Radish Leaf Pesto

To prove the authenticity of this "vegan country kitchen" blog, my hot gardener brought me these home-grown radishes the other night. Actually, he happens to be my hot hubbie and these radishes are from our gorgeous little country garden. 

While washing the radishes, he mulled that "there must be something we can do with all these radish leaves". This was our first official home garden product, and it seemed a horrifically sad waste to chalk half of it up to being trash. 

While I'm rather adverse to using recipes, I had to admit I was at a loss for how to use these slightly prickly and quite bitter large leaves. I cheated, and visited the Chocolate & Zucchini website and found a killer creative pesto recipe for these babies. 

Drop a couple handfuls of radish leaves (no stems) into your food processor, along with some vegan parmesan cheese (or even any other white vegan cheese). Add a handful or two of cashews or almonds, and a clove or two of fresh garlic. Pour in an ounce or so of lemon juice, and about 3 tablespoons of olive oil. Sprinkle in a rather generous amount of salt and grind in a bunch of black pepper. Pulse in your food processor for a while, turning off to stir as needed. Taste test along the way and add in ingredients as needed. If it's too thick, add extra oil. Serve with several varieties of your favorite crackers! Keeps in the fridge for half a week. 

Country "Sushi"

So this is actually simply a cleverly designed and sliced wrap. 

- Start with your favorite large-sized wrap. I used a spinach wrap. Lay it flat on a plate. 

- Spread vegan cream cheese on the top 2/3 of the wrap. This will be your "stuffing" area. 

- Lay about three slices of faux deli meat (I like oven roasted Tofurky slices) on top of the cream cheese. 

- Next, layer on several large slices of avocado, and then tomato, and then vegan cheese slices. Try to make all "stuffings" cover the cream cheese foundation.

- Finally, place a few spinach leaves on top. Grind on fresh black pepper and sea salt. 

- Start rolling! This is the tricky part. Start rolling on the stuffing side. The "naked" side is rolled up last. Your roll will be pretty fat, so don't freak out. Notice in my picture that my rolls are big, and not completely stuck together. They may look perfect, but I arranged them so that they'd look nice. :) Roll tightly, but not so much that the wrap busts open. 

- After you have the roll, carefully slice into about 1" pieces. I started my slices in the middle of the roll, rather than the ends (so as not to push out the stuffings).

- The pieces wont hold together perfectly, but feel free to eat them with chopsticks if you're a sushi expert! I did, and had a blast. :)

- For my side, I served a can of black olives and created a simple dip: 2 parts vegan mayo to 1 part Grey Poupon (original deli style mustard).