Brined Wild Grape Leaves

I had thought Kevin destroyed all of our grape vines during all of the outdoor demo work we've done the last couple of years. But he missed one area of them. He hates them. I'm not crazy about the way they look and all the japanese beetles that they attract, but I am putting them to good use this summer. I have used them in my pickles and I decided it would be good to preserve plain grape leaves to use in making dolmas (stuffed grape leaves) in the future. So I found this method on Prodigal Gardens and knew this was what I was going to do. I made some on Friday and now have one jar sitting in my fridge. I plan to make another jar once more of the new leaves start growing.

Brined Wild Grape Leaves

Quart sized mason jar
3 dozen, fresh, large wild grape leaves
1 tablespoon sea salt
4 Tablespoons whey (or just add another Tablespoon of salt)
2 cups filtered water

Only harvest the young, tender grape leaves - the ones that are large and minty green in color. The dark-colored older leaves should be avoided - they are stringy, fibrous, and tough.

Place a dozen leaves in a stack, stems all together. Roll up the stack so as to obtain a tight compact roll and this should be put in a jar. You will have three rolls in your jar.

Mix your brine - the salt and water - until salt is dissolved. Pour the brine over your rolled grape leaves in the jar. Put the lid on the jar, but do not tighten completely. Leave the jars to lacto-ferment for 2 or 3 days. Look for signs of fermentation - popping, fizzing, bubbling, and for the brine to taste a little sour. Move the jars to the fridge. Let sit for at least a month before using. They will be good for about a year in the fridge, whenever you want to make dolmas.

Quinoa Tabbouleh

I made this quinoa tabbouleh to take on our camping trip this past weekend. We were camping with the Gluten Free Girlie, so I had to make sure all of my food was gluten free. I have been wanting to make quinoa tabbouleh for about a year now, so I figured this would be my chance. I love tabbouleh! And this is a great way to have it if you're gluten free (and even if you're not!). Even Kevin liked this - and he doesn't normally care for tabbouleh. This was very quick and easy to make and is a great summertime healthy salad to take along to your bbq!

Quinoa Tabbouleh

2 cups water
1 cup quinoa
1 pinch salt
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/4 cup lemon juice
3 tomatoes, diced
1 cucumber, diced
2 bunches green onions, diced
2 carrots, grated
1 cup fresh parsley, chopped
(I added about 2 Tablespoons chopped fresh garlic)

Bring water to a boil. Add quinoa and a pinch of salt. Reduce heat to low, cover and simmer for 15 minutes. Allow to cool to room temperature; fluff with a fork. Meanwhile, in a large bowl, combine olive oil, sea salt, lemon juice, tomatoes, cucumber, green onions, carrots and parsley. Stir in cooled quinoa.

Fattoush Salad

Fattoush salad is one of my and Kevin's favorite salads. Its a Lebanese salad and it is so simple and so good! And so easy to make, too! I looked around on the internet and came up with this recipe that works for our tastes. I made this for the potluck today after our nephew's baptism. I'll update later with pictures (hopefully) if I remember to take them once its assembled.

Fattoush Salad

3 heads romaine, chopped
1/3 cup minced fresh mint
1/3 cup minced fresh parsley
1 bunch green onions
1 large seedless cucumber, diced
1-2 bell peppers, diced
4 good-sized tomatoes, diced
1-2 cups broken up whole wheat toasted pita chips
3/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup lemon juice
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 1/2 Tablespoons sumac
Salt and pepper to taste

Mix the lettuce, mint, parsley, green onions, cucumbers, peppers, and tomatoes in a large salad serving bowl. Mix in broken pita chips just before pouring on dressing and serving.

Mix the oil, lemon juice, garlic, sumac, salt and pepper in a glass jar and shake well to incorporate. Refrigerate until ready to serve. Pour over salad just before serving.

Arabic Baked Chicken with Potatoes

This recipe comes from my BFF Jaime's Aunt Pati... and its absolutely delicious!! I made this last Sunday for dinner - it was the perfect meal! It filled the house with awesome smells from the arabic spices and wow did it taste good!! We all loved it. Carson ate his entire first serving and wanted more potatoes and chicken! Definitely a keeper and it'll be a regular thing in our house, for sure! Thanks for the wonderful recipe, Aunt Pati!!! :)

I used one of my organic, free-range whole chickens. I just thawed it and butchered it up. And I used a mixture of yellow and red potatoes from our garden. The arabic spices can be found at your local arabic store.

Arabic Baked Chicken with Potatoes

1 pkg Pick-O-Chicks chicken or whole chicken cut up
1 - 1 1/2 teaspoons mixed spices
1 1/2 teaspoon ground sumac
1/2 teaspoon salt (to taste)
1/4 teaspoon pepper (to taste)
3 cloves garlic minced
1/2 small onion cut in rings
1 1/2 - 2 pounds baking potatoes washed (no need to peel)

Preheat oven to 400F Wash chicken and place in large bowl. Add spices, sumac, salt, pepper, garlic. Let stand covered for 3 or more hours, refrigerated. Meanwhile, wash potatoes and slice. You can slice them like french fries or slice thin like for potato chips (I sliced mine thin). In a shallow baking dish, at least 13X9 (may need a larger pan - I used my huge cast iron lasagna pan) lightly grease the bottom with a slight amount of olive oil. Place onion rings in pan, then place potato slices. Lightly salt the potato layer. Place marinated chicken on top of potatoes and place on lower rack of oven for approximately 1 hour. Turn chicken about half way through cooking time.

Lissan Al Kadi

I decided to try an Iraqi dish for dinner last night. It is this month's challenge on the Walima arabic cooking blog. I love, love, love middle-eastern foods, so I was very excited when I came across this blog a month or so ago. I've never had anything that I've known to be Iraqi cuisine, but these sounded simple and tasty enough. We don't like eggplant at all, so I substituted zucchini instead, but otherwise kept everything else the same. So I guess its not truly authentic or anything, but it sure was good! And actually quite easy to make, too! Definitely a keeper for us! (I'll update later with a picture once I upload them off the camera)

Lissan Al Kadi - Eggplant Wrapped Meat

2 large eggplants
1/2 - 1 cup corn oil (if frying eggplant)
2 lbs. Lean ground meat
1 medium onion (1 cup) finely minced
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper

For the sauce:
2 tbsp corn oil
1 large onion diced
1 large tomato sliced (optional)
1 large tomato peeled and chopped
14 oz. tomato sauce
1 cup beef or chicken stock
1/2 cup lemon juice
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1 tsp turmeric

Peel eggplant, trim off the top and bottom. Stand eggplant up on cutting board and slice vertically, 1/8" thin. Sprinkle generously with salt, place in a strainer for about 1 hour. Rinse off the salt and strain eggplant to dry.

Heat about 4 tbsp corn oil in a frying pan and fry the eggplant slices in batches, turning once to brown both sides. Be careful not to burn. Add more oil as needed. Drain cooked eggplant slices on paper towels. Low fat alternative: Place eggplant slices on baking sheets lined with foil and brushed with corn oil. Bake in the oven at 350 degrees for approximately 20-30 minutes until brown, turning the eggplant halfway. (I baked mine)

Mix together the ground meat, onion, salt and pepper. Divide the meat into sausage shaped portions 1" thick and 2" long. Place a portion of the meat stuffing at one end of an eggplant slice and begin wrapping the eggplant around it. Place the rolls in a baking dish and layer the tomato slices on top (optional).

In a saucepan heat 2 tbsp oil and saute the diced onions. When soft, add the chopped tomatoes, salt, pepper and turmeric. Add tomato sauce, beef or chicken stock and lemon juice to taste. Cover and simmer 15 minutes. Pour the sauce over the rolls in the baking dish, cover with aluminum paper and bake for 1 hour (or until done) at 450 degrees.

Green Bean Stew

Tonight I made an arabic green bean stew. I've been looking for a good, authentic recipe for awhile now, and this is definitely a great one! Its from Jaime's Aunt Pati and it is DELISH!! Definitely a keeper recipe and something we'll have again and again. Its very easy to throw together, but it does take some cook time... but its effortless cook time. I used fresh yellow beans from our garden since that is what I'd picked this morning. It'd look nice with a mix of green and yellow beans, which is probably how I'll make it next time (using the frozen beans from the garden next time). If you don't like or have lamb, this would be very good with beef, or even with potatoes to make it vegetarian. Also, a note... you can find the mixed spices at your local arabic grocery store... almost all of the decent sized cities have them nowadays. If I can find it in Flint... anyone can find it! :)

Arabic Green Bean Stew

2 lbs green beans
1 to 1.5 lbs lamb meat, cubed
1 onion chopped
3 tbs butter or olive oil
1 to 2 cloves garlic minced (to taste)
2 C water (approx)
1 small can tomato paste
1.5 to 2 tsp allspice or mixed spices
1.5 tsp salt (to taste)
.5 tsp pepper (to taste)

In a 6 quart (or larger) stock pot, brown lamb meat, onions and garlic in oil or butter. When meat is evenly browned on all sides and onions are becoming transparent add allspice or mixed spices to the pot. Stir until evenly distributed. If using fresh green beans, add now and sauté for 10 mins. In a separate bowl, combine tomato paste and water stirring with a whisk to combine thoroughly. Add tomato mixture to meat along with salt and pepper. Simmer over low heat for approx 55 mins. If using canned or frozen beans, add approx 20 to 25 mins after simmering starts. Serve with rice.

Baked Falafel

Last night we tried out an Ellie Krieger recipe for baked falafel. I don't know if I did something wrong, or what, but we didn't really care for them much. I'm not even going to post the recipe, but if you're interested you can use the link. I read through the reviews on FoodNetwork and some people were having problems with them being too dry - ours were the opposite. They were falling apart, they were so moist. Maybe I mis-measured (or mis-eyeballed) something, who knows. The flavor of the falafel was pretty good, though. The tahini was another story. I'm going to have to do some research into tahini sauces because this was totally not what I'm used to (and love). I added garlic since the tahini sauces I love all taste like garlic, but that didn't even help it. It was quite gross. Kevin and I both thought so. We ate the falafel on romaine salads with ranch dressing instead. That was actually ok tasting.

I think I'm going to give up on Ellie Krieger. I've tried lots of her recipes in the past (pre-recipe blog) and we haven't liked very many of them. I love, love, love middle eastern foods, so I was quite disappointed with this recipe. I'm hoping I can find some other middle eastern recipes to try out though. My favorite is chicken shawarma. I've seen a couple recipes for it, but neither of them seemed quite right. I'd also love to find a recipe for shish tawook. And some other things, too. So hopefully we'll see some more middle eastern recipes here in the future.

UPDATE: I think I may have found the solution to my tahini sauce disaster... greek yogurt! I figured it had to be yogurt or sour cream or something like that.