Lettuce Wraps

So if you didn't know this about me I LOVE LOVE LOVE lettuce wraps. My first experience with lettuce wraps was at PF Chang's with Evan. I order them every time we go(cheaper during happy hour). I don't need anything else.

I love them so much I found a copycat recipe for them online and make them a lot.
They are TASTY!!!

6 years ago I really had worked hard on getting in shape etc. After I started my venture on that I happened to meet Evan. A year later we got married, and through the course of five years I have had different things affect me causing me to gain weight and my body shut down a little.

I would REALLY love to have more children, and if you already know how hard we tried for Lucy and Peter and how the pregnancies and births went, then you understand how crucial it is for my body to be in better shape. I have let what people suggest to me and say to me about health and what I need to do crush my self esteem, but I am done with that. I REALLY want to get my body into birthing shape again, so I am working really hard. I am working with a nutritionist and we bought an elliptical and I am training for a 5K, 10K, bike race and 1/2 marathon. I just bought new shoes making me even more excited that it actually could happen and family bike rides outside. I even have some friends that encourage me to go to the gym with them.

I have slowly been losing weight in a healthy and slow way, but under doctors orders, this is what needs to happen.

Anyway. I am trying to eat 6 times a day, low cal meals to fit in my allotted amount. So if you have any 300, 200 or 100 or less calorie meal options I would love to try them.

Back to the lettuce wraps. I looked up a fast easy way to make wraps. The copcat version of PF Chang's is higher in calories because of all the oil and sauces that go in, but this new version was quick, yummy and low cal. I found it on Rachael Ray's site. I will still make the other wraps other times but for now this is what I will try.

They called for Teriyaki sauce, I didn't have any so I substituted A Thai Peanut Sauce that we had-higher calories, but yummy. Next time I will make sure I have Teriyaki sauce to try as I am sure it is equally yummy.
Here is the recipe I followed and changed a little. My changes are in blue

TERIYAKI TURKEY LETTUCE WRAPS Burcu Avsar By: Noemi Costanzo From: Dinner

About 12 wraps from this. About 90 calories a wrap(without brown rice) but using peanut sauce. If you stick to the Teriyaki 45 calories a wrap without rice. Amazing eh! I love it. Evan said I could make these each week. They are a keeper. I am sure if we wanted a little more, then scallions, water chesnuts, mushrooms etc would add more flavor. This recipe takes only five ingredients to make! INGREDIENTS: 1 pound ground turkey
1 10-ounce bag shredded carrots -I used pre-made cabbage/carrot coleslaw-mostly cabbage from Target
4 to 5 scallions, thinly sliced -I didn't have any
1/4 cup to 1/3 cup store-bought teriyaki sauce -I used Peanut Sauce
1 head iceberg lettuce, leaves separated
I had brown rice on the side-Evan ate that, I didn't to conserve calories since I used peanut sauce instead of Teriyaki. I used the frozen brown rice from Costco. It just needs to be microwaved for 3 minutes and then it is good to go. I want to learn to freeze rice myself. My sister said she heard it could happen so I googled and found this.

My Dipping Sauce: soy sauce/chili/hot mustard equal parts for dipping sauce. You can change the portions to fit the consistency you like.


DIRECTIONS: In a large skillet, heat 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil over high heat.-I didn't use oil, just threw the frozen but defrosted turkey roll into the pan. Add the turkey and cook, breaking up the meat with a spoon, until browned, about 4 minutes. Stir in the carrots, scallions and 1/4 cup water; lower the heat to medium-low. Cover loosely with foil and cook until the water is absorbed and the veggies are soft, about 4 minutes. Stir in the teriyaki sauce to taste and cook until heated through, about 4 minutes. Divide the mixture among the lettuce leaves, about 1/4 cup for each; roll up and serve immediately.

Yes, paper plates. We are having dishwasher issues!

Panting

So if you haven't watched Charlie and Lola, you should. It is the cutest show, and I LOVE IT!

Lucy and Peter love it too, and one of the episodes we watched a month or two ago was about how hot it was, and how dogs pant to stay cool. So three kids sit around panting.

Can you guess what Lucy's favorite thing to do is now:) PANT She pants all the time. Lucy gets our attention and then sticks out her tongue and pants. Then she expects us to follow along with her.

(she also likes to look at herself in the mirror to watch her faces she makes)

So after a month or so of panting around the house, I was using the elliptical and all of sudden Lucy starts panting. I didn't know why, and then realized that I was panting(breathing heavy) and so Lucy thought I was playing doggies with her. So funny, I couldn't stop laughing since she did it my entire workout:) Guess I need to get in better shape.

Pinning down

I was thinking this could happen, then walked in on it:) maybe I willed it to happen by thinking or anticipating it:)

Spinach, skunks and black eyes

So I still have tons to post but we have been having hard-drive and I-photo issues, but here are a couple updates.

After 6 skunks last spring and 3 skunks and 2 cats, broken chicken wire this spring, we decided we needed to fill in the skunk hole den with concrete.

So a couple of our friends came over and helped since Evan and I were wimps and didn't really know what we were doing.

I bought broken stones and rocks from Home Depot for a super cheap discounted price as well as some concrete discounted, gloves, moth ball thingy, and peroxide.

They sprayed peroxide everywhere to kill the smell, then mixed concrete and stuffed that and rock into the hole. They also patched and filled in where the mighty skunks broke under the chicken wire. SO GREAT! and they were just brave enough to do it..I think they secretly wanted to wrestle a skunk and were sad they didn't find one in the hole. The trap is up for a couple days more, and after that I hope we never have to smell a skunk EVER AGAIN!!!


While they were prepping stuff Lucy wanted to play, she ran off the deck steps and face-planted into the corner of the wagon holding some supplies. So sad. It started out like a little scuff, but today it is purple..more pictures to come. She was a trooper. HER FIRST BLACK EYE or any owie like that, she almost made it to 2 without any accidents like that..oh well.



So I follow the Sister's Cafe Blog because I had some amazing salmon from a friend who used their recipe, so now I follow them ALL OF THE TIME!

I had heard of green smoothies and passed some links to recipes on to my sister. She tried them and didn't love them, so I didn't try them. Then today I looked at the conference snacks posted today, and they had a smoothie, green smoothie recipe, but it looked red so I thought I would try it. And since I am trying to get healthier, I had more motivation. Plus it's so much cheaper to get spinach at Costco but we never go through it all before it goes bad-now we can!

Evan was at costco and picked up strawberries, bananas and spinach, and I had the rest.










WE LOVED IT!!! and will do these often now.

This is how I made mine
2 handfuls of spinach-prewashed from costco
16 strawberries
1 banana
1-2 tablespoons light agave nectar(i love the stuff-costco sells it, I got mine at King soopers on sale)(or you could use juice concentrate)
about 12 ice cubes(i added these after i had blended everything to make it cold
1-2 cups water
1 braeburn apple-I wasn't brave enough to do it with seeds so i cored it

Makes about 5 1/2- 6 cups

Anyway, we LOVE it. I was so nervous but I really like it, and am probably going to do this everyday to help get my veggies for the day:) the blog says they use other berries, pineapple and oranges, etc..so sounds fun:)

I might try putting in flax grounded up tomorrow- This will help me get through my big thing of spinach from costco now:) PS, have people try it before you tell them what is in it so they don't get grossed out by a spinach smoothie.

We have vanilla yogurt I was going to add if it turned out gross but I didn't need it.

Anyway, if you try it, let me know:) Lucy couldn't have it because she is allergic to apples, so her's will have to be without apples.

My cutie pie kiddos(can you see her black eye?)