Saturday, January 22, 2011

Wrap Me Up

I had these funny little spinach wraps a couple of weeks ago when we had Thai food and they were so silly. The spinach was literally the baby spinach leaves you buy in a bag at the store. The ingredients were minced so small I didn't realize that what I thought were green bell peppers were actually jalapenos. It was a disaster to say the least but it left me craving lettuce wraps.

I had a few things left over from making Flat Bread Pizza and a stray bag of kelp noodles in the fridge, so I decided to through together a make-shift lettuce wrap buffet. I invited my friend Val over and we went to town.

I whipped up the yummy peanutish sauce that is used in the Kelp Noodle Salad recipe from Delightfully Raw. It was perfect.

I used my mandolin for the first real time to julienne carrots and cucumber for the filling. The julienne process was pretty successful except for I had to pull the pieces apart for most of them, which I thought was not so cool. I put them in a Tupperware container and shook them really hard to break them up. That's my trick now.
I sliced up a mango for sweetness (be sure to save a little for my morning smoothie) and set it all out with the kelp noodles and some giant leaves of chard from the farmer's market. I forgot lettuce wraps usually have peanuts too so at the last minute I chopped up a few almonds for crunch.



It looked great and it was so easy to make with ingredients I already had, which is one thing I have yet to do with a raw dish other than throwing together a salad.


Robert cooked up a little chicken for his but it still didn't really work for him. He doesn't love food you have to assemble yourself. The review from my friend Val was positive though.

Rate This Dish:

I give this dish a 4. It was yummy but the kelp noodles were very crunchy. Plus, I didn't have a sweet sauce like most lettuce wraps have, so I will work on that. It was so quick and easy to assemble.

Learning Curve:

I was excited to use my mandolin, but it was tricky. It was pretty a expensive when I bought it a while back, so I feel like it should perform well. Do you have issues with your mandolin? Any tips?

1 comment:

  1. Gorgeous wraps! I love finding new ways to use leftovers. Don't forget to soak the kelp noodles. It turns them into a totally different ingredient.

    I don't like my mandolin at all. I borderline lose a finger every time I try it. That's why I bought my Cook Help, which is so much fun (and kind of an arm workout).

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