Babushka's Eggplant Pies
(Submitted by Katia Troitskaya)

Ingredents (for 4 people):
- 5-6 mid-sized eggplants
- 5-6 mid-sized carrots
- 2-3 mid-sized onions
- bunch of greens (parseley, dill, leek)
- 2 sweet peppers (red or yellow)
- 3 table spoons of vinegar
- olive oil
- salt
- 1/2 lemon
- 1 clove of garlic

Cooking (total about 60 minutes):
- cut eggplants along into thin (1/4 inch) stripes
- put stripes into luke-warm water with vinegar (3 tbl.sps) and salt (1 tbl. spn) - leave for 20 minutes (for skin to become less bitter)
- in the meantime, cut all other veggies (onions, carrots, peppers, greens)
- start frying the cut veggies in olive oil (but not greens) - for about 20 minutes
- when fried ready (light-brown and sizzling with aroma) - sprinkle them with pressed garlic
- stir the veggie mix with greens and let it cool down (but not in the refrigerator)
- take eggplants out of water and slightly fry them from both sides - be careful not to overdo - they need to be just soft but not transparent (takes about a 1-2 minutes for each side of a stripe)
- lay stripes on a plate to chill down

Serving (best as a cold appetizer):
- when everything is chilled, take a spoonfull of veggie mix, out into a stripe and roll it up into a tight bun
- fix with a tooth-pick
- serve on green salad leaves with a sour-cream dipp or white wine sause
(Thousand Islands will do, too)