Tasty Lettuce Wraps!

These lettuce wraps were awesome! We love eating PF Chang's chicken lettuce wraps so I decided to try these ones from the Pioneer Woman. We used ground beef, but it had so much flavor you couldn't even tell distinctively what meat it was, in a good way.
Ingredients:

• 1 pound Ground Beef Or Turkey
• 2 Tablespoons Peanut Oil, Or Other Light Cooking Oil
• 1 whole Onion (small)
• 1 clove Garlic, Large
• 1 piece Fresh Ginger (1 Inch Long) I couldn't find this at the grocery store so I left out
• 1 whole Red Pepper
• ½ cups Diced Water Chestnuts
• 3 Tablespoons Chinese Cooking Wine
• 4 Tablespoons Soy Sauce
• 1 Tablespoon Oyster Sauce
• 1 Tablespoon Peanut Chili, Or Satay, Sauce
• 1 Tablespoon Hoisin Sauce
• 1 teaspoon Sesame Oil
• 1 head Iceberg Lettuce

Prep the veggies: Dice the onion and red pepper. Drain and rinse the water chestnuts. Mince the garlic and the ginger. Cut out the core of the iceberg lettuce and give it a rinse. Allow the lettuce to drain, and carefully loosen the leaves.
Prep the sauce: Mix together the soy sauce, oyster sauce, peanut chili sauce, hoisin sauce and the sesame oil.

Heat a wok or large saute pan over medium-high heat. Add the peanut oil to the pan, allow it to heat up for a minute, then add the diced onion. Cook the onion for a few minutes. When it starts to become translucent (after 4 or 5 minutes), add the garlic and ginger. Stir fry for 30 seconds, then add the ground meat. Brown the meat, then add the red pepper and water chestnuts, stirring constantly.

This is my head of lettuce all spread out!

After another 3 or 4 minutes, add in the Chinese cooking wine. Allow this to sizzle and cook for about a minute, then add in the sauce. Stirring frequently, let this cook for 2 or three minutes. The sauce should thicken a bit. If it doesn’t, you can add a teaspoon or two of cornstarch.

Serve with the iceberg lettuce: take one leaf and add a few heaping spoonfuls of the meat mixture, fold up, and enjoy!

Molly Loves to Swim!

Since it was 100 degrees this past weekend we decided to take Molly to lake Lanier to take a dip. She loves to swim and just runs right in the water. She looks like a little seal with big ears when she is swimming. She is still in the rehab (self guided by us) phase from her surgery in April. The swimming is definitely helping her use it more, we also take her on walks every night. At home, she still is gentle with it and holds it up like she has 3 legs.

We go to this one spot where you can bring dogs, but it was so crowded with people that we just found a little nook where she could walk in and run around. She chases after pine cones and sticks that we throw. She usually drops it half way and we have to find new items to throw each time. It looks a little muddy because its right off shore and there was a lot of dirt. The water is getting pretty warm though so that's exciting! Hopefully we'll get out on the lake a little more this summer. Here is a video of Molly in Action.


After we packed up and dried her off, we headed home. The poor dear was so tired she just curled right up in a little ball. The leg she has up is her surgery leg. You can kind of see a little scar on the top going down. She is so cute! We just love her.

Heat Wave!

Well, it was a scorcher this weekend in Georgia. The temperatures were in the 90's with feel like temperatures at 100. Our air conditioning thought it was a great weekend to go out and not work. We have two units, one for upstairs and one for downstairs. The upstairs one was giving us a hard time and not kicking on right on Thursday. David went to take a look at it and compare it to the downstairs unit that was working. Well, a little switch-a-roo and finagling, they were both not working as of Friday evening. We had our friend Brandon come over and look at it on his Saturday off after a real crappy and hot Friday. As you can imagine he is a sought after man when the weather gets hot. Thanks for coming out Brandon! David says he won't mess with it, until you take a look next time! That didn't last long though, David took another look saturday afternoon. He matched up all the wires on the circuit board and re-did things a few times and like magic the downstairs was working again! Thank GOODNESS!!

The thermostat upstairs said 89 most the weekend though. We camped out downstairs and are patiently waiting for them to come back out today. Oh, I forgot to mention where the AC units were located... In the attic!! If the upstairs is 89 degrees and the attic is above that level, I'm guessing it was over 100. I climbed up there a few times, to try to make sure David wasn't passed out. Did I mention, I hate stairs with holes, Man it took a few times of practice and Davids assistance to get up there. It was so hot that his outfit was so drenched it was a different color each time he'd go up there. He is the best for working for hours up there saturday to get us air!! Thanks Babe!!

Top Three Thursday- Recipes!

Our topic this week is top 3 favorite recipes. This was so hard for me to choose. Everything I post on that is blog worthy, I love. The stand outs for me are:

1.) Sausage Calzones. We have these once every couple of weeks because its so good. 

2.) Homemade Sushi/ Teriyaki Chicken and Fried Rice. These take a little effort so we like to have guests over to enjoy this with us. In fact, we will be making this for my sister when she comes in a few weeks! Put your order in Michelle! I know Avocado rolls are her favorite.

3.) Chicken Fajitas with Grilled Roasted Corn & Tomato Salsa. The marinade for the chicken is amazing and so is the salsa. I could eat this once a week. 

If you haven't tried these recipes I would highly recommend them. What are your favorite recipes that you like to make?

Need Cookies!!

My husband, David is a real life cookie monster. We once played a newly wed game that asked what movie/tv character your husband would be. The other couple said something heroic like Superman and I'm thinking to myself, well I can't embarrass him that much so I shouted out batman or something, but Cookie Monster was my real answer. At night around 3am David wakes up in a food coma and heads down stairs. He rummages through our pantry for something chocolatey. This doesn't happen every night, but most nights. It runs in this family. His brother does Chocolate Milk. Well a few days ago, we were out of everything cookie, chocolate, or dessert related. I went downstairs in the morning and found a chocolate powdery substance all over the sink and counter. I asked David what he had for a snack and he just started to say, "there was nothing else!" Well, it was HOT COCOA POWDER from a hot chocolate packet!! He put it in his mouth, added milk and swooshed around! I knew it was time to get some cookies.

I found this recipe on Our Best Bites and we made it the next night. It's a basic cookie recipe and you just bake individual small bowls in the oven and top with ice cream and hot fudge.

It was so yummy!!

Summer Time Talk

Summer is up and going full swing already. I can't believe its already June. Where was spring? It definitely didn't stay long in Georgia. I've spent the last week being envious of my sister who is a teacher. Of course she gets summers off and I am so jealous of that. Not enough to become a teacher though. I decided to organize our summer plans so I can start looking forward to things.

Let's start with summer shows! I read this article about what's happening on TV this summer. I am looking forward to continuing to watch the Bachelorette with Ally (it's getting annoying, but i'll still watch). I also can't wait for BIG BROTHER! It's a family favorite and starts 7/8 at 8pm ET on CBS. The other ones that will be coming to my dvr shortly are: Wipe Out, So You Think You Can Dance and maybe the Jersey Shore (you know you watch it too).

I am also looking forward to a few small summer trips! We are trying to save money so visiting family and friends are on the agenda. We are also having a few visitors to our place. I am so excited for my Sister to get here in a few weeks! Shes taking a side trip to NY and then my mom is joining her back down here for a week before the 4th holiday! Our 1 year anniversary is coming up on June 27th! I can't believe its been a year already. David is planning a little surprise 1 day over night trip that I can't wait to go on. We're also doing a long weekend to visit my brother and sister-in-law in St. Augustine in August. We haven't been back in 3 years since we moved from FL so we're going to visit some friends and visit the old stomping ground. We might stop at Georgia Southern on the way there to visit too! And finally to finish out the summer we're going to NY around Labor day to visit my Grandma and NY family. It seems like a lot, but they are small trips to look forward too.

Another summer topic that is a sad one is about my garden. I'm sad to say that there will be no harvest this year. It's not dying any more, but it's not growing. I don't want to spend any more money on buying plants so we will regroup and figure out what didn't work and how to fix for next year. I know I will start my seeds indoors and transport plants to start. It's a bummer, but I'm not going to dwell on it. I am proud that I started with seeds and got them to grow at all. I think we have a soil moisture/ lining issue that we need to work on.

One thing that I am loving for this summer is all the groupons we can use. If you haven't heard of Groupon.com you need to see if its in your area. You buy discounted restaurant gift certificates for all over your city. We have 3 that we still need to use. For Atlanta area people I also found this GREAT deal for Concentric restaurants like two urban licks, one midtown kitchen, Tap, etc.. It's for 50% off your bill! ($25 limit)

What are your summer plans and things that you're looking forward to?

Chicken Kiev and Risotto

Here is another yummy recipe for you today. I've been doing a lot of cooking and trying new recipes. I probably haven't made the same thing for dinner, with a few exceptions (spaghetti and pizza), since I started this blog in January. This recipe is called Chicken Kiev and comes from my sister's friend Marquie. There were a couple of firsts for me in this recipe. I rolled chicken and made risotto for the first time! One was easier than the other.

Ingredients-

4 Whole Chicken Breast

1/2 cup Parm Cheese
1/2 cup bread crumbs
1 1/2 tsp Oregeno
1/2 tsp Garlic Salt
1/4 tsp pepper
9 tbls butter
1 tbls parsley
Monterey Jack cheese

Flaten Chicken breast. In pie pan combine grated cheese, bread crumbs, 1 tsp oregeno, garlic salt and pepper. In another pie pan combine 4 tbls melted butter, parsley, 1/2 tsp oregeno, mix together. Pour 1/2 tbls of butter mix in chicken.  

Roll chicken in remainder of butter then roll in bread crumb mix. I added cheese(mozzarella for me) in the inside before I rolled to get more in. Secure with toothpick if needed. This was way easier than I thought it was going to be. Drizzle remainder of butter and bread mix over chicken if any left. Bake at 425 for 20 minutes or 375 for 30 minutes if your making lots of chicken.

Onto the risotto! I had the hardest time finding it in the grocery store. I found it in the specialty pasta section on the bottom shelf. I followed the directions right on the package. It takes a lot of chicken broth, time and patience! It turned out pretty good and was really yummy.

I really enjoyed this one! It would be great for company except you'll want to cook the risotto ahead of time. Thanks Michelle for passing it on!