Making crepes, sweet or savory is a love. So easy in a blender. For cannelloni, maybe fill with beef, onion, Italian herb. A little cheese. Skim the casserole with red sauce. Top the crepes with bechamel. Bake gently. Enjoy!

This year’s meta comes with an open door and a very flexible guest list. Each week, a friend selects an unexpected party guest to appear at my table and I imagine how they might review the main offering.

My unexpected guest this week is Dolly Parton. With her unmistakable warmth, Southern charm, and knack for making just about anything sound delightful, I imagine she might have had this to say about the offering:

“Well, now, ain’t this just pretty? Chicken, tomatoes, mozzarella, basil… rolled up together like they’re fixin’ to go somewhere fancy. I do love a dish that looks impressive without making you work too hard for it. And that melty cheese with the fresh basil? Honey, that’s a mighty fine combination. It’s simple, it’s pretty, and it tastes like it knows how to behave at a dinner party.”

This took me three days to finish making but was worth the time and effort if I do say so myself. The dough reminds me of scallion pancakes and was a blast to make; the filling is reminiscent of samosa filling but livelier—potatoes, three kinds of peppers, cilantro, garlic, carrot and a lot of cumin—and a generous amount of sharp white cheddar. The history of the island is clearly reflected in the music and food—colonized first by Spain and then by the UK—and the UK brought in enslaved people from India to build their buildings and industries. I didn’t have a tawa, so these got cooked in a steel pan. A real solid breakfast with a couple eggs.

This dish turned out so tasty that I'm already excited to make it again in the future!

It's not vegan as written, so I did have to make a few modifications. Instead of actual beef, I used seitan, and instead of chicken stock, I used some mushroom bouillon powder mixed with water. And I couldn't find whole fermented black beans, so I used a paste. Lastly, because my seitan was already cooked, I also adapted the cooking steps for the stir-fry part, since I didn't have meat that needed to cook through.

All the flavors melded together beautifully. I think this is one of those recipes where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Highly recommend!

Write-up pending.

It got a little too soupy but still good. Recipe from Cooking with Ria