I made most of this dinner with leftovers I had in the fridge so it was a quick and easy dinner to make after work but this would also be a nicer dinner to serve at the weekend or for a special occasion.

With the ingredients that I had I was able to make 8 parcels so we also had a meal for later on in the week too!

Ingredients

1 green leafy cabbage

Cooked leftovers – lentils/beans/vegetables (see notes below)

1 Onion

2 Carrots

1 stick Celery

3 cloves Garlic

1 jar passata

What to do

Firstly mince the onion, carrots, celery and garlic in a food processor until they look like this:

Fry this mixture in a spoonful of coconut oil for a few minutes until it starts to soften.  Add salt and pepper to taste and the whole jar of passata.  Leave on a low heat to simmer slowly and develop flavour whilst you get on with the rest of the dish.

(This amount of sauce made way more than I needed for the dish but the leftover was used as a pasta sauce later in the week).

Whilst the tomato sauce is simmering, pull the cabbage leaves and de-stalk the thickest part as shown below on the right:

You now need to boil the leaves in plain water for a minute or so to soften them then pat dry on a clean towel.

Boiling them now makes them easier to work with when you fill and roll them.

Place a spoonful or two of the leftover mixture onto the centre of the cabbage leaf but be carful not to add too much mixture as it will make the parcels difficult to roll.

Now just roll them up (easier said than done!)  The first few times I tried this they didn’t look very beautiful but as with everything, practice makes perfect.  I start by pulling in the left and right side of the leaf and rolling up from the bottom (where you de-stalked) to the top.  Turn it over and place into an oven proof dish.  Repeat this process with the rest of your cabbage leaves (and don’t worry if a bit of stuffing escapes into the dish).

Add the tomato sauce you’ve had simmering and cover the parcels well.

Bake this in the oven for around 30 minutes to make sure everything is thoroughly warmed through inside and serve with your favourite vegetables.

If you are making this from fresh you can use lentils and beans as I have here or you can substitute these for rice, cous cous, bulgar, quinoa, barley etc but just factor in the time to cook these first.

The vegetables that I had lurking in the fridge to stuff the parcels with were peas, sweetcorn, leek and broad beans but again, just use what you have around and what you enjoy.