The less actual cooking required, the better, because if he has a meeting to run to and can’t handle cleanup duties, I don’t have to fit dishes into my break.
Leftovers are one option; I pride myself on my ability to turn previously cooked vegetables and beans, along with fresh greens, garnishes and dressing, into a hearty lunch salad. But sometimes the pickings seem particularly slim. When my husband opens the fridge and declares, “There’s nothing to eat,” I love proving him wrong.
These wraps from the great Lebanese writer Salma Hage’s latest book, “The Levantine Vegeterian,” seem almost like they were born in my own kitchen, because they use ingredients I always have around, even when the larder looks bare.
They’re so simple to make that I can practically hear some of you tapping out the comment: “Does this even need a recipe?” True, I didn’t require Hage to tell me how to heat up a tortilla, how to smear hummus onto it, how to top it with pickled and fresh vegetables and herbs, how to roll it up. But boy, did I appreciate the reminder that with the right choices, a lunch full of contrasting flavors and textures can satisfy me and my husband in about 10 minutes flat. And that hummus, store-bought or homemade, is just as good as a sandwich condiment as it is a dip. Hage herself writes that she makes such wraps frequently: “In most Middle Eastern households, a recipe like this is practically second nature.”
The recipe fulfills a seasonal requirement: As the days get longer, my preferred recipes get shorter, and they stay that way all lazy summer long.
Because as so many of you know, summer isn’t actually all that lazy when you have kids. Without school to occupy our teenager, we’ll be juggling those work hours with evermore requests for rides to practice, games and maybe — fingers crossed — a job. Then he, too, can start to learn the joys and challenges of multitasking.
