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.