My baba’s recipe, aka the backbone of my potluck contributions over the years, aka the easiest way to feed a crowd aka the most Egyptian thing I know how to make aka the best thing you will eat this week for dinner and once for lunch the next day aka the best way to stuff anything. ANYTHING. This makes a ton of stuffing which is okay because you can freeze it in a ziplock bag and pull it out for another day.

Recipe

1. ALL OF THIS is going in one big pot, so throw down some olive oil in a pot big enough to give each addition a little room to dance around with everything else.
2. Heat up some olive oil and add your diced onion. Cook until translucent but do not brown.
3. Add ground beef and cook it through.
4. Add chopped herbs and give em a stir and a minute.
5. Add tomatoey goodness of your choice – stir.
6. Add the rice – STIR.
7. Add your spices.
8. At this point, if you used anything other than tomato paste the stuffing probably has some excess water. Let it hang out on low heat, partially covered, until the water evaporates. The rice will absorb some and cook a little but really want you want a relatively dry mixture that sticks together so you can roll it up.
9. If you used paste, cook long enough to get the raw paste flavor out. Add a little water. In fact, take this as a life lesson – ALWAYS cook tomato paste out. It’s not a tomato.
10. Now you can let your stuffing cool while you prepare what is to be stuffed:

Peppers:
The easy, fast, I’m-20-something-and-have-an-illusion-about-how busy-I-am way is to cut the tops out of some bell peppers and stuff those. The trick is to remember the stuffing is going to expand so fill up the sides and leave a crater in the middle.

Stand up the peppers in a pot and fill up to halfway with water. Haphazardly squeeze a lemon over top and bring the water to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and cover tightly, just as you would regular rice. Keep at a simmer for about 20-30 minutes and then check the stuffing for doneness. If the rice is cooked through, drain the rest of the water and serve! If not, cover for another 10 minutes and try again.

* IF you have to make a ridiculously large amount, like for that potluck, you can do this in one of those disposable aluminum pans – just stand the peppers up and fill halfway with boiling water. Cover with foil and put into a 400 degree oven. This will take longer, but it’s great for a big group. MAKE SURE THE WATER IS BOILING I BEG *

Grape leaves:
Rinse your grape leaves when they come out of the jar and roll them about the size of your pinky. To do this, first pinch the stem off. Lay a grape leaf smooth side down in a plate and put a spoonful of stuffing at the stem. Roll like a burrito. Fill your pot with them, add water until it barely reaches the surface of the grape leaves and squeeze your lemon. Boil, simmer, etc.

Cabbage rolls (cause you got time apparently):
Pick a bright, firm cabbage and take a paring knife to the core to cut it out. Drop the whole thing in a big pot of boiling water until all the leaves are soft and come apart easily. Drain and cool, then take that paring knife and cut out the tough middles of each leaf. You’ll wrap each half(ish) the same way as the grape leaves. If one end is more stiff and left open, that’s ok. Boil then simmer, etc. I like to add cumin and tomato paste (for color) to the boiling water but this is not required. No lemon here.