Mixed Stuffed Vegetables

Hollow out the aubergines with an old-fashioned potato peeler and discard the insides. Take the membranes and seeds out of the peppers and chop into two or three tubes. Hollow out the tomatoes but keep the flesh of these. Finely chop 4-5 garlic cloves and the shallots. Rinse the rice in a sieve, first with hot and then with cold water several times until it runs clear. Mix the meat, rice, 1 tablespoon each of the puree and red pepper paste, shallots and garlic, 1 teaspoon of the salt and the spices. Squeeze the juice from the flesh of the tomatoes, strain and add the juice to the mixture. Mix well. Loosely put some of the meat mixture into the vegetables - don't stuff tightly or the rice will not cook. Layer the aubergines and peppers into your casserole first, with the tomatoes on top. In a jug crush the remaining garlic cloves with a little salt, mix with the remaining tomato puree, the pomegranate molasses and the dried mint. Top it up with water and pour over the vegetables.. Add water so that it comes up nearly to the top of the veg. Cover the veg with a plate to stop it bobbing about and cover with a lid. Bring to the boil and simmer for about an hour. Turn the veg on top if you feel they are not cooking properly. After an hour if there is too much liquid take the lid off, and the plate too, and boil some of the water off, but usually the rice has soaked everything up. It can be mushy and will have disintegrated somewhat but very tasty. if it's not quite as tasty as you would like add a little more pomegranate molasses or some lemon juice. To up the ante serve it with tahini sauce dribbled on the top, with a little chilli sauce too if you like.