Collard Wraps with Sun-Dried Tomato Pate

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The collard wrap is ever versatile and can accompany any number of ethnic foods. I typically do either an Asian style wrap with avocado, spouts, dikon, and a miso dip, or Mexican with black beans or nut pate, cilantro, tomato, and avocado. However, with this recipe I went for a simple Italian style wrap.

Sun-dried Tomato Pate

-1/2 cup soaked sunflower seeds (walnuts are great & pine nuts are even better)
-1/4 cup soaked sun-dried tomatoes(in warm water at least 1 hour)
-3 Tablespoons of water from soaked tomatoes
-juice of 1/2 lemon
-2-3 garlic cloves
-1 green onion stalk
-1/4 small red onion
- 1/4 head parsley chopped
-sea salt, pepper, and cayenne to taste

Place soaked sunflower seeds, tomatoes, and water in food processor and pulse briefly. Place all remaining ingredients, except parsley into processor and pulse until desired consistency is reached. Lastly, fold chopped parsley into pate in separate bowl as to not turn the spread green.

Collard Wrap Assembly:

Taking a large collard leaf, derib and cut length wise to make two wraps. Repeat with as many wraps as needed. Soaking wraps in lemon water will help make them softer but is not necessary. I rarely do this unless I am feeding those with more delicate tastes. Like making sushi, it makes things a load easier to have a clean work space with desired ingredients prepared in small bowls. This wrap included a fare serving of Sun-dried tomato pate as the base and then layered with additional chopped sun dried tomatoes(soaked), heavy hand full of spouts, finely chopped kalamata olives, and fresh dill. Place a fair amount of ingredients a forth of the way up the leaf(length wise) and role tightly towards yourself. Collard wraps are quite tough and can pack a fare amount of sustenance. Like sushi, one can be shown but in the end it just takes practice and a bit of boldness.
Serve wraps right away, or role in wax paper to take for lunch.