Paleo Pepperoni Dock Wraps Recipe- Made With Wild Greens

I've been doing lots of crazy busy things around the house as well as out of the house, and today I needed to just catch up on all the housework that has been piling up. Of course, even if I need to take it easy, the kids and I still need to eat, but I needed something with minimal work, and, of course, minimal cost.

When I was cleaning out the freezer the other day I took out my homemade pepperoni, which inspired this lunch. For the kids, I originally was going to do something simple- slice it on a store bought gluten free bun (not so healthy, I know, but I am able to get a pack of buns for $1.40, which makes each bun 23 to 35 cents, depending on the type, so a good backup when I'm in a pinch), but then thought- why not make it BLT style, sort of. I spread their buns with mayo, ketchup and mustard, added a tomato and a slice of onion, and used a dock leaf in place of lettuce.

The kids really enjoyed it; Ike said it was the best lunch ever- pizza being the best one. 

Seeing the kids enjoy theirs made me wonder what I should have for lunch. Last time I was picking dock I was thinking how much it reminded me of collard greens, so I put two and two together and figured- why not use these leaves to make paleo wraps, the same way collard greens, kale, and lettuce often are. The more I thought about it, the more it appealed to me, since dock leaves (the ones near me are fiddlehead dock- rumex pulcher) are nice and thick, so they would be strong enough to hold the fillings without ripping, and they have a nice lemony taste, but are not too overpowering. 


I cut off the stalk-looking lower portion of the leaf, so I just had the leaf remaining, and with a knife, thinned the midrib that was attached to the leaf so that the leaf remained whole but the thickness of the midrib would be gone and it wouldn't interfere with rolling up the wrap. I then layered a few leaves together, overlapping each other, to give me more space to work with.

I spread the leaves with some dijon mustard, and then piled it up with sliced pepproni, sliced onion, chopped onion greens, and chopped tomato. I then sliced up the ribs from the dock leaves and put them into the wrap as well. 

I recently learned about a new wild mustard, called white top or hoary cress, and yesterday while teaching a private foraging class, found a huge patch of it, which I brought home with me afterwards. The flowers and seed pots of white top/hoary cress are spicy and mustardy, so I thought they would be a great addition to my wrap. I chopped up the flowers and tried to pull as many of the seed pods off the stem as possible (since the stem is too tough to eat at the stage that I found it), and added them. I then salted it with some Himalayan sea salt that I broke off my giant hunk of pink salt that I bought cheaply. 

Carefully I rolled up the wrap, and then wrapped the whole thing with plastic wrap to keep it together while eating it. For frugality/conservation purposes, I reused the plastic wrap that I'd used to wrap the pepperoni in the freezer.

I then sliced the whole thing in half before eating. It was delicious!

Now I'm aware that not everyone has access to all these ingredients, but this is just a starting point. 

If you don't have dock leaves, you can use 1-3 collard greens, kale leaves, romaine lettuce leaves, or swiss chard leaves, or any other long, firm, and tasty unlobed leaf for the wrapping. 

For the filler, you can use whatever protein you enjoy- it doesn't have to be pepperoni. If you don't eat meat or want to keep this cheaper, you can use chickpeas or other cooked legumes. You can also use sliced egg, deboned chicken, fish, or whatever. In place of the white top/hoary cress flowers and seed pods, you can use the flowers and seed pods of any mustards, including shepherd's purse. Or you can replace it with alfalfa sprouts, or even just leave out. And then you can use whatever spreads or other vegetables you enjoy in wraps.

Prep time for my lunch? Less than 5 minutes, since I had everything at home and cooked already. 

I love when my meals are healthy, tasty, frugal, and easy. Hitting four birds with one stone!

If you like wraps and foraging, check out this other recipe for foraged spring rolls using sow thistle.

If you're a forager- have you used any wild greens to make wraps? Which greens did you use?

If you're not a forager- what store bought greens do you find make the best wraps? 

Does this look like a recipe/technique you'd try?