Friday night sandwich night: Island Wraps

Aw, man, I forgot to take a picture!

This week it was the husband's turn to pick our Friday night sandwich. Ryan presented him with a sandwich cookbook and told him he could pick anything except the veggie burgers since that's what Ryan wants to pick on his next turn. So, Jason chose a recipe called Island Wraps, which consist of a quick homemade black bean hummus spread on flour tortillas, then topped with some baby spinach, sauteed plantain slices, and salsa.

Have you ever had sauteed plantains? They're delicious! They're my favorite part of having dinner at our local Cuban restaurant, Martino's. (Well, second-favorite, behind the incredible tres leches cake.) The first trick is finding plantains at the grocery store, and the second trick is letting them get really, really ripe. If you're lucky, your grocery store will carry both green AND ripe plantains. This week, I was lucky, and my store had some that were ready to use: almost all black with just a little yellow left on the peels. To peel them, you simply cut off both ends, then make a slit down the side and gently pull the peel off. I sliced the plantains into 1/4" rounds and let them cook for a few minutes on each side in a hot skillet coated with vegetable oil. Once they are nicely browned on each side, they're removed from the pan and sprinkled with salt.

While the plantains were cooking, I pureed a can of black beans in the food processor along with some tahini, lemon juice, garlic, and salt. Very quick and simple. If I'd had good fresh tomatoes and a jalapeno on hand, I'd have made a salsa fresca. But alas, no tomatoes, so I used jarred pineapple salsa. Not bad, but I think fresh would have been better, and the kick from the jalapeno would have been a welcome flavor addition.

I thought these were pretty tasty and definitely a change of pace for the taste buds. Jason liked them too and Aiden enjoyed his baby-sized serving of plantains, while Ryan wouldn't even try the plantains. I should have lied and said they were bananas. Regardless of the rejection by Ryan, I'd definitely make these again.

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