Fearless Friday Lettuce Wraps

I have to be totally honest. I’m not a lettuce wrap fan. I don’t know why exactly, but I never have been. Yesterday when Orlando told me he was making lettuce wraps for dinner, you can say I was anything but excited. But when I put those wraps in my mouth, I was blown away! I loved them. I ate 3 of them! It actually made me wonder what I didn’t like about them in the first place??? Who knows – my life has become such a process of evolving that anything goes!

So back to the wraps. We finish our delicious dinner and I say to Orlando, okay just give me the recipe so I can post it on our blog. They were delicious. Orlando looks at me like he was hit by a truck, and said….I didn’t really follow a recipe, Caro, I just eyeballed everything and that’s it. How am I supposed to document what he does if he eyeballs everything!!!!!!!!!!! Its so frustrating! But its the truth, its what he does. He goes by tastes and textures.  He adds as he goes.  So what we did to remedy this situation???  We did our best to retrace our steps and create tangible measurements for one to follow. The measurements are not completely precise so you can play with them a little. You can add a little or subtract a little, but generally we are giving you guidelines to follow. So here it goes:

Ingredients:

  • Boston or Bibb lettuce – we used boston
  • 1 lb of chicken
  • 1 8 oz can of water chestnuts
  • 1 5 oz can of bamboo shoots
  • 1/4 cup of cabbage from a bottle of Kimchee
  • 1 small can of tid bit pineapples (make sure they have no sugar or fructose)
  • 1 1/2 tablespoons raw chopped to small pieces ginger
  • 2 cups of shredded carrots (shred them yourself…its cheaper and fresher)
  • 1/2 red onion chopped
  •  8oz mushrooms – used about 6 oz.
  • any Sprouts you prefer.  we used spicy sprouts

FIRST STEP – PREPARING THE MARINADE FOR THE CHICKEN

  • 1 lb of chicken chopped up into bite sized pieces
  • About 1/4 bottle of Teriyaki sauce
  • 1/2 tsp of ground ginger
  • 1/2 tsp of black pepper
  • 1/2 of the juice of an 8 oz can of pineapple and 1/4 of the pineapple tidbits
  • 1 tbsp of sesame oil
  • 1tbsp of honey

Place these ingredients in a large ziplock bag, seal well, and shake, shake, shake. Put in the refrigerator to marinade for about an hour. (two hours would be even better)

 

COOKING THE VEGETABLES 

  • about 6 oz of the pre-sliced mushrooms (orlando chopped them a little more to make them bite sized)
  • 1/2 a bunch of green onions chopped
  • 1/4 cup of kimchi vegetables (this is optional – we bought it at Publix)
  • 2 cups of shredded carrots
  • 1/2 of a large red onion, sliced
  • 1/2 tbsp of raw, chopped ginger
  • a little salt and pepper to taste

Heat pan with a little bit of sesame oil and sautee the vegetables until they are lightly cooked. Then add

  • 1/2 of an 8oz can of water chestnuts
  • 1/2 of a 5oz can of bamboo shoots
  • 1/2 tbsp of raw, chopped ginger
  • 1 clove of garlic

Sautee these vegetables with the remaining vegetables in the pan until they are cooked through and add salt and pepper to taste.  Note: Make sure you do not OVERCOOK the vegetables. You want the vegetables to always remain crispy. Remember, less is more! You can eat vegetables semi-raw. Therefore, do not be afraid of undercooking them. Just make sure they get a nice sautee and toss in the heat and that they have a nice color but you don’t want soggy, soft vegetables for this dish (or ever!!!)

Take them off the heat and set aside to cool.  Remember, this isn’t a stir-fry that must be served hot.  These are best at room temperature in my opinion.

COOKING THE CHICKEN

  • Add a little more sesame oil, and set the pan that you used for the vegetables to an extremely high heat.
  • Drain the liquid out of the freezer bag where the chicken is marinating.
  • sautee the chicken at the high temperature with 1 clove of garlic and another 1/2 tbsp of raw, chopped ginger.
  • Continue to cook the chicken through until you see all the liquid evaporated. (you may have to pour out excess marinade while cooking the chicken or it will never brown.)
  • take the vegetables out of the refrigerator and toss into the pan with the chicken just to combine. Lightly toss all ingredients together.  Remove from heat.  Toss with some chopped green onions.

TO SERVE

  • Place the boston lettuce wraps on a plate and serve the chicken and vegetables inside the lettuce.
  • Add a little bleu cheese dressing – or ranch (if you prefer) and VOILA!
  • I know the dressing is strange, but adding a small touch of blue cheese goes a long way and adds great zing.  Remember, this is more like a salad than it is a fajita, so Orlando thought to use a little bleu cheese in place of sour cream to add flavor and texture.

Note: Beware of adding too much dressing. The dressing is simply a touch just to bring out the flavors of the wrap but you don’t want to soak the wrap in dressing.

This is really a healthy version of a fajita. The Teriyaki sauce and the blue cheese dressing are the only real “cheats” in the meal. The meal has no carbs, is full of vegetables and is delicious!

To a fabulous, fun, Friday!!!!!! Have a great weekend everyone.

I finally mastered the art of making Quinoa!

Friends, learning to make that perfect Quinoa has been a long process for me. My husband is the chef. That’s just the way things are. But I have certain responsibilities in the kitchen, simply because I have to feed my children usually before he gets home. So making Quinoa has fallen square on my shoulders. Since that is the type of food that is made in larger quantities, Orlando usually uses “my” cooked Quinoa for his recipes. And its always something. Its too bland, or  too mushy, or too hard…I just hadn’t quite tweaked it. Until now!!!! I finally figured out what I had been doing wrong!!!!!!! YAY!!!!

Here is the issue…certain quinoa boxes will tell you to add 2 cups of water per cup of quinoa, others will tell you 1 1/2. Some Quinoa recipes recommend rinsing the quinoa and others don’t. I read about it and feel that you should rinse your Quinoa because it contains Saponin – and that creates a bitter taste. When you rinse it you remove that thin layer of Saponin that it has.

But if you add 2 cups of water after rinsing the Quinoa…now you’ve got yourself some mushy quinoa!!! Too much or too little water creates a huge problem for those little grains and of course, I have fallen victim to both scenarios! Until now!

So here is my perfected Quinoa recipe. 

  • 2 cups of Quinoa
  • Rinse quinoa in water and drain the water as best as you can
  • then add about 1 cup of water or chicken broth (I like broth better) per cup of Quinoa.  When I say about 1 cup its because I put in a generous cup – more than 1 cup but less than 1 1/2. But somewhere in that range.
  • Add whatever you want – carrots, zucchini, peas, garlic cloves, cinnamon stick, raisins, broccoli …any veggie you want.
  • Bring to a boil
  • Put a tight lid on and bring to a simmer for 15 minutes – and DO NOT OPEN THAT LID AGAIN!!!!! Let it cook!!!!! When it beeps, you will have a fluffy Quinoa. AT LAST!

My husband made the Fried Quinoa with kimchee recipe the other day at home and actually told me that the Quinoa was cooked perfectly! But I didn’t make enough so he asked me to make 1 more cup… I was scared my success was a one time wonder but sure enough the second batch came out as good as the first! The recipe came out so spectacular that we may actually post a take 2 round of this recipe because Orlando tried it for the first time on video with you all and now he has really perfected it. So keep your eyes peeled!

NOTE:  I couldn’t end this post without elaborating a little bit more on adding veggies to your Quinoa. It is not necessary to do so, however, I strongly believe you should never pass up the opportunity to pile on veggies to your meals.  Especially, if you are a beginner eating vegetables, or just aren’t so crazy about them…. chopping them up into little pieces and adding them to things like Quinoa makes them an insignificant part of the meal from a taste perspective…but all their fiber and nutrients and minerals are making a significant impact in your body. So, be bold. Add vegetables any where you can. Your eggs, your pizza, your quinoa….aim to have at least 1 vegetable with every meal. You won’t regret it, and you may even start liking them if you don’t already!!!!!!!!!!!! Never stop PILING ON THE GREENS!

Applied Knowledge is Power

If any of you have ever heard my father speak before….if you haven’t, you should! Check out his blog http://www.joachimworld.blogspot.com/

I digress!!!! I often heard my father say in his speeches that Sir Francis Bacon says “Knowledge is Power” but that he should have said “Applied Knowledge is Power” because if you don’t apply, you don’t know.

I have taken that principle with me throughout my life and if there is one thing I have focused myself on is if I learn something that I consider to be positive, powerful, or good for me and my family…I immediately take action to apply that idea, principle, or strategy.

The reason I write this today is because reading about healthy tips or recipes is not enough. To get results you have to act. It might be difficult at first but and you may encounter resistance but its all part of the process.

So, after pouring my heart out on this blog regarding my childrens’ lunch dilemma… I have received great advise and tips to provide better lunches for my kids.

This weekend I immediately went into action…searching for TOOLS for my kids’ lunchboxes. I bought:

  • 2 thermos from Walmart (they aren’t fancy, but they were a great price)
  • 2 small recyclable snack bags & 2 larger sandwich bags from The Container Store, and
  • 2 water thermos

So i made a delicious quinoa with chopped up carrots and homemade black beans. Yes I tried my FIRST black beans made from scratch.  I can’t say they were delicious but I’m not the chef in this house! and they came out pretty darn good for my first attempt!

I put the hot quinoa first in the container and poured some of the black beans on top. I also packed a little box of raisins, a cheese stick, and grapes.

After ALL my hard work, I got home, opened my kids’ lunchboxes and the grapes, raisins, and cheese were gone!!!! The thermos was pretty full 🙁

So I asked them about it and they both told me they just didn’t like it too much.

They did love their stainless steel water bottles!!!!

I guess I was a little bummed but not discouraged! I think the issue is that they are not used to eating those things at lunch. So much of what we do has to do with what we are used to!!!! So my kids are used to a yogurt or a sandwich, etc. They see rice and beans (which they would devour at home for dinner) and all of a sudden they are not that interested.

But there is a silver lining to this story! When they got home they were still a little hungry! I had to make a decision at that moment, do I feed my hungry children because they didn’t eat their lunch or do I continue with the normal routine. I opted for the latter.

I put them down for nap like I always do and said, its not snack time yet. If you’re still hungry from lunch time then tomorrow you can make sure you finish your lunch. When they woke up I fed them their regular snack. They had fruits yesterday. And then I gave them their regular dinner at 5:30pm. They did devour their dinner. I think they were hungry because dinner was no fuss which was nice. They had a delicious left-over chicken soup.

So today I will try again. We used the remaining Quinoa last night to make our Quinoa Fried Rice with Kimchee (YUMMY!!!!!) and I will give them the left overs for lunch today. Wondering if today will be different than yesterday. We will soon find out! I believe that it will be.

And so we move forward to another change in the process…because we can’t grow and improve unless we change.

Thank you friends for giving me new, healthy ideas to apply to my life. Like my favorite doctor of all time would say….let’s keep spreading the good word!