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[Guest guest]

Whole Foods has some really good stuffed grape leaves in their prepared foods area, pricey but good and if you are anti kitchen work, they are a nice treat. Rolled and cleaned grape leaves are avaiable in a jar in most ethnic sections of most markets. Two jars of these will fill a large dutch oven type pan.

My husband is Lebanese and we make Warek Eeenab (Stuffed Grape Leaves) quite often.

Stuffed Grape Leaves

1 cup rice

(1)14 oz can garbanzo beans (or l 1b of diced lamb meat)

1/ 4 cup of olive oil

1 Tbs. whole Cumin crushed

1 tsp allspice

1 tbls salt

4 chopped spring onions

1/4 cup dried mint

1 tsp pepper

1/4 cup lemon juice

grape leaves, bottled or picked from your neighbors grape vine ( I prefer the bottled kind, the fresh ones are sometimes tough. Take them out of the jar, they will be rolled around each other, gently open them out flat, rinse them off in a colander, they are packed in a brine, seperate them and remove any stems, my Mother in Law always layed the stems in the bottom of the pan for flavor she said.

Soak rice for 10 minutes in water. Line bottom of cooking utensil with a few grape leaves. Drain rice, mix with Ci CI beans (garbanzo beans that you have slid the outer skin off and drained and rinsed) the olive oil and seasonings. Roll about one tablespoon, in one grape leaf, using back of grape leaf, starting near stem end. fold in corners and form a neat cigar shapped roll. Don't over stuff, as the rice will expand and burst the grape leaf. Place rolled ones evenly in pan in layers, ( allow at least a half hour to roll these babies up!) Add water to cover about 1/4 inch above leaves. (Some of my neighbors will add a can of chopped tomatoes also, I don't) Bring to a slow boil, put a dinner plate on top of the rolled leaves to hold them down in the water. Turn down to low cook about 20-30 minutes. Almost all the water will be gone. Add 1/4 cup of lemon juice and turn off. We eat them warm or cold.

--Bye for now, Jane