Wednesday, March 20, 2013

My favorite wraps!!!

I somehow like the idea of food wrapped around all snug and ready to eat. It is one of my favorite diet concepts (I usually eat half a wrap and store the other half for another meal). However now-a-days, I have this feeling that store-bought wraps are not that healthy and, I am not getting enough vitamins from vegetables because you cannot put a lot of items if you want the wrap to stay intact. So, wraps have become more of a splurge for me rather than my go to food because of the carbs vs vegetables war that I am recently engaged in. I have a goal to get 10 lbs off me, that I have gained in the past three years due to lots of reasons and I am not going to give them as excuses. Just a goal that I want to achieve in say over the next couple of months - slowly, steadily, and surely!

Onto the recipe: I had some button mushrooms and was not in the mood to make a sabji so I decided on wrap for dinner!

Button mushroom

 Mushrooms and vidalia onions getting deglazed with lemon juice. You can deglaze with wine or any choice of yours.
 The wrap cut down through the middle and to be stored for another meal. Not a lot of vegetables, still the store bought wrap is huge and I don't like to pack with calories. I did add a side of salad for me instead. I need to start making my own tortillas as I am sure they would be healthier and better tasting!
Mushroom avocado wrap


Mushroom-Avocado Wrap Recipe:

Ingredients:
Vidalia sweet onion-1
Button mushroom - 20-chooped lengthwise
salt- to taste
Any salad/spinach mix
Tomato diced -1
Avocado - 1 -cut in lengthy strips
Hummus/baba ghanoush/- 1 tbsp
Lemon-1
Oil  - 2tsp
Wraps -4-5

Method:
  1. In a pan, add the oil  and when hot, add chopped vidalia onion. Saute in a high flame for 2 minutes or till the onion turns translucent.
  2. Add the button mushrooms (or any other mushroom you prefer) in the pan and continue to saute. After a minute, add salt as per taste.
  3. Add pepper/paprika depending on your taste. I did not add either.
  4. After a couple of minutes, add lemon juice to deglaze.
  5. Saute on high, till the mushrooms turn soft. Keep stirring to avoid burned mushroom.
  6. Once the mushroom turns soft, turn off the stove and cool completely. Transfer the contents to a different bowl/plate to cool quickly. If not in hurry, let it cool on the pan itself.
  7. Now prep the other ingredients as the mushroom cools down. Dice the tomato, and cut the avocado into lengthy strips.
  8. Heat a griddle or tava, and put the wrap when the griddle is hot. Do not heat for more than a minute. Turn the wrap over and heat it, for around 30 seconds.
  9. Turn of the griddle and place the wrap on a plate. Spread a tbsp of hummus/any other spread over it. Add salad mix of your choice in the middle along a straight line, leaving around an inch around the edges to be able to fold the wrap.
  10. Top with tomato, mushroom, avocado, and and drizzle some lemon juice over. 
  11. You can add some salad dressing if necessary
  12. Wrap the tortilla as you would a burrito and serve.
Makes: 4-5 wraps.

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Fabric Markers Fun!

I wanted to personalize a pillowcase to send to my son's daycare. Due to regulations and standards, all nap items for our tots are to be sent in a pillowcase and I hated the plain pillowcase that I have been using for almost a year now! I had meant to go shopping for a nice pillowcase for him but never finished that task! So here I had a bunch of colorful markers with which I had colored my key holder and I thought, why not create my very own special pillowcase for DS. Of course, I took a lot of inspirations from fellow pillowcase painters and came up with a design I liked. The end result is not fab, but hey, my 18mo is too young to notice the flaws and he just absolutely loves the "star" and "truck" and he just is able to say those words like a million times for the amount of them in the design!! Win-winner!