Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Real Food, Real Good, Spring Rolls

Real Food, Real Good, Spring Rolls

This post has nothing to do with homechooling, on the surface anyway. But, the more I get into homeschooling, the more I see how everything in the home weaves itself into schooling...dinner prep included!









A few months ago my husband and I changed our eating from what we thought was fairly healthy, to real food eating...garden to table kind of eating. First we watched Forks over Knives (on Netflix) and found quite a few other documentaries on the subject. Then, we found 100daysofrealfood.com, which challenged us to take a serious look at what we put on our table and into our bodies. Each week we would change a little more and more until now we have only have a few items (spaghetti noodles, rice cereal, tomato paste, olives, ketchup) that we buy and are in packages or cans. Some people think this kind of eating is crazy, you may think we're crazy, we probably would have called us crazy a year ago. But, crazy is as crazy does, I guess! I've lost 53 lbs. and counting and we both feel much better eating a plant-based, real food diet. Each week we make a batch of black bean tortillas from whole wheat organic flour and black bean puree using this tortilla press. We've replaced bread with these tortillas. The kids have peanut butter tortillas for lunch most...okay every single day. We use them for quesadillas, cut them into wedges and bake for tortillas chips and we recently came across these baking tins to make taco salad bowls. 

A few weeks ago I was in the mood for spring rolls. We eat rice, beans and sauteed veggies a lot around there. It's a quick and easy real food meal, but it needed some pazazz. In the past I would get a box of frozen spring rolls. I haven't yet gone to the store to see the ingredient list on those, but I can only assume it's long and hard to pronounce. So, I just took the tortillas we already made, rolled up a filling, and baked them. They came out great! The entire family (except my 5 year old who has a short list of foods he likes) loved them. They make great leftovers and freeze well. 

Make tortillas
3 cups whole wheat flour
1/3 cup canola oil 
1 cup cooked black beans
2 cups warm water
1/2 tsp sea salt

Mix together the flour, salt, and oil. Blend the beans and water in a blender and add to the flour and oil mixture. Cover and let rest for 30 minutes. Preheat tortilla press. The dough will be fairly wet and "goopy" in order to make thin and pliable wraps. Using a spoon, scoop the mixture and press. This amount of dough should make about 20 wraps. Or, just use store bought tortillas or roll wraps!

Filling
1/4 head cabbage
2 cups kale
1/2 cup mustard greens
1 cup of baby carrots
1 cup or celery
1/4 of red wine vinegar to taste
1/4 tsp ground mustard (optional)
Salt and pepper to taste

You can use whatever vegetables you have on hand, but I think the cabbage is a good base. Mince vegetables in a food processor and place in a large mixing bowl. Add vinegar, salt, pepper and dried mustard and mix. Cover and place mixture in fridge for 30-60 minutes. 






Preheat over to 350 degrees. Place a spoonful of mixture onto each wrap, fold the sides in and roll over. Place the roll on a baking sheet. Bake 30-40 minutes or until rolls are crispy. Serve with whole grain brown rice, sauteed zucchini, and lentil sprouts (use lentils in a sprouter like this one.)  


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