Stuffed Grape Leaves, Or: Why We Always Double Check the Recipe

I love my husband.  I really do.  He is sweet, he's funny, and every now and then he offers to help with the "chick duties" around the house, like cooking foreign dinners.  Last night, bless his heart, he attempted stuffed grape leaves so I wouldn't have to make dinner when I got home from spin.

It wasn't a complete failure.  In fact, I quite liked them.  He wasn't aware of how...intense...grape leaves can be, so he wasn't prepared for the experience of stuffed grape leaves sans rice. It was a lot, I'll admit.

 The meat mixture.

 A bundle of grape leaves - be gentle pulling them out.

Stuffed and ready to cook.

I got home about now and took over, deciding to throw them in the pot with some olive oil and see what would happen (the rice was kind of key, but he'd already put in so much work I didn't want to undo it).  The meat shrank, the leaves cooked, and the ones on the bottom got slightly crunchy.  I took the cover off for a few minutes about halfway through, because there was so much liquid in there.  I told Nick to have Domino's on speed dial in case my modifications failed. 

I made some rice on the side, Greek style (olive oil, lemon juice, and mint), and it turned out pretty OK.  The leaves were pretty intense.  Nick actually just ate the meat from most of his.  It wasn't awful, and I'll try this again in Turkey, but for now...I'll let it be.

Stuffed Grape Leaves