I have a huge weakness for visually stunning foods.  I have a huge weakness for visually stunning anything.  This, of course, is a snotty way of saying: I like pretty things.  That’s right; I and some 99% of the world’s population suffer from this affliction.  I don’t know about those 99% but I often (too often) base my purchases on the pretty factor.  I bought my laptop because I thought it was pretty and I was convinced that its prettiness will encourage me to work on it often.  If I had a car, I’d most likely go for pretty and I would ignore all other specs (is that what you call them? specs?).  I am a master at finding and purchasing pretty and sometimes very impractical items (which is a big no-no in Germany, where to be practical is the highest of virtues).  There is only one exception to my pretty rule: husbands…  Those I like to be handsome, not pretty.  But when it comes to cooking, I go back to pretty.  Choosing what to cook next, involves leafing through my cookbooks and staring at luscious photographs, then looking at the recipe and evaluating the “will it be a pain in the ass to make” factor (henceforth referred to as the PITA factor).  So, when I saw these zucchini rolls, I immediately thought they looked gorgeous and were composed of all the things I liked.  The only problem was that, like many pretty things, they were very impractical to make.  Let me rephrase, on a 1-10 PITA scale, they were a solid 7.5.  But they looked so good and I’m just so unabashedly impractical.

Ingredients:

4-5 small zucchinis
100g (3½oz) mild goat cheese
2 red chilies, deseeded and thinly sliced
15g (½ oz) fresh mint
2 small handfuls of arugula
small bunch of chives
3Tbs olive oil
½ tsp salt
½ tsp pepper

Cut the zucchinis lengthwise into 20 slices about 5mm (¼in) thick, brush with olive oil and season with salt and pepper.  Heat the grill (or a grilling pan) to high and cook the zucchinis on both sides till they have grill stripes and then set aside to cool.  Fry the chilies in a frying pan till crisp around the edges and drain on a kitchen towel.  Drop the chives into a pan of boiling water and immediately take out, place in a bowl of ice cold water and then let dry on a kitchen towel.  Spread 1tsp of goat cheese on each zucchini, place a couple of arugula leaves, mint leaves and chilies.  Roll the slice and secure with a toothpick, then tie with a chive and remove the toothpick.  Serve and wonder about how impractical, yet beautiful foods can taste so good.

Servings: 20 rolls (about  30 kcal/roll)

Adapted from: Small Bites by Jennifer Joyce (This is a great book, I pretty much want to cook everything from it)

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