This week on Hive top chef the theme is "Christmas".

My partner's German mother always cooked a large dinner for Christmas when we lived near his sister. The table would always have a large slab of meat on it of some kind, or several kinds. For the last 17 years we haven't eaten meat.

There was also always an overload of cabbage rolls. She stopped putting meat in them at some point so we would eat them.

For his family, Christmas dinner was not complete without cabbage rolls.

This year we went to his parents house on Christmas eve. His mother is not in good shape anymore so we told her, don't make anything. I was worried we would walk into the house and the smell of cabbage rolls would be wafting through the air. I was hoping she wouldn't go to the trouble but I knew there was a good chance.

We walked in with our own food. We never took it out. There were no cabbage rolls but there was a large frying pan full of store bought vegan sausages. They had been fried hours ahead and were clearly almost burnt and dried out. There were boiled potatoes and several more packages of vegan deli items. They don't remember us telling them, that we don't eat too much of those things and we never eat the brand that they bought.

Now we were committed to eating them. We had them later at the dinner table. His father ate nothing and his mother ate some potatoes and cabbage.

They were tough to chew and get down the hatch but at this point we were hungry so we forced ourselves to not offend them.

The next day was Christmas, with just the two of us, so I decided to compensate for the dinner on Christmas eve, by making stuffed collards. Originally I was going to get cabbage but I had a bunch of collards in the fridge.

I had never used these for rolls before but after doing it, I realize this was more appealing to me then the usual traditional cabbage rolls. I like the colour and they also remind me of the traditional Greek dolmades or stuffed vine leaves.

These leaves are easier to work with then cabbage. It also doesn't take as long to cook and doesn't leave your place smelling like cabbage for days. Not that cabbage is exceptionally offensive to me. I still prefer the milder aroma.

In the past when I've made cabbage rolls at a job, we would freeze them for 3 days to make them easier to cook, but with the collards this takes around a minute of blanching in hot water to soften then they are ready to roll. I cut the middle vein out to make it possible to roll up saving the stems for soup broth.

After blanching them drain and cool off in cold water then set aside while making the filling.

Depending on what you like you could choose any items to fill. I stuck with rice and mushrooms. In the past the cabbage rolls I had were rice and ground meat. I added some non traditional items as well to suit my taste.

Collard roll filling
2 cups cooked rice
1 pint mushrooms
1 chopped onion
5 cloves garlic
1 fresh cayenne pepper
1 grated carrot
1 cup crushed walnuts
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
1teaspoon thyme
1 teaspoon black pepper
Salt to your desire

Saute onions, garlic and chilly in a hot oiled pan. When caramelized I added a splash of lemon juice and a small splash of balsamic vinegar. Add mushrooms then cook until tender and liquid evaporated.

Add the cooked mixture to the rice along with the other items.

Toss everything together to form the filling.

I used a fairly small spoon to create smaller rolls but it can be made larger by piecing leaves together and adding more filling.

Fold the sides together then roll up and tuck gently to make them tight.

Some folks don't use sauce to cook stuffed vegetables but I went for tomato sauce like the first traditional cabbage rolls I ever had when I was very young. Our Hungarian upstairs tenant would always make the rolls in tomato sauce and bring us a large amount of them.

For this tomato sauce I used one that I had made before hand. I often have a basic tomato sauce on hand. For this tomato sauce I used canned tomatoes, cooked with onion, garlic, celery, carrot bay leaves salt and pepper. After it is put in the blender. Sometimes I just use a plain tomato sauce from a jar.

After rolling every leave I ended up with quite a bit more filling leftover.

Fortunately I had a couple of green peppers so I cracked them in half and stuffed them with the rest. I had thought about running to the store to buy another bunch of collards but it's cold and snowy.

Using the same sauce I placed the peppers along with the stuffed collards into the oven on 350 F to bake. I covered them for 15 minutes then uncovered for around 5 minutes. This timing is approximate. It could have been longer. I don't time things but check periodically.

Stuff peppers are another thing that I have had from European cooks. I have also had them in Egypt in 2006. We weren't too excited about the food found in Cairo except for one restaurant which satisfied our meatless needs with stuffed peppers and eggplants. They were vegetarian by default.

I have never used collards in this way before but now regret not doing this sooner. I no longer have any interest in using cabbage for rolls, not that I don't like them as well.

I think that these kind of stuffed vegetables can be versatile and taken into any cultural direction.

I know I've seen stuffed greens from Asia and stuffed peppers from Latin America.

For this I have kept as close to the traditional European rolls substituting the cabbage and omitting the ground meat.

This was plant based Christmas dinner with out days of leftovers, although having leftovers of Christmas dinner is always nice.

Greetings to you all and have a great week.

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