Sausage & Spinach Summer Wraps

It's still too hot to cook here on the Emerald Coast, so I've been getting creative with dinner. My theory is that if I keep it interesting enough, my family won't notice that I'm not cooking. Last night I made Sausage & Spinach Summer Wraps. They took less than 15 minutes, only one pan, and were delicious. I hope you give them a try.

Start with a low-fat or turkey kielbasa, such as Healthy Choice. I usually keep several in the freezer, since you can dice them easily even while they're still frozen. Slice a 1-pound kielbasa sausage into half-inch slices. Cook the sausage over high heat in a large skillet. Mix together 1 cup of cranberry-pomegranate juice, 2 tablespoons of ketchup, and a few dashes of hot sauce, and pour it over the sausage. Cook until the liquid reduces to a sauce, about 10 minutes.
Wrap a handful of fresh baby spinach leaves and about 5 slices of kielbasa in a whole grain or low carb wrap, and drizzle some of the sauce over the wrap.

The crisp greens compliment the hot, tangy sausage, and the whole meal is wrapped up and easily enjoyed outside or in front of the A/C, whichever you prefer. You could make this wrap even more healthy by using low-sugar or low carb juice and ketchup, but the 3 main ingredients are already pretty darn good for you! Go ahead and play with it and make it your own. This recipe started with an idea from Jacques Pepin, which I then played with to make my own. His Fast Food My Way series has some wonderful suggestions for quick and delicious eats, and he encourages everyone to adapt recipes to his or her own tastes, local ingredients, and cooking style. Just beware that he IS French and some of his food is sinfully rich (read: not exactly low carb, low calorie, low anything!), but it's all delicious. If you do pick up one of his cookbooks, I hope you'll do what I do and use his great recipes as idea springboards to help you keep your low carb lifestyle full of flavor. Enjoy!