I do not cook. It’s not that I can’t. I just don’t. After having lived by myself for so long, boiling up a pot of water was about all the prep I could muster. And, frankly, a vegetarian who loves to snack doesn’t find herself a whole lot of reasons to turn on the stove.
My friends know I can live for days on apples and peanut butter, or rice cakes and veganaise, bananas and almonds – whatever concoction sneaks its way into my life tends to stick around for a long while. Whether this stems from laziness or just the fact that I’m so darned easy to please, who knows?
But now I live with L. and our busy lives often lead us to order out for dinner, or go for a late night breakfast. But recently I up and resolved – out of nowhere really – that I would prepare at least one meal a week, special.
I’m sure L. would love if that meant I learned to cook hanger steak (“it’s not a meal unless its got meat”), but I don’t know that I’ll ever be that, er, evolved.
Instead, I’ve been sticking with my strengths. Which are NOT cooking, but combining. Lucky for me, eating whole, raw foods is a healthy trend we can both benefit from.
Tonight’s recipe was adapted from one I found online (sorry that I no longer have the source). I used what we had and what sounded good to me, and it turned out DELICIOUS. Even L liked it. Though I’m pretty sure he’s about to go buy a roasted chicken as I type this.
Imperfect Delicious Zucchini Wraps (makes enough for two, I think)
2 happy, sproingy zucchini
1 juicy red apple (I used Gala)
1 avocado
3 tsps. Bragg liquid aminos
Curry powder to taste
Big, flat green lettuce leaves, to be used to wrapping
-Shred the zucchini and the apple.
I don’t have a shredder and my peeler isn’t worth shinola, so I just sliced thin like Paulie slices the garlic in Goodfellas, and then sliced stacks of those slices until I had half-inch-long spaghetti-like strips.
-Slice avocado.
This is supposed to be finely sliced as well, but I never can seem to do that. The avocado just goes sliding all over, and I get impatient and end up chopping some and then slurping avocado mush off my hands. Besides, I’ve never heard anyone complain that their pieces of avocado were too big.
-Add curry powder and Bragg’s.
-Hand toss.
-Add a dollop of the salad to a large leafy lettuce and wrap it all up.
This was the most imperfect part for me. Who can do this? I think this may take lots of practice. I kind of ended up scooping a bunch of the zucchini mixture up with a lettuce leaf and stuffing it into my mouth before everything fell out. Yum.
I wish I had taken a picture of this meal, but the lettuce wraps were just too impermanent. Next time, though. Enjoy!
UPDATE: Photo included, as promised.
martinis and mantras 