Melange de Mehshi

The word Mehshi means stuffed in Arabic. In food context, Mehshi refers mainly to stuffed vine leaves and/or zucchini (please see Mehshi Warak, Sheikh el Mehshi, and Mehshi in Yogurt). Tonight was yet another variation on Mehshi.

Specifically, rather than stuffing all the vine leaves with meat and rice, some were made vegetarian style with rice, pine nuts, onions and tomatoes (parsley would have been a good addition too but the jardin parsley was all frozen tonight). In others, I replaced pine nuts with chick peas.

Zucchinis were added to the mix, stuffed with meat and rice. But rather than being cooked in tomato or yogurt sauce, they were cooked in lemon sauce along with the vine leaves.

The insides of those zucchinis were not wasted but cooked on low heat with chopped onions, garlic, salt, pepper and olive oil - makes for a delicious appetizer.

The outcome was lots of Mehshi (I should have had a contest with the winner joining for dinner!).