I don’t know why Trader Joe’s won’t let me work for them. I applied once, when my freelancing was at a low-ebb, but I don’t think my math skills were up to par. There’s only so much you can figure out on your fingers. They never wrote. They never called.
But I’m still the biggest TJ’s booster around. Even more so now, after hitting up the sample lady and coming home with another meal idea that both my kids will eat!
Come close and let me whisper in your ear: Bacon, Lettuce and Tomato wraps.
Why haven’t I thought of this before? Because I lack imagination, I guess. I’ve often looked lovingly at the fresh sheets of lavash, a middle Eastern bread the size of a small blanket, and pondered the possibilities. But recipe creation is not my strong suit (and when it comes to cooking, what is?). It took the lovely sample lady at Trader Joe’s to inspire me.
She lured me over with the small of bacon. There on her counter were tidy little rolls, cut from a larger wrap. Fresh spinach leaves, sliced tomatoes and bacon. Delicious.
A secret: I’m not supposed to eat bacon, but I do. But that’s not saying I want to make the stuff myself and be forced to deal with all that spattered grease. As you know I have a deep dread of all things fried. But what the sample lady was frying up (in the microwave) wasn’t actually bacon at all but a soy-product facsimile of bacon. They looked like cardboard cutouts of bacon. The spread was a tofu approximation of cream cheese.
The sample lady looked at me and with a knowing wink, said, “Don’t let your kids see the bacon before it’s in the wrap. They’ll never know.”
I bought the ingredients (leaving the tofu spread out for now, thinking I could substitute avocado). When the kids got home I cut the lavash in half as I’d seen the sample lady do it, microwaved my bacon, and set the whole composition up.
The result? Both kids fell on theirs. Victory was mine!
Except for the fact that my wraps don’t much look like wraps. The tomatoes seem to get in the way of a tight roll that one could cut into slices, as does the “bacon,” which tore through the bread in several places. So instead of a wheel shape, I had more of a…flat tire shape…only flat on all sides. With bits of faux bacon poking through.
Clearly there’s some secret to the wrap that I don’t have yet. It’s probably very obvious. Could someone kindly give me a hint?
Since they’ve obviously never seen a real wrap, the nits didn’t complain about the aesthetics of my wrap. They asked for it again today. I couldn’t get a photo because the starving Drama Tween ate that which was meant for her brother.
Did I say I loved TJ’s? They save my bacon time and again.
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
i don’t have a suggestion on how to roll skillfully but i want to try the “fake bacon” if it’s so good like you said it was 🙂