Since our daughter and grandson got back from their sojourn to Florida and Costa Rica, I’ve again had cause to prepare the kind of labor-intensive foods I didn’t bother with at all when it was just hubby and I here by ourselves. One of our favorite cold munchies are two-bite sized stuffed grape leaves, so I thought (since I made a big batch today) that I’d go ahead and give the details on this delicious delicacy.

The key ingredient, of course, are the grape leaves. These should be gathered in the late spring (May-June), when the vines are barely blooming. The newest leaves and the leaves near the bloom clusters are the best, they should be as large as your spread hand at the base. Wild fox grape leaves work too, though they are only about half the size of good vineyard leaves. They also have a tarter flavor of their own, so these can even be the preferred leaves if you’ve got some growing in your immediate area.

When the leaves are gathered, you can freeze or brine them. I usually freeze enough to add to every jar of dill pickles that I produce during the cucumber harvest (July-August), as they help lend crispness to the pickles. Those leaves that you want to preserve for stuffed leaves are best put into brine. For this, use kosher or pickling salt, 2/3 of a cup of salt to two cups of water. I use the “cigar” method, which is pretty easy.

Put your leaves into a flat-bottomed container (baking pan works well), stacked ten or twelve on top of each other. Pour boiling water on them to cover (you may need to weigh them down a little) and let them sit for five minutes. Lay out smoothly on newspaper to dry. Once they’re fairly dry and workable, cut out the base stem, fold the base and sides to a rectangular shape and roll the leaves loosely around a pencil to make tubes. Pack the tubes upright into canning jars (you should be able to get 35-40 in a single jar) and pour boiling brine to cover. If you’ve sterilized the jars and lids first, you don’t have to seal by water bath, the brine should preserve fine for 3 to 5 months. If you’re planning to keep them longer, go ahead and put the jars in a water bath for 20 minutes to seal.

The stuffing can be pretty much anything you can imagine. Our favorites are cous-cous and pine nuts or brown rice. If you make a mean tabouli, just omit the cucumbers (but keep the tomato), undercook the grain. To these add lots of herbs, the best being ground cumin, turmeric (with rice), fresh mint leaves and basil, parsley, and lots of chives. Cook the cous-cous, grain or rice to about half done (use half the water, don’t let it burn). Mix the herbs in, add any grated veggies you want to include – good choices are carrots, peas, bell peppers, eggplant or lentils – plus a healthy amount of roasted garlic and a couple of tablespoons of lemon juice.

Rinse unrolled grape leaves well in cold running water, lay out to dry again on spread newspaper. Put a hefty spoonful of the filling at the stem base end and roll tightly. For this, I fold over the filling the base ends of the grape leaf to cover, roll up one turn, fold in the sides and then finish rolling to the tip. This makes a tight package. As I make the rolls I put them atop a lone (and inedible) grape leaf on the bottom of a soup pot overlap side down. Pack them together tightly and cover the bottom of the pot, then you can put a second layer on top of those. When the leaves have all been stuffed, put another large leaf on top of the pile and weight it all down with a small saucer and add your cooking broth.

The broth is just water, olive oil and lemon juice. To 2 cups water add 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil, 1/2 tsp. salt and 1 ounce of lemon juice (adjust this ratio to get enough broth to cover all your stuffed leaves). Bring to boiling over medium-high heat, then turn down to medium low, cover and cook for about 20 minutes (however long it takes to finish off the pasta/grain and/or rice) plus 5 full minutes. Remove grape rolls carefully with tongs, put on newspaper seam-side down to cool and drain. When cool enough to handle easily you can refrigerate them in a closed container or simply serve at room temperature as appetizers.

It’s true that one of the many ‘important’ jobs Moms do is to direct the proper nutrition of their families. Some Moms do better at this than others, as the growing obesity epidemic demonstrates. There are a surprising number of working Moms out there who don’t cook, and families that somehow manage to survive on pizza and hamburgers.

I was a singularly lousy cook back when I got married. Knew how to make exactly one thing – Campbell’s Bean with Bacon soup (add a pat of butter and a dollop of ketchup to the pot, eat it when it’s hot). I’ll never forget our first breakfast – I did so want to impress him! But I fried that bacon and fried that bacon until it shrunk to nothing and turned char-black, but it just never would get stiff! Brave and loving soul that he is, my hubby ate it anyway and even pretended to like it.

But pretty much all I heard while learning how to make Kraft Mac and Cheese, Tuna and Hamburger Helper and rice (reading the instructions on the box really helps!), all I ever heard from my husband and his mother was how great her steak fingers and French Fries were. Worse, I was fond of all sorts of vegetables, even Brussels Sprouts, and hubby wouldn’t touch anything green. My Mom was an excellent cook, always served meals with at least 3 or 4 vegetable choices, a bread (often her wonderful sweet cornbread), a salad and some meat. Only when she was mad at us did we end up with liver and onions, but I swear she could even make that taste good!

I did finally learn to cook. Even bought some cookbooks, and Mom gave me some of hers. When the kids got old enough to eat solid food, I decided it was the perfect time to introduce them to vegetables. Told hubby that if he got hungry enough he’d learn to like ‘em too. Surprisingly (to my Mother-in-Law), it worked! Before the kids started school we’d gone vegetarian – ovo-lacto, but no more meat main dishes. And managed to be both healthy and not obese anyway!

Of course, the teachers and administrator at the school my children went to didn’t think anything of informing them that we were trying to kill them – “everybody knows” you can’t live unless you eat processed meat 3 or 4 times a day! I actually purchased a great book on vegetarianism and nutrition, donated it to the school library after informing the teachers and principal that they should read it first – before saying another word to other people’s children about family food choices.

When the kids were teenagers they never seemed to be around for family dinners like they used to be, so I stopped cooking pretty much. Hubby or I would just open a can, throw something together quick, and eat it. I don’t know where the teenagers were eating, but since they weren’t dying I figured they must be eating something somewhere. Then I got grandchildren, and it’s been a regular cook-fest ever since. We sometimes have a house full of them (plus parents), and their favorite thing is the food – either eaten right there in the garden or made into some scrumptous dish.

All of them swear I’m the best cook on the planet, having figured out the best way to ensure Granny gives them extra helpings and lets them eat dessert first. The grandson who lives with us managed to get all the way to 6′3″ and about 155 pounds without ever having eaten meat as a regular part of his diet from the time he was born. He loves everything I make, never tires of telling me how much he loves my… sourdough bread, deep dish New York style pizza, clean-out-the-fridge veggie minestrone soup, black bean veggie burgers, grilled veggie kabobs, etc., etc., etc.

Daughter’s not much of a cook. She can heat up a can of beans , can read the instructions on a package of cake mix or pasta or red beans and rice, and can make some killer nachos. But basic cooking wisdom seems beyond her. How much salt per quart for a big pot of beans or soup, how to substitute what you’ve got for what the recipe calls for, how to add just the right herbs for just the right aroma and flavor are not things she’s ever paid much attention to. Probably because I do most of the real cooking. I know how that works, since I never learned to cook for as long as my Mom was doing it!

It seems like the older i get the more I enjoy trying new things. Plus, with hubby, daughter and grandson all here to give me kudos for the meal, it is a fine ego stroke.

At any rate, my newest granddaughter is due the first week of March. So while I’m working on the baby quilt and other goodies for the big day and its aftermath, I’ve also started collecting cookbooks to give my daughter. She is actually not a bad cook, at least for reading directions and being creative with ingredients. I do wish she liked vegetables more, or at least got more variety. So that’s what I’m going for, along with promises of exotics when she visits here with the baby. Baba Ganoush (eggplant) and pita with a side of serious tabouli and home made lemon and garlic hummus, creamed leek stuffed puffballs (or portobellos), fried kale and sage chips, lentils with olive oil and multi-colored peppers, boiled green peanuts on rice with piñon and saffron sauce, etc.

I don’t know about her husband, but my daughter eats meat very seldom and would like nothing better than to go vegetarian with her daughter. As I told my hubby all those many years ago, if he gets hungry enough, he’ll learn to like vegetables!

Links:

Gourmet Vegetables: Smart Tips and Tasty Picks

The Gutsy Gourmet: Vegetables

Organic Cooking Products