Gemista [Greek Stuffed Vegetables]

After eating a greek inspired salad for lunch, I thought it would be great to continue on the theme and assemble some greek food for tea.  Searching the internet, I finally found a recipe that I thought would appeal to my family and that would be authentic.  Interestingly enough, the blog was called Authentic Greek Recipes.

I printed out the recipe and got started.  A few hours later we sat down to eat...

Here is the list of ingredients that I used (slightly different to the original recipe):

8 large ripe tomatoes
2 red capsicums
1 medium round eggplant
12 tablespoons medium-grain brown rice
potatoes to fill in the gaps between the other veggies in the dish (I actually didn't count them all, I just used as many as I could fit)
2 large onions, finely chopped (I tried grating, but was not very successful and the fumes were terrible!)
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 bunch chopped (flat leaf) parsley
1 tablespoon (TBS) chopped mint
olive oil
1 teaspoon (tsp) salt

Additionally, here are the changes that I made to the preparation:

• I threw away all the eggplant insides (full of seeds).
• Before adding the rice to the tomatoes (etc.), I cooked it in an equal amount of water for 15-20 minutes.  
• Briefly blending the tomatoes (the only insides that I salvaged), I ended up with a simliar result as I would have achieved using a food processor.  By briefly blending, I mean turning the blender on and then off again almost immediately.
• Just prior to putting the filling in the veggies, I added a drizzle of olive oil to the filling.
• I oiled the whole dish and the potatoes.
• I did not add salt (or pepper) to the potatoes

The end result was that some people loved it, some people hated it, and some people didn't mind it.  My personal favourite was the stuffed tomatoes.

If you would like to make the recipe for yourself, here is the link to the original: Greek Stuffed Vegetables (Gemista).  Oh, and if you do make it, let me know how you like it by posting a comment! :)

From the garden:
Parsley
Mint

Note: The steamed cauliflower and broccoli were a familiar flavour to add to the different ones, they were not part of the recipe.