Stuffed vegetables

STUFFED VEGETABLES

Recipe for 8-10 persons

Use a deep pan with dimensions 31CH41CH6 cm.

Ingredients

1/2 kilo ground beef

2 big green peppers

2 red peppers

8 large ripe round tomatoes

3 medium potatoes

4 medium zucchini for filling

4 large onions

Two large elongated aubergines

15-20 flowers of zucchini plant (if you can't find them omit them)

200g grape leaves  

1 bunch dill 
1bunch parsley

Some rosemary leaves

1 cup Carolina rice

200 g olive oil

You need also 2 medium tomatoes, 2 small potatoes, 4 small fresh zucchini.

You will chop all these vegetables and will put them into the filling.

Instructions

Preparation of the vegetables

Wash thoroughly all vegetables.

Cut the stems of the zucchini and tomatoes.

Peel the potatoes.

Chop in a food processor the 4 small zucchinis, the 2 medium tomatoes and the 2 small potatoes.

Put in a large bowl the chopped vegetables.

Remove the stalk from the zucchinis that are for filling.

Cut each zucchini in two pieces.

Cut each eggplant in two pieces.

Place the vegetables side by side in the pan, to see if they fit.

If the pan is not full yet, add more vegetables.

Empty the inside of tomatoes, zucchinis, potatoes and eggplants with a spoon or with a special tool.

Put everything you got from the inside of the vegetables into the food processor and chop it.

Add these chopped vegetables into the bowl with the other vegetables.

Empty peppers and toss their spores.

Wash the zucchini flowers inside and outside. Sometimes these flowers have ants inside them, so look carefully for them.

Put very little salt inside the emptied vegetables.

Take care that the vegetables alternate.

Next to a pepper put one tomato and then one potato and then a zucchini.

Wash the grape leaves well.

Put in one small pot water and put it over high heat.

As soon as the water starts boiling, put 1/3 of the grape leaves in the water.

Their color changes from green to green- beige color.

Take them off the pot and put them in a plate. Leave them there to cool.

Put the second third of the grape leaves in the boiling water and scald them
Take them off the boiling water and put them over the preciously scalded leaves.
Put the remaining leaves in the water and scald them to.
Take them off the boiling water and put them with the other grape leaves.

Stuffing

Chop in the food processor the onions.

Put salt in the minced meat and knead it well.

Put the chopped onions in the minced meat and knead again.

Rinse the rice in a strain and leave it to drain.

Add rice into the minced meat.

Clean the dill, the rosemary and the parsley. Keep the leaves and toss the stems.

Wash thoroughly the herbs and cut them into the minced meat with scissors.

Put all the chopped vegetables into the minced meat.

Pour 100 g olive oil into the stuffing.

Mix well all the ingredients together.

The filling is juicy from the liquids of the chopped vegetables. 

With a tablespoon put stuffing in to all emptied vegetables.

Fill with stuffing the flowers of the zucchini plants and then fold their uper edges to prevent spilling out.

Put the stuffed flowers between the larger vegetables so they won’t dry and also they will help the other vegetables to keep their upright position.

Take a grape leaf and put a tsp stuffing in it.

Fold the left and the right part of the leaf and cover the stuffing.

Then roll the leaf and the stuffing and make a small cylinder.

Continue this way until you use all the leaves and all the stuffing.

If you filled everything and there is still more stuffing, pour it on the pan between the vegetables.

Pour the remaining olive oil little by little over the vegetables.

Add in the pan 1cup water.

Cover the pan with non stick baking paper and put it in the oven, on the first rack from the bottom.

Bake at 200 Celsius degrees for 1 hour.

Take off the paper and bake the food uncovered until the vegetables are cooked and get a nice light brown color.

  

If you don’t want to put any meat in the stuffing, omit it and put more rice in the filling.