Grilled Chicken Wraps with Quick Pickled Veg

I had a reader tell me the other day that she used to be paleo but gave it up because she felt like she was eating the same few meals over and over. Getting really bored of just bison, avocado, broccoli, and sweet potatoes, she stopped eating paleo despite getting results she wanted from the whole, clean foods way of eating.  Here is the great news: you don’t have to eat the same four things over and over to eat paleo!

There’s so many foods out there you can eat that fall into the “paleo” category.  I actually prefer to think about my diet more as eating whole foods than paleo really.  So almost any veggies will do.  (Corn is the only no-go veggie for paleo.  Potatoes, always preferably sweet potatoes, are sometimes okay if you’re active, but I will talk about this more in a future post.) Don’t limit yourself to just what you’re used to.  Think about baby bok choy, swiss chard, brussels sprouts, fennel, parsnips, beets, acorn squash, Napa cabbage, radishes, and eggplant just to name a few.  If you don’t know how to prepare them, stick around as my recipe library grows and I’ll show you!  Don’t be intimidated by unfamiliar fruits and veg.  Trying new foods will keep your taste buds tantalized and entertained.  So will preparing familiar fruits and veggies in new ways, like I do here with cucumbers and carrots.  You’ve got to be excited by your food or you’ll become bored, unsatisfied, and ultimately not stick with this way of eating.

So if you’re bored of the same ol’ same ol’, try jicama.  That’s why I threw it in this recipe.  I was looking for some variety from my usual veggies.  It adds a great crunch as well which I always love.   Don’t be intimidated.  If you’ve never bought one, you’re looking for this.  All you need to do is to peel it like you would a carrot or potato, and slice away.  You can eat it raw just as it is.

Another departure from the usual, I chose butter lettuce instead of the usual iceberg for lettuce wraps.   It’s very pliable, but still fresh and crunchy.  You can’t replace the crunch of iceberg, but iceberg often cracks as you wrap it tightly, sending the juice or sauce running down your hand and arm.  The rib of the butter lettuce gives you that crunch still, but the leaves wrap without breaking as easily.

These cucumbers are my new favorite condiment for wraps.  They were so easy to make.  They do shrink down a bit (and we liked them a lot) so 1 cucumber fed just two of us.   To make them, you need those ultra-thin, even slices.  1 problem: I never liked mandolins. They always seemed like the best invention ever, but never worked quite the way I imagined.  (I can hear my old co-worker interjecting, “operator error!” right now…)  I was always getting potatoes or apples stuck as I was trying to slice, leaving half-cut or broken pieces instead of the perfectly sliced or julienne produce as promised.  Well last summer when I got a dehydrator, I was determined to figure out this “ultra-thin, even-slicing” thing for dehydrated items like beet and apple chips and lemon slices.  I tried another mandoline, different from the one I’d had before.  Fail, again.  Half my produce was wasted on “mess-ups” and I was left cleaning 5 different parts and attachments.

When I went to return the mandoline with my husband, the sales person tried to sell me another gadget and I wasn’t having it.  He said my problem was I didn’t need a mandolin, I needed a slicer.  Slicers would work with hard, tough produce like potatoes, apples, and beets, but also delicate/soft items like tomatoes and cucumbers.  I thought it was a selling shtick and I wasn’t buying scams anymore.  I’d already tried twice.  If Dan hadn’t been there and forced me to try a gadget one last time, I would have truly missed out.  Enter my slicer.  Love this thing.  It does work; the salesman was right, I didn’t need a mandoline I needed a slicer.  I can adjust the thickness with a little nob on the handle, and with no attachments or accessories, cleanup is a sinch.

My last tip for you has to do with the chicken.  Here the recipe calls for grilled chicken.  If you’re like me and you’ve moved a lot in the last five years, you don’t always have access to a grill.  If that’s the case, don’t worry.  You can use an indoor “grill” which is actually what I did here.  You could also use a good ol’ George (if you still have yours from college), a grill pan, sautéd or baked chicken, or even leftover sliced chicken, beef, pork, or that turkey from Thanksgiving you’re still sitting on.  No matter how you make it, enjoy!!

What new foods have you tried lately?  What cooking techniques have you tried or do you want to try (i.e. pickling)?  What vegetable would you like to cook but don’t know how?  If you tried jicama for the first time here, how did it go?