Zucchini Wraps

I made some zucchini wraps yesterday for lunch. They took a lot of work, but they sure were cute and a nice and light snack. I got the idea from a recipe, but the recipe was just NASTY. The filling was mushrooms and onions with soy sauce and apple cider vinegar. I had some reservations at the thought of those flavors all together, and sadly it was even worse than I imagined! So... I decided to go with some things that I knew would taste good. I filled the zucchini with some alfalfa sprouts, two little strips of zucchini (because I had some left over), two leaves of baby spinach, and a little piece of mushroom. They were wrapped with a string of carrot.

In order to make these wraps, you need to use a mandolin slicer and cut long strips of the zucchini. Then julienne the carrot for the "ties." Then lay everything out on a plate (or paper towel) and lightly salt it. Set aside for a while, and then pat everything dry. The salt will make the zucchini and carrot flexible for rolling/tying.

The recipe also had a ginger dipping sauce, which included sun dried tomatoes. I started off with the sun dried tomatoes, and then I decided not to ruin them by following the rest of the recipe. Sun dried tomatoes and ginger... not so sure about that one and my instincts were right the first time. So I added some basil, garlic cloves, olive oil, water, and a little sea salt to come up with a nice puree. We spread it on top of the little wraps, and Matt loved it!



I decided to make more for dinner since we had a ton of the sun dried tomato puree left. Instead of the carrot (which was a pain to use) I tried using strips of green onion. They were easier to tie, but they liked to come undone. So carrot is definitely the better thing to use. You just need to be patient. This time I only put mushroom and spinach inside. It was just okay. I found another recipe in one of my new vegan cookbooks that looks promising, so I'll give it another shot. They really are cute! Now if they could just taste good enough to be worth the effort...