Two Minute Peanut Sauce

Chomp.

One of my favorite "oh, duh!" moments was when I found out large leaf veggies like swiss chard, cabbage, and lettuce, can be used to make sandwiched and wraps. Leafy greens are way more nutrient dense than tortillas or pita bread, you can buy them without packaging, and let's not forget that they are way easier to make (wash and cut off stem v. make dough and bake)!

Now that the weather is getting nicer (65 degrees outside yesterday?!), I am moving from my I-want-soup-all-day-everyday phase into one involving oodles of fresh, raw veggies.

Enter: Rainbow Chard Wraps

 Rainbow chard.

Microgreens. 

Sliced red cabbage. 

Soaked and chopped sun-dried tomatoes. 

But here's my mantra: the sauce is always the best part. Averie from Love Veggies and Yoga has become my new sauce guru. I made 3 different sauce recipes of hers last weekend and there have been times this week that I have just stuck a spoon in the sauces and ate it straight up.

Averie’s 2 Minute Peanut Sauce
[Original recipe here]

1/3 c nut butter
1/4 c raw honey (or other liquid sweetener of choice)
1/4 c sesame oil (for that asian flavor)
1/4 c apple cider vinegar
1 t powdered ginger

Just whisk it together!

The Burrito of All Things Winter

Welcome December! It is the FIRST SNOW OF WINTER! Whoa. I had to (wanted to) bust out my snow boots.

I had been dreaming about an autumn wrap of my making but had been too distracted by life (school) and other recipe fancies that I hadn't put it together. But the change of month (December is a big one, the laaast one) put my gears in motion. I literally woke up thinking about seasonal sandwiches. Here's my attempt #1.

The Early Winter Sandwich

Ingredients:
1 Cornmeal Tortilla
smeared with Pumpkin Spread
and a dollop of Cranberry Chutney
sprinkled with toasted nuts (1)
and a hefty handful of greens (2)

Cranberry Chutney
Holy cow. This is the absolute best. Caramelized onions are the perfect match for the tartness of cranberries. I would be so satisfied with a vat of this stuff. Nothing more.

Ingredients:
1 small onion, chopped (3)
1 clove of garlic, minced (3)
1 T oil
1/4 c apple cider vinegar
1 c frozen cranberries (4)
1 c water
1/2 t ground ginger
salt and pepper

Directions:
Heat oil over medium-low heat.
Add onions and garlic and saute until soft.
Add vinegar, ginger, cranberries and cover.
Lower heat and lightly simmer until liquid evaporates.
Add water incrementally and slowly simmer until desired consistency.
I simmered, covered, for about 45 minutes until very thick and sweet.
Salt and pepper to taste.

Cornmeal Tortillas
Attempt #1. Meaning Fail #1... I do not recommend this recipe AT ALL but I thought I would report my fails as much I would my wins.

Ingredients:
1 1/4 c. cornmeal (1)
1 t cumin
1 c. boiling water
1 tsp. salt

Directions:

Pour boiling salted water over cornmeal and cumin and stir. When cornmeal is cool enough to harden, shape into then flat cakes and cook on an un-oiled hot griddle until brown on both sides. Makes 8 servings.

Pumpkin Spread

1 c roasted pumpkin (5)

2 t oil (I used almond in this recipe)

1/4 t nutmeg

1/4 t cinnamon

1/4 t cumin

dash of pepper

1/2 t salt




(1) Earnst Farm
(2) Spinach from Holland, MI
(3) Tantre Farm
(4) Locavorious
(5) from an organic Amish farm but I don't remember the name, unfortunately...

Falafels are too easy.

As mentioned in passed posts, my mom works at the Golden Gate Cafe, a vegetarian, natural foods restaurant in Detroit. They get bulk falafil vegetable burger mix that make it pretty easy to make large volumes of falafils. After seeing a smaller package (therefore more packaging waste...) version of the mix they serve, my mom realized that the mix is made in Dearborn, MI! Thanks Jerusalem Foods (no website to link to, roughh...)!

The result of said events is a delicious, way too easy meal and me being gifted 2 boxes of falafil mix!

For a full Mediterranean meal, try a falafil pita wrap.

Brother bear with falafil pita.

Falafil Pita
Ingredients:
Falafil
1 c falafil mix
1 c water
Sandwich Extras
1 onion, sliced
2 T oil
1 pickle, chopped
1 T hummus (recipe below)
1 T dill tahini sauce (recipe below)
1 leaf of romaine lettuce, chopped
1/2 tomato, diced
1/2 whole wheat pita bread

Directions:
Falafil
Follow Ingredients on box. Waaaay too easy.
Sandwich
Heat oil over medium-high heat in saute pan.
Add onions and saute until softened.
Add sauteed onions, pickles, hummus, sauce, lettuce and tomatoes to pita bread.
Add falafil patties to pita sandwich and enjoy!


Hummus
Ingredients:
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1/2 c cooked garbanzo beans
1/8 c lemon juice (or apple cider vinegar)
1 T tahini
1/8 t cumin
1/8 t paprika
1 t dried parsley
dash of salt
dash of cayenne powder

Directions:
Mix all ingredients in a food processor.

Dill-Tahini Sauce
Ingredients:
1/2 c tahini
1 lemon, zest and juice
1 clove of garlic, minced
1 T fresh dill
2 T oil
1/2 c water
salt to taste

Directions:
Mix all ingredients by hand or in food processor.

PS Max recently acquired two very cute kittens. Winnnn!