Macheesmo

A few weeks ago Betsy and I went skiing for the last time for this season. Betsy and I usually have a pretty light lunch while we’re on the slopes. Sometimes we’ll split a sandwich or something just because I’d rather not be in a food coma while speeding (falling) down a mountain.

On this day, we split a really delicious wrap that involved wild rice, butternut squash, goat cheese, and a few other veggies. Because it was on a ski slope, it also cost like $10.

I figured I could make them at home for a very small fraction of that. I substituted beets for the butternut squash just because beets are a bit easier to find in the spring.

These are fantastic for healthy and quick lunches during the week though!

Wild Rice Wraps

by Nick

Serves:

8 Wraps

Prep Time:

1 hr

Total Time:

1 hr 15 mins

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Hearty wild rice cooked with beets and wrapped in a veggie tortilla with spinach and goat cheese. Perfect for a healthy lunch!

Ingredients

1 Cup dry wild rice, cooked according to package

Chicken stock or veggie stock, for rice (probably need 3-4 cups)

Goat cheese, one ounce per wrap is good

Fresh baby spinach

2 beets, roasted and cubed

8 flour tortillas

Instructions

1) Roast beets at 350 degrees on a baking sheet for 60-75 minutes until knife tender.

2) When cool, peel beets and cube them fairly small.

3) Cook wild rice according to package.

4) When rice is cooked, stir in beets.

5) To make wraps, spread about one ounce of goat cheese on tortilla.  Top with spinach and rice/beet mixture.  Roll up and serve!

Roasting the beets

These wraps are easy to make, but not necessarily quick. Both of the two main ingredients (rice and beets) take a while to cook. You can obviously cook them at the same time though.

To roast the beets, just cut off the stem and bottom root section. Set them on a baking sheet and roast them at 350 degrees until they are tender. You should be able to easily push a knife into their center. It’ll probably take 60-75 minutes depending on the size of your beets.

These were mine after a good long roast.

Once they are cool enough to handle, peel the beets and cube them fairly small.

It’s kind of messy, but worth it.

The Rice.

If you’ve never worked with wild rice, it’s a different creature from the white stuff you’re used to. It has a really nutty flavor. It also takes about an hour to cook.

You should cook yours according to the package, but it’ll probably involve 3-4 cups of liquid per cup of rice, plus a pinch of salt and a drizzle of oil. I used chicken stock to cook my rice in, but you could use water or veggie stock if you wanted to make these vegetarian.

Just kind of throw all of this in a medium pot, bring it to a simmer, cover it, and let it simmer for about an hour.

When the rice is done, fluff it up with a fork and then stir in your cubed beets.

This would be a fantastic side dish as is. So you can use the leftovers for other meals pretty easily.

Making the Wraps.

While you can use any flour tortilla for these guys, I found these fun veggie tortillas at the store. They came in different varieties (carrot, spinach, and tomato). I’m not exactly sure why the carrot version is yellow instead of orange, but whatever.

For each wrap, spread about an ounce of goat cheese on the tortilla. This adds some nice richness to the wrap. Totally necessary in my opinion.

Then layer on a good handful of spinach and top with about 1/2 Cup of the rice/beet mixture. Depending on the size of your tortilla, you might have to adjust. You want a stuffed wrap for sure.

Roll this up and you’re ready to go!

I sliced mine all in half so you could check out the cross-sections.

I found that a wrap is a really good healthy lunch. Two was almost too much for me. The rice is really filling actually.

I’m sure you could add other things to these wraps, but I wouldn’t get too crazy. The rice and beets are the stars of the show.

I think I made about 8 of these for the cost of one of the wraps on the slope. Go figure.

If you’re looking for a great lunch dish though, these hit the spot for me!