I sit here both stunned and somewhat dismayed at how quickly time passes and how little I manage to get done...especially in the little kitchen. It's been 3 months already that I've been at my new job and getting into the groove of preparing my daily lunches and try as I might, I can't seem to come up with anything that out shines the roll-up. It not only practically makes itself, it looks pretty, travels better than anything and tastes delightful even with questionable ingredients.
Over these last few months, the pinwheel sandwich has fashioned itself out of many things. It's a great way to use leftover chicken salad and yesterdays green salad, hummus, cream cheese...whatever. It's almost better when prepped the night before. I always have tortillas on hand.
This is how I like to build these:
Starting with anything spreadable (hummus, herb infused cream cheese, goat cheese, pesto etc), smear it all over the tortilla, then scatter your leftover salad or thinly sliced vegetables (cucumbers, red peppers, carrots, avocado, shaved fennel...etc.), meat and/or cheese, finish with some smattering of fresh chopped herbs, salt & pepper. Spread everything out, smash it all down flat and roll, and then wrap your roll-up in plastic wrap. In the morning I slice 2 roll-ups into pinwheels the thickness of the depth of my bento box and I'm on my way. Looks pretty elegant right?
Over these last few months, the pinwheel sandwich has fashioned itself out of many things. It's a great way to use leftover chicken salad and yesterdays green salad, hummus, cream cheese...whatever. It's almost better when prepped the night before. I always have tortillas on hand.
This is how I like to build these:
Starting with anything spreadable (hummus, herb infused cream cheese, goat cheese, pesto etc), smear it all over the tortilla, then scatter your leftover salad or thinly sliced vegetables (cucumbers, red peppers, carrots, avocado, shaved fennel...etc.), meat and/or cheese, finish with some smattering of fresh chopped herbs, salt & pepper. Spread everything out, smash it all down flat and roll, and then wrap your roll-up in plastic wrap. In the morning I slice 2 roll-ups into pinwheels the thickness of the depth of my bento box and I'm on my way. Looks pretty elegant right?
This particular version pictured above is not the healthy version.
My friend, who I fondly refer to as my test kitchen dummy, showed up the other day with a box of scary bulk sliced lunch meat and cheese left over from a church event, I smiled sweetly and thanked him graciously, whilst inside I'm thinkin' "what the hell is this?!?"
I rarely buy or have much use for processed lunch meat and when I do, I at least know what it is. I finally deduced that the meat was turkey...the cheese? It was white like jack. I started by tasting cautious tears off a slice..."hmmnn tastes like American cheese...I think." Another bite and then another until I'm just rolling up the whole slice and chomping into it. I lost count after 3. There was crack in that cheese.
There was also frozen seal-a-meal bag of what I was told was hummus.
This is how it all went down:
Flour tortillas-(I was not concerned with them being whole wheat at this point) layed out and spread with....
mystery hummus
3 paper thin slices of processed lunch meat- torn up and layed out over the hummus
2 slices of processed cheese-torn up and layed out over the meat
fresh tarragon-roughly chopped and scattered over the cheese
fresh ground pepper
No salt for obvious reasons...
I rolled it up tightly, wrapped the roll up tightly in plastic wrap (took all of 10 minutes) and refrigerated it until the next morning then sliced it into pinwheels.
I can't tell you how delicious these were. My co-workers were once again highly vocal about how good my lunch looked.
