9-14-11

Dinner Blog Dinner Prep

It’s a good night when things go as planned.  It’s a great night when someone says they want to drive your leg of the carpool!  Bonus!!!

I found tonight’s recipe on allrecipes.com.  It sounded easy, delicious, and fast.  Right up my alley.  The recipe estimated 20 minutes of prep time and 15 minutes of cook time, which was about how long it took me.  I entered the kitchen at 6:10 and began by cooking the ground beef.  I should have washed the Bibb lettuce first and let it dry, but I was too excited to start the meal to think in the right order…

Once the beef was done, I put it on the side and cooked the onion, adding the hoisin sauce, soy sauce (I used the Bragg’s Liquid Aminos), garlic and rice wine vinegar when the onion was tender. Then I added the beef back to the onion mixture with sliced water chestnuts and chopped green onions.

Mixing the ground turkey, onions, and asian seasonings

I laid out the plates adding pineapple, a sliced peach and the last of the strawberries.  And while the menu shows green beans for tonight, we had them the last two nights, so I made a tomato – avocado “salsa” mixture.  It was a nice change from a side salad since we were already using lettuce for our wraps.

At 6:25 I had to run and pick up my son’s carpool and at 6:45 when I was back home again, I washed the lettuce (should have done earlier so it would dry), and patted it dry.  I warmed up the ground turkey mixture and spooned a bit on each lettuce leaf. I thought we would probably eat more than one wrap, but I wanted to make sure everyone liked them before I loaded them up on their plate.  We sat down to eat at 7:05.

Asian Lettuce Wraps with Tomato-Avocado Salsa, pineapple, strawberries and peaches

Two Thumbs Up!

Everyone liked dinner and I even got points for creativity (using lettuce instead of a tortilla)!  We used the sweet chili sauce (you may still have extra from a couple of weeks ago) and that added another level of flavor.  My son and husband really enjoyed the wraps, had seconds, and gave the dinner a 9 and 9+ respectively.  This is a huge win as my son is not a huge turkey eater… My daughter was a little less enthusiastic, had a small second wrap, and gave the meal a 7, although I am not sure why and I am not sure she knows exactly why…

Recipe

Ingredients for Asian Lettuce Wraps:

12-16 Boston Bibb or butter lettuce leaves

1.75 lbs. ground turkey

1 T cooking oil

1 large onion

chopped 3 cloves fresh garlic

minced 1T plus a little bit

soy sauce (or Bragg’s Liquid Aminos)

1/3 Hoisin sauce 1 T plus a little bit,

1T rice wine vinegar

Asian chile pepper sauce or sweet chili sauce

1 8 oz can water chestnuts, sliced or finely chopped

¼ C chopped green onions

2 t Asian dark sesame oil

1. Rinse lettuce leaves and set aside to dry
2. Brown the ground turkey.  Remove from pan
3. In same pan, sautee onion.
4. Add garlic, soy sauce (Bragg’s), hoisin sauce, vinegar, and chili pepper sauce (or sweet chili sauce) to the onions and stir.
5. Stir in water chestnuts, green onions, sesame oil, and cooked ground turkey
6. Lay out plates and add fruit and one or two lettuce leaves
7. Dice a tomato and avocado and mix them together with a touch of salt.  (for those kids who have strong preferences, add avocado, tomato or both separately on the plate (see the four settings: the adults got the mixture, and one had no tomatoes and one had avocado and tomato separate on the plate…)
8. Make sure turkey mixture is still warm.  Spoon the mixture into center of leaves, making sure not to put too much in as it will be difficult to wrap.
9. Serve!
10. Show the kids how to “wrap” the lettuce like a tortilla – see how many points you get for creativity!