roly poly sandwiches

Here is a delicious concept for a restaurant: wraps. Not just ordinary wraps, but grilled panini-style wraps. That is Roly Poly Sandwiches. The fillings are fresh (I'm only counting the veggies, folks) and the creativity is great.

When we lived in Dallas, we lived near a Roly Poly, hence my initiation to the sandwich shop. Naturally, the pickings were slim for a vegan, and most of the sandwiches had to be taken home to 'doctor', but that was the way to discover the ins and outs of the roly magic.

Since it is much more economical to make one of these at home than to pay full price for a quarter of the fillings, we have been making these Roly sandwiches in our kitchen for years.

The method is really simple: go to their website, find a sandwich you would like to have, sub the meat for the optimal veggie ingredient, roll, grill in a cast iron pan with another pan over it, flip and repeat. Dig in.

I chose to make #71, Chipotle Chicken, using a veggie burger for the chicken. Tender Seitan cutlets would have worked even better, but you work with what you have. I used Tofu Bacon for the bacon (Fakin' Bakin' would have been nice, too), Daiya for the cheeses, veganaise mixed with enough chipotle adobo sauce for my taste (a lot!) and used some vegan ranch I had in the fridge.

There were a few reasons I chose to make this sandwich: one, I love chipotle; two, I had a burger in the freezer; three, I had made BLT's a few days before and had some of the tofu bacon left; four, there was vegan ranch in the fridge as well. See? I only had to make the chipotle veganaise.

Kate's sandwich was #13, Hot Honey. I used Tofurkey slices, Daiya, Tofu Bacon, tomato slices (use the sun-dried if you have it) and skipped the spinach. For the Honey Mustard Sauce, mix some maple syrup with a little Dijon mustard and veganaise.

Cost Breakdown:

wraps: $.50

burger, Tofurkey: $2

Daiya: $.50

tomato, spinach, chipotle: $1

veganaise, Dijon, maple: $.50

tofu bacon: $.50

Total to make 2 sandwiches:

$5.00



#71 - Chipotle 'Chicken'




#13 - Hot Honey, without spinach



vietnamese spring rolls

Asian Night

Tonight's meal was a Vietnamese Spring Roll with a quick peanut dipping sauce.

Those papery-spring roll wrappers have had their share of bullying. Many people, including me, have been beaten by them. That is unnecessary, though. You just have to know a few tricks and you can pull off delicious spring rolls. Once you have some easy insight into rice-paper-wrapper-secrets, there is no end to the creative possibilities.

My rolls have jicama, pepper, mint, basil, chive, cucumber, bean thread and carrot in them. You can put anything in them you want: lettuce leaves, tofu, cilantro, nuts, mushrooms, etc. The list goes on.

What tends to be intimidating with the rice paper is the soaking: soak it too long, the sheet literally dissolves. Soak it not long enough and you are eating paper.

You need to have your water pretty warm and dip your rice paper wrapper into it. Only dip it long enough for it to become pliable, so you can roll it and not have it break. There is no need for it to be soft enough to eat at this point. Place it on your board, fill it moderately, wrap half way, folding both ends in, add a few julienned pieces of veggies, sticking out over the edge and finish rolling. The moisture in the veggies will finish softening the paper to a perfect consistency.

No more guesswork.

Cost Breakdown

rice paper, bean thread: $2

carrot, pepper, jicama, cuke: $3

herbs: $1.25

peanut sauce: $.75

Total to make 15 rolls:

$7.00