Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Raw Vegan Dolmas

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Yeah that's right. You heard me. And these things are easy to make and healthy and GOOD!

I think you can use whatever you have, basically, but here are the vegetables that I used:

1 turnip
1 large onion (actually this is something you shouldn't leave out)
4 smallish beets
4 large carrots.

Finely chop each one of these ingredients (not all together - one vegetable at a time), then add them to your mixing bowl.

Now add:

1 GENEROUS teaspoon cumin powder
1 GENEROUS teaspoon dill
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon (also "generous", but "1/2 generous" kind of looks weird in print for some reason)
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup raisins
1/4 cup olive oil

Now mix it all together. Nothing needs to be exact, BTW. As I've said, you can probably use whatever vegetables you want - I wouldn't leave out the onion though. And absolutely don't be shy about the spices! It will all taste fab, trust me!

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Now comes the hard part (sort of). Get your grape leaves out of the jar (actually, that IS hard), rinse them well, trim the stems off then lay them on your cutting board and place some of the mixture in the middle as pictured:

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Now wrap the top over, then close in the sides, then roll it down, gently squeezing as you go to make it as tight as possible. If you have some imperfect leaves, keep them to one side to use for repairs, and likewise if you make a dolma that turns out with holes in it, put it aside until you get to a repair leaf.

It's best to pack them in some sort of sealable container as pictured above as you go.

And of course, NO COOKING REQUIRED! (Hence the "raw" bit!)

Serve with a bit of lemon juice. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!!!!!!
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