Quinoa Cabbage Rolls (gluten free, vegan)

Quinoa Cabbage Rolls

Cabbage rolls are kind of hard to describe. You have sweet, softened leaves of cabbage wrapping a filling, often rice or buckwheat. Since I had quinoa on hand, I thought, "why not?" That idea was a good one.

I stayed close to the recipe for Meatless Holubtsi in the Ukrainian Daughters' Cookbook,* that my Baba gave me years ago. While not difficult, cabbage rolls are time consuming because there are three steps: cooking the filling, making the rolls, and baking them. The good news is that it is a good "potluck" dish, so if you give yourself three hours 'til mealtime and have it done early, it is fine to keep warm in a covered casserole. You can also make it ahead, either at the pre-baked prepped stage or after baking and warm it up.

Kolachi (braided circle bread)

I was a lucky kid: my mother grew up in a home where Christmas was celebrated on December 25th. My father's family celebrated Christmas on January 6th. In our house, we celebrated both. On December 25th we would exchange gifts and have a big dinner. The second, "Ukrainian Christmas" was all about food. Kutia, perogies, borsch, cabbage rolls... There were a few times when we travelled to my Baba and Gida's home and joined my aunts, uncles and cousins for a traditional Christmas Eve supper. Twelve meatless dishes are served to remind us of the twelve apostles. That is a lot of good, good food.

My First Kolach!

One of my favorite parts of Ukrainian Christmas was the kolach: a braided bread that decorated the table. Sometimes three were stacked on each other to represent the Holy Trinity. Rich and sweet, I could not wait for my mother to take the candle out if the middle and let us cut it up.