Happy Friday! I’m sure it’s happy for all of you but for me it’s just another Friday closer to….back to school. I’m in complete denial. I haven’t even looked at a calendar to see how many weeks I have left. Please don’t tell me. I have to work out my half marathon training, but…umm…again haven’t because I don’t want to look at a calendar. In my head I know I have enough time that I don’t need to look at one just yet.
I just love summer. I love being able to do whatever I want whenever I want. I get anxiety during the year about being organized and not creating extra stress for myself (which is why I make all of my lunches on Sunday). It’s nice to be able to wake up at 7 and then sit down, blog, and then do whatever I need. Yesterday I did 5 loads of laundry and watched a Raising Sextuplets marathon at my moms. (Yes I had 5 loads to do.) Then I came home, went into the city for a Core Fusion class and got home around 9:30. If that happened during the year I’d be stressing over not getting enough sleep because I still had stuff to do at 9:30. Okay I’m done, you get it, I love summer.
I didn’t have time to blog yesterday because I woke up early and drove right to my mom’s house. My sister and I had some stuff to do before she left for Providence/Boston to see her boyfriend (happy birthday!!). She wanted to get some exercising in so I went for a quick, I run, she bikes, loop. Then we went to see Aunt Millie and then she was off. I did laundry, watched tv and had lunch for the majority of the day and then came home and went to Core Fusion. I will review Core Fusion in another post, when some other bloggers post their pictures because I was a bad blogger and didn’t take any!
What did I have for lunch you ask? Well I had leftovers from when I cooked for them Tuesday night. I love this dish because it’s easy, versatile and pleases the masses. The meal I made was lettuce wraps, with chicken and tofu. *Warning* this meal seems overwhelming, but it really is simple. The chopping and dicing can seem overwhelming, but it’s easy besides that. So make this!
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| Lettuce wraps with romaine or iceberg, brown rice and veggies. |
Lettuce Wraps (feeds 5 hungry people)
Ingredients (for veggies)
- 3 carrots
- 1 large portobello mushroom
- 2 red peppers
- 5 stalks celery
- 2 cups bean sprouts
- 1 small can water chestnuts
- 2 medium sized zucchini
Ingredients for sauce
1 cup lite soy sauce
1/2 cup lite teriyaki sauce
1 tbsp peanut butter
2 tsp fresh ginger grated
2 cloves garlic, diced
Remaining Ingredients:
Family pack of thin sliced chicken breasts (about 5-6)
1 pack firm organic tofu
1 head iceberg lettuce, washed
1 head romaine lettuce, washed
1 cup brown rice (optional)
Prep work: Chop up all of the carrots, mushroom, peppers, celery, water chestnuts and 1 zucchini into small pieces, think diced. About 30 minutes before, when you start chopping, start to press block of tofu, using paper towels or tofu press to get excess water out. If you are going to make rice, start to cook it now.
In a wok or large frying pan heat 1 tablespoon of oil. Heat on medium heat and when hot add all veggies, including bean sprouts. While starting to saute vegetables, make sauce.
Mix all sauce ingredients together in a bowl. Pour about 1/4-1/2 cup of sauce over veggies and mix well. Let veggies heat and cook through, stirring every couple of minutes.
Meat:
Dice about 5 thin slices chicken breast. Cook on stove top in about 1/4 cup of the sauce/marinade. *Make sure you don’t use a spoon to put sauce on chicken and put it back in sauce bowl.
Tofu:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Dice tofu and line on a baking sheet. Pour 1/4 cup of sauce over tofu. Cook on one side for about 15 minutes and then flip. Cook for about 10 minutes more.
After everything is cooked, take about both heads of lettuce and arrange on a plate. Put remaining sauce on table for use. *If you are wondering where that extra zucchini went, I spiralized it to make “noodles”. You can certainly chop it and throw into stir fry, or if you have a spiralizer, then go for it!!
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| cooked veggies |
It’s up to you whether you want to cook rice, but I thought it was a nice option if people didn’t want to wrap it up and wanted to eat it as a stir fry, which did happen. This meal is a lot of prep work, but it is WORTH it. It is very healthy, tasty and filling! It also helps if you have 2 great helpers in the kitchen!!
On another VERY HAPPY note, there will be some changes to this blog over the course of today and tomorrow. Ryan from Revive My Blog has transformed my site to amazingness. I’m SO excited for you all to see it, he really worked magic! So hopefully by tomorrow you will all see the new site, so if it doesn’t work for you later on, then you know why!
Have an awesome day!!
Tagged as:
Exercise,
health,
health-specialty-diet,
health-vegan
{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }
These look so yummy!! I lvoe that you have something for everyone…I would love just the all vegies, but adding the chicken and tofu makes it so versatile!
This looks so tasty! Maybe with the chicken and the tofu mixed together, my boyfriend won't even notice the tofu…
The Lettuce wraps looks GREAT!! Looking forward to the blog revival!!
You are such a tease! What did you think of Core Fusion??? The wraps looks delicious! I have at least 6 loads of laundry that need to be done right now. There is just not enough time in the day! I hope you have a great Friday!!!
Makes you wish you had your own sous chef to do all the chopping! Looks great though!
great recipe…so fresh and colorful!
It does seem complicated haha but probably because of the amount of ingredients. Looks so good though.
My Mom makes lettuce wraps and they do require a lot of ingredients, chopping etc but they are SO WORTH IT! These look amazing, love the addition of port mushrooms!
Can't wait to see the new blog!!
I'm bookmarking this page I love your food so much, thanks for sharing!
Yum! Im so craving for this right now! Deeelicious!
yummy! that looks absolutely delicious and refreshing.
Wraps look great. Exciting about the new design!
Your site looks AMAZING!!!!!!!! omg. It’s amazing! I didnt know you went to wordpress either…omg it loooks soooo good Nicole!
Thanks for all your support and love this week
and always!
and the wraps look great but i am still hung up on how awesome your blog looks! in going from Blogger to WP, how hard is the learning curve?
Thanks Averie! I basically have no idea how to use wordpress but am trying to just play around. When I want to add a widget or whatever I plan on googling it and hopefully it will tell me how to do it. So far I’ve figured out how to post and reply to comments (hopefully, this is my first one). How much better does it look? I’m basically obsessed! I would have done it eventually if I didn’t win it, but didn’t really want to spend a couple of hundred on site redesign.
I’m glad you aren’t going to stop blogging but I can’t imagine what you’re going through. You are a strong cookie!
Thanks for the sweet words!
I didn’t think I would like the tofu but I ended up loving it- it’s surprising what a good marinade will do for you!
The blog looks awesome! They did a great job. I always forget how fun lettuce wraps can be.
Your new blog layout is AMAZING. I love the green, it looks so light and fresh.
And those lettuce wraps scare the be’jesus outta me. They look delish, but a bit outside my skill set. Here. How about you make them for me? Okay? Okay.