Fun Summer "Roulades" ~ inspiration from the Ascension Kitchen
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It is a strange thing to happen, yet this is the second year in a row where a heatwave inspired kitchen adventures. This particular one turned into the perfect recipe for super-hot days ~ fresh, light, crunchy, easy to make, and fun to eat.
Great food for when you're doing an online thing, like an Ascension Summit, for a totally non-random example, too! So felt to share this:
The Sun Summer Roulades ~ basically, carrot salad wrapped or rolled into a leaf of iceberg lettuce, and then joyfully stabbed with a toothpick. To keep the roulade closed, of course. But it has to be joyful stabbing. 😁
Here's my ingredients list:
1 head of iceberg lettuce
4 carrots
big chunk of ginger
200g cooked chickpeas
two handfuls of mini plum tomatoes
two handfuls of (chopped) walnuts
apple cider vinegar
salt & pepper
And here's how they're made:
If you use chickpeas from a jar or can, drain and rinse them first, then set them aside to drip dry a bit.
Finely grate carrots into a nice big mixing bowl.
Wash your tomatoes, chop them into chickpea-sized pieces, and mix with the carrots.
Peel your ginger ~ how much you use is up to you, really, and how ginger-y you want the whole thing to be. Mine was about 2.5 cm (roughly 1.5 inches, I believe). Finely grate ginger, either directly into the mixing bowl, or onto a small plate & then mix mix with carrots later.
Chop your walnuts or break them into chickpea-sized pieces. Add to bowl.
Add chickpeas and mix all together.
Add oil and vinegar directly into the bow - about 5 tablespoons oil and 2 1/2 tablespoons vinegar. Of course, that depends on how much carrot you have - you want the whole salad nicely coated, but not swimming in oil (or vinegar). Season with salt & pepper to taste.
Carefully peel off a few leaves from the lettuce and wash them. Shake or pat them try with a towel.
The fun begins! Put a leaf on a plate; it will likely want to curl up in some way. That's great! In the bowl of the curl, put 2 - 3 tablespoons of the carrot salad, then carefully roll / wrap the leaf around the salad. Bear in mind, we're not going for pretty or aesthetic here. You want a nice little wrapped bundle, that keeps the salad inside. That's all!
Stap it. Erm, I mean, put a toothpick through the lettuce to keep your little roulade closed. Works best if you can place the toothpick through the crunchy leaf-stem first - that adds stability - before you go through the other layers.
Repeat with as many leaves as you want to eat in one go. I found three the perfect meal size for one person.
And that's it! Fun to make and fun to eat with your fingers. Also a beautiful exercise in mindful eating, or else the roulade will stab you back. 🤣
Enjoy and have a little bit of creative summer fun (adventures in the kitchen)! ❤️
