Stuffed Grape Leaves/ Grape Leaf Rolls/ Dolmas

When The Bread Lady asked if I was interested in learning how to make Lebanese stuffed grape leaves, I jumped at the chance. Cooking with the Bread Lady is always a fun and tasty treat.

What you need:

• 16 oz. jar of grape leaves
• 1 pound chili ground beef (course ground sirloin)
• 1 cup uncooked long grain rice, rinsed several times
• 1/2 cup butter, melted
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon, or to taste
• 1/2 teaspoon allspice, or to taste
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper, or to taste
• salt, to taste
• juice of 4 lemons 
• 4 tablespoons butter, cut up
• 1  14.5 oz can tomatoes (any kind will do)

What you do:
Wash grape leaves several times by rinsing in water. Let leaves sit in fresh water and set aside.

Combine ground beef (we ground our own), rice, butter, cinnamon, allspice, pepper and salt.

Place a tablespoon of the meat mixture on the underside of a grape leaf (the stem should be pointing at you). Roll up egg-roll style. Place stuffed leaves in the pan seam side down. How to roll grape leaves.

Place the stuffed leaves in a large pot in rows. Once the bottom of the pot is covered make another layer of stuffed leaves. We ended up making 3 layers of stuffed leaves.

Pour the lemon juice, cut up butter and can of tomatoes over the stuffed leaves. Add enough water to cover the leaves.

Place an inverted ovenproof plate over the stuffed leaves to keep them from floating.

Bring to a simmer, cover and cook on low for 1  1/2 to 2 hours.

As the stuffed leaves are cooking taste the liquid to see if salt or pepper is needed.

All Done! While making these little guys my mom commented on how similar they are to the Polish stuffed cabbage rolls our family makes. They really are similar.

Just look at all those delicious little stuffed grape leaves. I could gobble them all up! Oh yeah, I did.

 Thank you, Bread Lady, for your generosity, friendship and amazing recipes! It's such a joy to cook with you!