Home Grown Tomatoes: Collard Greens and More Collard Greens

Collard Green (Tempeh) BLTA Wrap

Home Grown Tomatoes is a weekly Vegan/Vegetarian column written by Giovanina Bucci

I love the Farmer's Market.  Love.  It.  That's where I picked up this awesome bunch of flowers and for only $5!  I purchased one bunch and she threw in two more for free!  Whoa.  Made my day.

 

I think fresh flowers should be required.  Everywhere.  All over the place.  Particularly in my house.  They make me happy.

I absolutely cannot wrap my head around the fact that school starts in one week.  I just ordered all of my books from Amazon.  Ouch.  That's all I'm sayin' about that.  Thankfully, my Fall semester as far as work goes is a bit more tolerable than the hecticness of the Spring semester.  Nonetheless, I'm sure it will prove to be a busy few months, not only with work and school, but with all of the other things that keep popping up! 

I mentioned before in another post about running a 5K...well kind of running and falling a few times, is this ringing a bell?  Anyway, the next feat on my life list is to run a 10K and I just found out that they are having one here in Flagstaff at the end of September.  Do you think I can pull it off?  I'm going to try.  I think.  In the last 6 weeks or so, I've become addicted to the gym.  Roomie and I go every morning at 5:45am, I'm not even shitting you.  It's all kinds of early, but it's about the best way in the world to start your day.  I promise.  It's so awesome to watch your body actually changing - I mean, trust me, it's a slow process.  But it's super satisfying to watch the muffin top (yup, that link would be the Wikipedia definition) deplete, the jiggly "teacher writing on the chalkboard" arms tighten up, and having that whole epiphany where you think to yourself, "Sweet!  My thighs don't rub together nearly as much as they used to!"  I'll be damned if I'm anything but a hot mama for my 27th birthday...which is a few months away:)

Speaking of addictions.  I've got two words for you.  Collard.  Greens.  I've been eating our adorable, neighborhood grocery store out of these things.  I buy two huge bunches at a time.  And I eat them just about every day.  They're AMAZING!  

I simply cut along each side of the stem of the collard green and overlap 4 halves to create the wrap.  I spread veganaise and sriracha to help adhere everything.  Then I layer with tempeh bacon, tomato, avocado and wrap everything up like a burrito and that's it!

Using the greens definitely helps replace some of those dirty little lies otherwise known as carbs.  The greens are also really hearty and they hold together well.  It's not like trying to wrap something up in a piece of iceberg lettuce.

Green burrito.  Full of goodness.

There are lots of great textures in this wrap, and the smooth, creamy avocado helps bring everything right on home!

Another wrap idea that I've been equally as addicted to is the combination of tahini, salsa and avocado.  I make two small wraps in the morning and eat them for breakfast or snack on them throughout the day.  Also, if you can find it, a little dab of red miso works really well with this combo of ingredients.

Give it a whirl.  And then you can decide if you actually trust me.

Enjoy!

~Giovanina