cabbage casserole!

who would've thought that those two words would have worked well together?
not me!
apparently vegetarian times did.
(what an excellent resource as a publication and a website!)
they had a recipe for a cabbage strata, which naturally, i refused to follow the recipe on and had to give it the good 'ol kathrine treatment.
bow chikka bow wow.
i doctored their recipe slightly, adding my own fabulous touches to it!
i started by blanching the cabbage leaves in garlic water. (i refuse to use salt!) i also browned some finely slivered onions, cooked down two cans of diced tomatoes, and thawed a 16ox bag of spinach.
now that everything is (almost) mise en place....
i greased up a 9x9 baking dish and made a layer of cabbage leaves on the bottom of the dish. on top of the cabbage layer, i sprinkled my browned onions. yum! i love onions! after, i spread a layer of my cooked down diced tomatoes (which i cooked down with garlic and italian seasoning). on top of that i placed a mixture of spinach & fat free cream cheese. the original recipe called for ricotta, and for some reason i could not bring myself to buy dairy. i figured i would forge ahead, doing without. alas, considering the dry nature of the cabbage and the cooked down tomatoes, i dug up a bar of fat free cream cheese that had been hiding in my fridge. i mixed half a bar with the 16-ish ounces of thawed, drained spinach. so, after the cabbage. after the onions, and after the tomatoes, came 6 splotches of spinachy cream cheese, on top of my casserole, looking like a die. i re-layered, and re-layered, making (i believe) three layers in total. cabbage, onions, tomatoes, spinach. i baked my strata (how fancy!) at 350 degrees for about an hour.
mmm!
a full-on vegetable bake!
what more could you ask for?