. Cook at low heat for the cooking time of field mushrooms, add the almond cream and the same quantity of water when in the pan there's still the natural sauce of the mushrooms, sprinkle with Seville orange rinds, crumbs of almond, hazelnuts, walnuts, garnish with flowers of sage and little clouds of marmelade.

©2010.2020

Lasagne artichokes, mozzarella and fresh tomato sauce

Among the privation, some painless others quite hard to digest, the 'sugo' for the lasagne.

Now, there is not much to say about the variety of lasagne recipes, but one thing is certain, in the traditional recipe meat cannot be missing. We can debate on the mozzarella instead of the bechamel, or of cream, or on the presence of ragu, meat balls or of lean meat, but meat is the tastier ingredient of this holiday Italian cuisine dish.

Not giving  up on lasagne means, if going vegetarian, looking for credible alternatives. Soy instead of meat, in whatever shape, minced, meatballs or stew, is definetely not an option to calm the desire of meat, and is actually one of those foods that could make the most convinced vegetarian change the convictions. Typical green and white lasagne with bechamel or cream and vegetables is probably a tasty option but has nothing to do with the classic baking tray dripping with sugo and mozzarella (or bechamel or cream).

To make it simple, lasagne in my own family are with mozzarella and sugo, the sugo being tomato sauce cooked with lean meat and a lot of basil, whoever tried them remembers the taste with great pleasure, and to me it's one of the most tasty and delicious recipe ever. Saying no to that lasagne is not easy. I tried with the simple basil and tomato sauce and mozzarella, taste good but nothing compared to that wonder of flavours. Then I tried to make use of the masterly creative family ability and I added mushrooms to the sugo. A well-made attempt, but the carnivourous instinct was in abush. Then the metanoia on the road to Damascus, a memory of a family meeting: fresh 'sugo' with sun ripened tomatoes and artichokes.

Artichokes have an unmistakable taste and are ideal for lasagne, a perfect harmony. So, there are two possible recipes, one for a holiday lunch and the other for a dinner with friends after a long working day.

Fresh eggs
Sabina wheat milled traditionally 

Extra virgin PDO olive oil
Salt

Mozzarella from the Agro Pontino or the Agro Romano
Sun ripened tomatoes or bottled sugo
Chilli

Globe artichokes
Grated grana padano
Butter
Pennyroyal or peppermint

If you  have never seen how to prepare a 'sfoglia' it's much better to go to the fresh egg pasta shop and buy the sheets of fresh sfoglia. Parboil in salty water the rectangles of sfoglia, put them in an oiled baking tray and add abundant sugo, abundant mozzarella chopped in cubes and, for who likes it, abundant grated grana padano.

Sugo is made with well cleaned fresh artichokes, cleared from the 'hair', kept in water and lemon juice and browned in extra virgin PDO olive oil adding pennyroryal and peppermint . Depending on the season, add fresh sun ripened tomatoes or the sugo with basil bottled during hot months and stored in the  cupboard. Cook at medium heat the time to get the flavour keeping firm the slices of artichokes. Cover with a layer of parboiled sfoglia and then sugo, mozzarella, grana. The number of layers varies depending on the bakery tray and the number of people The latter is sugo and some ribbons of butter. Bake in the warm oven (200°C220C°) and cook for at least 45 minutes. 

For the quick recipe use the ready to use dried sfoglia that can be found in shops, The result is obviously different but tastes nice.

©2008.2012