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Cooking with our newest Cave Tool: Stainless Steel Vegetable Grill Basket

27 Nov

The latest and greatest new Cave Tools product for our collection.

If you’re a long-time reader of The Whole Bag of Chips, you know by now how much we enjoy the cooking tools that Cave Tools sends us to try out. Last week we had the opportunity to give a new one a try and it might just be our very favorite one yet, the Stainless Steel Vegetable Grill Basket.

Cave Tools products can’t be beat when it comes to durability and quality and it’s one of the things we like best about them, especially because we cook at home on a grill and on a campfire when we are camping away from home with our camper. Their products are great for both. We also love that their tools are affordable and budget-friendly for consumers because those things are important to us too.

For our latest product trial, we opted to grill some fresh zucchini, squash, red onion and eggplant to go along with some grilled salmon and pesto that we were having for dinner. Coincidentally, the salmon was being grilled utilizing a Cave Tools product too, the small fish basket, and we were able to fit them side-by-side on our grill, which was so convenient. Even though we were using our vegetable basket to grill vegetables, it could also be used to grill other foods as well, such as shrimp or chicken, as well as other vegetables, fruits and meats. The fact that this tool is truly a basket, vented to let the grilled taste in, made for more flavorful veggies than if we’d tried grilling them in a foil pack. They were easily contained thanks to the depth of the basket, nothing fell out, no ripped foil packet, and no veggies dropping through our grill grates.

We loved being able to grill all of our veggies at the same time, in the same basket and on the same grill as our fish. No need to try to cook indoors and outdoors at the same time.

The Vegetable Grill Basket is a great size, at 13.5 x 11 x 2.5 inches, has great depth and is able to fit a good amount of vegetables in it, more than enough for all of us to eat, and even enough for leftovers too. One of the best things about the basket was the handles on the sides that were angled and a good size for being able to carefully lift the basket off the grill with our pot-holders.

The Vegetable Grill Basket is available for purchase both on Amazon.com and on the Cave Tools website. To purchase on Amazon, visit this link. To purchase it on the Cave Tools website, visit this link and be sure to utilize their special discount code to receive 15% Off: VEGGIE15  while you’re there.

As always, this Cave Tools product has a Lifetime Warranty with 100% of your money back, even if you’re not satisfied with your product at some point down the road. Although we’ve never needed to use this warranty, we love a company that stands behind its products forever.

I’m craving these all over again!

**Thanks to Cave Tools for sharing their product with us.

Although I was given the product in exchange for this review, all thoughts and opinions are my own.**

What’s for Dinner Wednesday: Tomato Salad with a Twist

25 May
Doesn't it look delicious?

Doesn’t it look delicious?

It’s been a little while since I have posted a new recipe and I’ve been wanting to share this one since last month when we first tried it. The recipe is one that one of my daughters found on the back of a Whole Grain Wheat Reduced Fat Triscuit box. Our family loves these Triscuits and we keep them on hand regularly, so once we saw this recipe, we continued to see it on every box of Triscuits we bought. Each time we’d buy a new box, my daughter would say, “Mom, we have to make this!”

Finally over the school break in April, I made sure we had all the necessary ingredients, and we finally made it. I truly enjoy cooking with fresh veggies and it makes me so excited for summertime, when we have our own garden. Tomatoes are a favorite of almost everyone here, and we especially love the more unusually colored varieties along with the typical reds. This time around I bought a large container that had a mixture of several types of tomatoes in it, and it made for such a beautiful salad.

Since one of the girls eats a gluten free diet, I chose to make hers separately with no Triscuits and no red onions, since she doesn’t like those either. Tomatoes are one of her favorite snacks though, so she was just as excited as everyone else for this new recipe.

Each time we bought a new box of Triscuits, we'd be reminded of this recipe that we just had to try!

Each time we bought a new box of Triscuits, we’d be reminded of this recipe that we just had to try!

This was a simple recipe to follow. It is called a Panzanella Salad, but it’s very much like our usual Caprese salads, just with a bit of a twist, provided by the added Triscuits. There is no cooking involved, just chopping, slicing, dicing and assembling, so the preparation was quick. We just had to keep stopping ourselves from snacking as I was prepping.

While I cut up the tomatoes and the cheese, I had my daughter prep the Triscuits, counting out the amount the recipe asked for, and breaking them into bite-sized pieces. That was definitely a “one for me, one for the bowl” activity as well.

We served this with a dinner of hot dogs and hamburgers, and it was the perfect side dish. It’s going to make a great addition to our sides for this upcoming summer. We loved the added crunch to the salad that the Triscuits provided, and my younger daughter enjoyed her gluten free version just as much as we enjoyed ours.

Here is the recipe according to the Triscuit box:

Ingredients:

  • 1-1/2 cups chopped tomatoes
  • 1/3 cup slivered red onions
  • 18 Triscuit Reduced Fat Crackers, coarsely broken
  • 3 Tbsp. reduced-fat balsamic dressing
  • 1 clove garlic, minced
  • 1/4 cup loosely packed fresh basil leaves
  • 1/8 tsp. black pepper

 

Directions:

Combine  first 3 ingredients in medium bowl.

Mix  dressing and garlic until blended.

Add to cracker mixture; mix lightly. Let stand 30 min.

Tear  basil into small pieces. Add to tomato mixture along with the pepper; mix lightly.

 

Even when made gluten free, this is a delicious side dish!

Even when made gluten free, this is a delicious side dish!

 

 

 

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What’s for Dinner Wednesday: Chickpea and Tomato Salad with Fresh Basil by Green Lite Bites

25 Mar
A great side dish for your dinner or a light lunch idea.

A great side dish for your dinner or for a light and tasty lunch.

I’ve become addicted to Pinterest.

I’m probably the last person on earth to become addicted because for a long time, even though I knew it was there, I didn’t go on it very often.

I’m on it every day now.

If I’m sitting somewhere waiting, I click on the app on my phone and I just scroll and pin, scroll and pin.

I’ve found many wonderful ideas for many wonderful things, many of which I’ll probably never have the opportunity to try out. But, I’ve pinned them for future reference, just.in.case.

One such pin that I scrolled past actually did come to fruition, and it was a delicious success, so I thought I’d share it with you today for my WFDW post even though it’s not just for dinner.

This recipe for Chickpea and Tomato Salad with Fresh Basil came my way via the Green Lite Bites site, and I appreciate them sharing it because it’s a simple recipe with fresh ingredients, and I will definitely be making it again in the future.

Interestingly enough, on the day I saw this pin on Pinterest, I actually had a can of chick peas sitting on my kitchen counter. I’m not sure who put them there or why, or what the original intention for them was, but they’d been there a while and I’d been thinking of roasting them one afternoon for a snack, since I hadn’t done that in a while.

Additionally, we’d been babysitting my parents’ plants while they were away and one of them was a fresh Basil plant that they’d left us and told us to feel free to use it if we wanted to. So, I had fresh Basil, which I never do, I had chickpeas, which I often don’t, and I had tomatoes, which I always do. I had everything I needed for this recipe.

I also had two cucumbers that needed to be used, so I decided when making this recipe, to add one in as well.

This was going to be on our menu for lunch during the work and school week, so I decided to give my morning a break by making it ahead of time and putting it in the fridge overnight. I also felt that the flavors would have a good amount of time to blend together and everything would be perfectly chilled by morning.

Four out of five of us were having this for our lunches. For two of my daughters, having just this in a bowl was plenty, along with some pita bread cut into triangles on the side. For my husband, we opted to put this salad onto a bed of lettuce, (as I’ve shown here) with the same side of pita bread. There was just enough left for me to have a little bowl on the side with my lunch that day too.

Everyone loved their lunches and it was just enough for everyone’s desired portion sizes. I loved having my morning “off” from making all four lunches from scratch and I loved coming home to my own lunch partially decided for me, and waiting to be eaten. I don’t love lunches to begin with and I hate deciding what to have. This was a nice treat for us all.

The recipe is quick, can be modified to add in or take out ingredients based on your own tastes and what you have on hand. You could throw in some fresh mozzarella cheese balls (although that would make it a little less healthy if you did) and it’d be just as delicious.

Here is the recipe just as it’s shown on the Green Lite Bites site. I hope you’ll pay her site a visit, as there’s lots of other healthy options to try!

CHICKPEA AND TOMATO SALAD WITH FRESH BASIL

  • 1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
  • About 1 pint grape tomatoes, halved
  • 25 large basil leaves, chopped
  • 3 cloves of garlic, minced
  • 1 tbsp red wine vinegar
  • 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
  • 2 tsp olive oil
  • 1/2 tbsp honey (10g)
  • pinch of salt

Toss all ingredients together and chill for at least 20 minutes, allowing all the flavors to merge.

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What’s for Dinner Wednesday: Creamy Mushroom Orzo

4 Mar
I loved the texture and flavor of this recipe!

I loved the texture and flavor of this recipe!

ORIGINALLY POSTED JANUARY 15, 2014: Recently my friend Melissa shared a recipe that came through Facebook. Although Facebook is a great place to find and share recipes, you can’t always be sure where the recipe truly originated, so it’s hard to credit someone. It seems as this recipe for Creamy Mushroom Orzo may have originated on the page of Sharon Fox, who lists herself as author, food editor, radio personality and personal chef. However, even she says that the recipes found on her page are not from her own cookbooks, but are recipes she’s tried and loved. But, we do the best we can. I always like to give credit where credit is due, if I can.

No matter what, I’m so glad that someone, somewhere, originally made and share this recipe! I really loved it. I used it as a side dish for a kind of “boring” meal that we were having and to me, it made my meal so much more exciting.

The kids did not love it quite as much and I think it’s because it calls for white wine and it really holds the flavor.

I think that’s why I loved it so much!!

The recipe was fast, easy to make, and delicious; all my top qualifiers for a recipe.

I’m sharing it here, give it a try if you’re looking for something to jazz up one of your own meals!

This was an easy-to-make recipe, fast and delicious!

This was an easy-to-make recipe, fast and delicious!

CREAMY MUSHROOM ORZO

INGREDIENTS

1 tablespoons olive oil

1/2 chopped onion

3 cloves chopped garlic

2/3 cups orzo

1 cup sliced fresh mushrooms

1/2 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

1 tablespoon fresh sage

1 tablespoons butter

1 cup low-sodium chicken broth (or water)

3/4 cup white wine

1/4 cup freshly shredded Parmesan cheese

DIRECTIONS
1.In medium sized skillet, heat oil over medium heat. Add chopped onion and garlic.

2.Stir, cooking until onions are golden and soft.

3.Add orzo, mushrooms, Worcestershire sauce, sage, and butter. Cook, stirring about 5-6 minutes until mushrooms are tender.

4.Pour both chicken broth and wine into orzo mixture. Bring broth to a boil. Stirring often cook 10-15 minutes or until orzo is soft and liquid is absorbed.

5.Stir in Parmesan cheese before serving.

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What’s for Dinner Wednesday: Soup for everyone

5 Nov
Three soups that are quick, easy and can all be done simultaneously.

Three soups that are quick, easy and can all be done simultaneously.

Earlier in the school year I did quite a bit of food preparation ahead of time, making and freezing foods for future use. One thing I’d wanted to do but hadn’t had time to do, was make and freeze some soup.

Recently when I had one child home sick for an extended amount of time, I had an afternoon where I’d have a couple of hours to make some soup. The only question was, what kind of soup? Everyone has a favorite. I love cream of broccoli and creamy cauliflower soup, as does my oldest daughter, who happened to be the one home sick. But, my other daughters and my husband, they love the cream of tomato soup that I’ve been making lately and my middle daughter in particular had been asking for it quite often.

When I thought about the recipes though, they were all pretty similar. Other than the actual vegetable for each soup, namely broccoli, cauliflower and tomato, the base ingredients and instructions were all pretty similar: onion and chicken broth. The tomato soup had a few extra spices thrown in, and the broccoli soup had celery added in and some milk and flour at the end, but ultimately I realized that I could actually make all three at the same time, almost like an assembly line: cut up all the onion, divide it into the soup pots, cut up each veggie and add them in, and then simmer. If any additional steps or ingredients were needed, it wasn’t all that hard to do. Nothing was complicated, expensive or time-consuming. In an hour I’d be done. The tomato soup has an option to put in tortellini and shrimp at the end, but this time around I was doing it without those last two ingredients mostly because that is what had been requested.

Just like that...three soups, done and everyone's taste buds were happy!!

Just like that…three soups, done and everyone’s taste buds were happy!!

Although I cried a lot of tears cutting up all those onions, overall it was a great experiment and all went off as planned. I had enough soup for whoever wanted whatever kind they wanted over the next couple of days, and then using quart-sized bags, I froze the rest. We already had a cold, rainy Sunday afternoon where a few of us had soup for lunch from the freezer, and there’s still more for whenever we need it, whether it’s for an after school snack, a lunch or a dinner where someone doesn’t like what’s on the regular night’s menu.

Since these soups have already been featured on my blog, I’m putting the links below so that you can refer to them if you’d like to make any or all of them for yourself. The weather here is starting to cool down and it will be nice to have some soups for the upcoming chilly days and nights ahead!

Here are the links for you.

If you’d like to make the Cream of Broccoli Soup, click here.

If you’d like to make the Creamy Cauliflower Soup, click here.

If you’d like to make the Creamy Tomato Soup, click here.

Enjoy!

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Fun Friday: Cook once, eat twice. After school snacks and breakfast

26 Sep
These were healthy and a huge hit. Definitely a keeper.

These were healthy and a huge hit. Definitely a keeper.

ORIGINALLY POSTED SEPTEMBER 13, 2013

Cook once, eat twice.

I love that old adage. You cook once, and live on the leftovers. Or, you make double, since you’re cooking anyway, and have twice as much.

Either way, I like it.

I’ve been living on that theme all week long.

I’ve been a cooking machine this week, in between my own work hours, trying to deal with our crazy school year schedules, and making sure that we maintain a healthy eating lifestyle at the same time.

Really, just making sure everyone’s got something to eat when it’s time to eat.

However, one thing I really enjoy doing is making great after school snacks for my kids whenever I can. Everyone has something that makes them happy, and I think I’ve inherited my grandparents’ genes. My dad always said that my grandmother was happiest when everyone was eating.

If everyone is eating, they’re happy, and that makes me happy.

To me, as a mom, there is nothing more special than the moment the kids walk in the door from school. They’re tired, they’re hungry, they’ve got more work to do or places to go, but the look on their faces when they smell a snack fresh out of the oven or see it on the table is priceless to me.

I feel like I have the ability to make their day, every day. Or almost every day. I do the best I can. Later on in life, I want their memories of their school years to include coming in from school, and finding me there with something tasty for them to snack on. Some days I’m not even there, my schedule is not always consistent, but I’ve left them a tasty snack and a note on my way out the door.

To me, it’s things like that which make all the difference.

Everyone loves these whether for breakfast or after school or a meal on the run.

Everyone loves these whether for breakfast or after school or a meal on the run.

Additionally, I try to think smarter these days. If I’m going to make an after school snack, I might as well make enough of it to last for more than just one afternoon. I have tried to make things that can be used either as lunchbox snacks or as breakfast the next day.

These little mini quiches, or however you’d describe them, make a great after school snack. They’re healthy and you can make all different varieties to satisfy even the pickiest of eaters. This time I did tomato/egg/cheese, spinach/egg/cheese and just plain egg/cheese. Fifteen eggs made 16 good-sized cups.

They were a snack and they’ve been breakfast or lunch throughout the week as well.

The pumpkin muffins, pictured above, I doubled the recipe to make twice as many. They served as an after school snack, breakfast the next day and a lunchbox snack the day after that.

If I’m going to work hard, I might as well get the mileage out of my efforts.

On that same afternoon this week as the pumpkin muffins, I also made a big batch of homemade applesauce. If I’m going to stand there and peel three pounds of apples, I might as well peel six pounds (although I have to stop there or my hand aches from all the peeling and slicing).

I used one batch in a recipe that night, froze two batches in my freezer for future use, and had some leftover to serve on the side with dinner as well. There’s nothing like homemade applesauce, especially in the fall in New England.

Today, I’m going to share with you the recipe I found for these delicious pumpkin muffins. Note that the recipe calls for mini chocolate chips. I don’t *do* mini chocolate chips. If I’m going, I’m going all the way so mine had regular-sized chips. Otherwise, the recipe I made was the same, just doubled.

This recipe is not my own. Thanks to Skinnytaste.com for posting such a wonderful snack and breakfast! It got all thumbs up at our house and we’d definitely make these again!

If I'm going to spend the time, might as well make it worth my while.

If I’m going to spend the time, might as well make it worth my while.

Skinny Mini Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins
Skinnytaste.com
Servings: 14  • Size: 2 mini muffins  • Old Points: 3 pts • Weight Watcher Points+: 4 pt
Calories: 160 • Fat: 5 g • Carb: 27 g • Fiber: 2 g • Protein: 2 g • Sugar: 18 g
Sodium: 118 mg • Cholest: 0 mg

Ingredients:

  • 1/2 cup white whole wheat flour (King Arthur)
  • 3/4 cups unbleached all purpose flour (King Arthur)
  • 3/4 cup raw sugar
  • 3/4 tsp baking soda
  • 1 3/4 tsp pumpkin pie spice
  • 1/4 tsp cinnamon
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1 1/2 cups canned pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling)
  • 2 tbsp virgin coconut oil (or canola)
  • 2 large egg whites
  • 2 tsp vanilla extract
  • baking spray
  • 2/3 cup mini chocolate chips

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a mini muffin tin with paper liners and lightly spray liners with oil for easy removal.

In a medium bowl, combine flours, sugar, baking soda, pumpkin spice, cinnamon, and salt with a wire whisk. Set aside.

In a large bowl mix pumpkin puree, oil, egg whites and vanilla; beat at medium speed until thick. Scrape down sides of the bowl.
Add flour mixture to the wet mixture, then blend at low speed until combined; do not over mix. Fold in chocolate chips.

Pour batter into prepared muffin tin and bake on the center rack for 22 to 24 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Let them cool at least 15 minutes before serving.

Makes 28 mini muffins or 14 regular sized muffins.

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What’s for Dinner Wednesday: Loaded Baked Potato Salad

30 Jul
As a lover of loaded baked potatoes with bacon and cheese, I loved this recipe!

As a lover of loaded baked potatoes with bacon and cheese, I loved this recipe!

Potato Salad: a summertime menu staple.

Do you love it? I love it.

I love that and a good old pasta salad in the summer.

When I saw a recipe from Caramel Potatoes, one of my favorite recipe blogs, for Loaded Baked Potato Salad, I was totally inspired.

Bacon + Cheddar = two of my favorite savory add-ons and mix-ins. It sounded good! It sounded like my favorite kind of loaded baked potato.

I decided that the next time we made a potato salad, we’d do our own version of the Caramel Potatoes recipe, by adding on some shredded cheddar cheese and crumbled cooked turkey bacon. As you’ll see in their original recipe here, you can do a zesty Ranch flavored potato salad, or you can do as we did and just add the toppings. Our potato salad has mayo and hard boiled eggs in it, so I felt that the zesty flavorings might not be a good fit with our ingredients and I kept it simple.

When I think summertime, I think potato salad!

When I think summertime, I think potato salad!

We brought our side dish to a potluck party held near the water on a perfect summer evening and it got positive reviews, although some said they preferred a traditional, plain potato salad rather than a loaded potato salad.

So I’m now curious! What’s your opinion? Are you a traditional potato salad person or would you walk on the wild side and load it up a bit? What goes in your potato salad? Are you a mayo person or is there some other ingredient that you choose to use instead? Do you use red potatoes or something else?

Feel free to leave me a comment with your own potato salad secrets!

In the meantime, hope you’ll hop on over to the Caramel Potatoes blog and take a look at their recipes! I always find their recipes to be delicious and inspiring!

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Fun Friday: So Many Strawberries!

4 Jul
What to do with more than ten pounds of strawberries?

What to do with more than ten pounds of strawberries?

We went strawberry picking!!

I had not been strawberry picking since I was a child. Each year it seems, we’d miss the season between the end of school and the start of summer. This year, when a friend posted her picture of her strawberries on Facebook, I decided that I was going to go that same week. I knew my kids would love it and I knew there was lots that I could do with fresh-picked strawberries.

We went on a beautiful, picture-perfect day. There were just a few clouds in the sky, the sun was bright and the temperature was an even 75 degrees; not too hot, not too cold. We couldn’t have asked for a better day.

Within an hour we had picked a basket full of strawberries. I was beyond excited!

As we drove home, I began to consider that full basket of berries that was sitting in the back of my car. I could smell them.

I started to think of all the things I wanted to do with all those berries. I knew that although it seemed like there would be a never-ending supply, I’d have to be strategic and prioritize because eventually they’d run out. I also knew that the berries were fresh and “ready,” which meant they’d turn quickly. I only had a day, two at most, to make use of them.

Right off the bat when I got home, I sliced the berries and put sugar and orange juice on them for strawberry shortcake. I used this recipe from Taste of Home for my biscuits and my berries, but I did add more sugar to my biscuits after taking a quick taste of the batter. I like mine sweet! That would be our dessert for that very night.

This recipe from Caramel Potatoes was so delicious!

This recipe from Caramel Potatoes was so delicious!

Next, I started prepping a dessert recipe I’d seen just days before, on the Caramel Potatoes blog for Strawberry Crumble Pie. I get their email every day and the recipe for the pie looked right up my alley. I happened to have a pie crust in the freezer and I now had plenty of berries.

The pie chilled overnight and we cut into it the next night for dessert. It was amazing!

From there, I needed to think ahead. I knew that part of my goal was to have plenty of berries on hand frozen for smoothies, since that’s something we use a lot of all year long. I had no idea the best way to freeze them, so I Googled how to freeze fresh-picked strawberries and found simple instructions for freezing both whole and sliced from Taste of Home, once again. I decided to do both. The whole would be for smoothies, and the sliced would be for a future strawberry compote, maybe even on July 4th for our breakfast!

The following day I picked one more recipe that I wanted to make as I tried to stretch my berries just a little further: my mother in law’s recipe for Strawberry Bread, one which has always been a favorite of mine. I love that it makes two breads, and we usually freeze one and eat one. This time I put chocolate chips in the one we ate that day and left them out of the one we froze.

There are so many things you can do with strawberries, and the summertime is the very best time to do them. Although picking season is just about done for strawberries, eating season can be all year long between using frozen and fresh, if you can find them. Now that we’ve frozen some, we’ll have the taste of summer once again in the fall or winter, if we can hold off that long!

If you’re looking for additional strawberry recipes, you can find several more here on my blog, just by searching Strawberries in the search bar. There are recipes for desserts, breakfasts, shakes and even a strawberry salad!

And then, before we know it, it’ll be blueberry picking season!

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What’s for Dinner Wednesday: Garlic Roasted Kale

14 May
This made a nice change for us as a side dish with dinner.

This made a nice change for us as a side dish with dinner.

A while back I posted the recipe from our visit to the White House for the 2012 Kid’s State Dinner for Kale Chips. That visit was our first experience with kale chips, but it was not our last. My kids love them and it makes a great after school snack for sure.

Recently, however, I received an email for a variation of kale chips. This recipe was for Garlic Roasted Kale from the site My Recipes.com, and I thought I’d give it a try. The things that attracted me to this recipe were the fact that it included garlic, which I love, and it also included kosher salt, which I enjoy the flavor of as well.

I gave it a try one afternoon and the kids absolutely loved it. I decided to try it again most recently as a side dish for our dinner, instead of our usual broccoli or green beans or salad. As my kids were walking through the kitchen, they each asked what I was making and each time they were so excited when I said kale. I had to just shake my head in amazement. I don’t think I ever imagined I’d get three cheers for kale. Ever.

Below is the recipe from My Recipes.com for Garlic Roasted Kale. The only thing I skipped in this recipe was the vinegar at the end because I did not think the kids would like it, although I was pretty sure I would. The rest I did as was called for.

INGREDIENTS

  • 3 1/2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil$
  • 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 1 garlic clove, thinly sliced
  • 10 ounces kale, stems removed and chopped$
  • 1 teaspoon sherry vinegar
  • DIRECTIONS
    1. Arrange oven racks in center and lower third of oven. Preheat oven to 425°. Place a large jelly-roll pan in oven for 5 minutes.
    2. Combine first 4 ingredients in a large bowl; toss to coat. Place kale mixture on hot pan, spreading with a silicone spatula to separate leaves. Bake at 425° for 7 minutes. Stir kale. Bake an additional 5 minutes or until edges of leaves are crisp and kale is tender.
    3. Place kale in a large bowl. Drizzle with vinegar; toss to combine. Serve immediately.

 

 

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What’s For Dinner Wednesday: Asian Lettuce Wraps…in the crock pot

25 Sep
This was by far, one of my favorite crock pot meals from the first week. Every single one of us loved them.

This was by far, one of my favorite crock pot meals from the first week. Every single one of us loved them.

I’ve been keeping you all up to date with our ongoing crock pot meals experiment as the school year goes on.

I must say, so far so good.

The one I’m sharing today, however, was by far my personal favorite meal of all the ones we have tried thus far.

It is a recipe for Asian Lettuce Wraps and it’s the meat that you cook all day in the crock pot.

My house smelled absolutely amazing on this day, thanks in part to the sesame oil that is used in the recipe.

This was one I could not wait for even the next day, so that I could use the leftovers for my lunch. In a way, it was almost like our DIY taco night, but with an Asian flair instead.

Serving everything "on the side" allows people do customize their wraps, adding as much or as little of whatever the want to each of their wraps.

Serving everything “on the side” allows people do customize their wraps, adding as much or as little of whatever the want to each of their wraps.

I served everything a la carte, with Chinese Fried Rice as our side dish, and I let everyone build their own wraps. I wasn’t sure if everyone would try their food in the lettuce or not, but I encouraged them to at least give it a try. I ended up having to put out even more lettuce as each of us had two or three wraps that night.

The wrap that is pictured above (before being rolled up and eaten) actually has the rice on the bottom, followed by the meat and then the Chinese noodles, chopped cashews and the sauce.

DELICIOUS.

I saved the sauce as leftovers as well, and the next day I used it to make my leftover wraps for lunch, but the following day I just had the leftover rice and used the sauce on top of that. Perfect.

Although most of my crock pot recipes have been coming from the Who Needs a Cape website, this one actually didn’t. It was sent to me by my friend Gina, who is doing this crock pot recipe experiment along with me, far away in another state. But we’re trying out some of the same recipes and then some different ones, and letting each other know how they are. This is one she tried out first and loved it, passing it along to us. We loved it too. She found it at Today’s Creative Blog and I’ve linked to it above. The recipe is below, as well.

So today, I am passing it along to you as well. It was very different for a crock pot meal, and you’d never know it was made in the crock pot. It was fun and unique and tasty. I encourage you to try it out, and if you’re up for it, give the Chinese Fried Rice a try too. We use that as a side dish often and it always goes over well.

*In the recipe below, my modifications were: ground turkey instead of chicken, I used apple juice not wine, dried ginger not fresh, cumin instead of coriander, and cashews instead of peanuts. *

Crock Pot Asian Lettuce Wraps from Today’s Creative Blog

  • 2 chicken breasts – cut into really small pieces. (most recipes call for ground chicken or turkey)
  • 2 cloves garlic – chopped really small
  • 1/2 medium onion, chopped
  • 1/4 cup soy sauce
  • 1/4 cup white wine or apple juice – I used apple juice because I didn’t have wine
  • 1 teaspoon fresh grated ginger (you can also use what you have in your spice cabinet)
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground coriander
  • 2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar (same as rice vinegar)
  • 1 head Romaine lettuce,washed. Trim lettuce leaves to the size you want to use
  • Peanuts for garnish
  • Dipping Sauce
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 1/3 cup water
  • 2 tablespoons soy sauce
  • 2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
  • 2 tablespoons ketchup
  • 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
  • 1/8 teaspoon sesame oil
  • 1 teaspoon red chile paste
The fried rice was great with the dipping sauce right on top, and some of the wraps had the rice right inside!

The fried rice was great with the dipping sauce right on top, and some of the wraps had the rice right inside!

Instructions

  1. Cut your chicken into very small pieces and place inside your crockpot.
  2. Combine all other ingredients into your crock and stir.
  3. Cover and cook on low for 6-8 hours or low for 4-6 hours.
  4. Prep your lettuce leaves by washing, patting dry and trimming. I used Romaine, but butter lettuce would also work. Place your chicken directly onto the lettuce.
  5. Dipping Sauce
  6. Combine all ingredients together before your chicken is done. I like to let mine sit a bit before serving.
  7. Drizzle a small amount onto your chicken filled lettuce, garnish with peanuts, wrap it together and enjoy!

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