cooking asian lettuce wraps

itty bitty stove

I love to cook. Cooking, like certain forms of cleaning, is therapeutic for me. I had planned to share recipes on this blog but unfortunately my teeny tiny temporary kitchen has caused too much frustration to result in cooking anything that involves more than 2 ingredients.

However, for Allen's birthday, since going out is no longer a viable option, I offered to make him a succulent dinner... and allowed him to choose the courses! Well, with the exception of anything requiring attention to detail, which I clearly and admittedly lack. Nerve-grating Rachel Ray's "Eyeball It" method (EyeBall It - A term for adding ingredients without measuring them) is my motto. Thus, automatically excluded were meat requiring a certain cooking temperature, dishes requiring meticulous measurement of ingredients (i.e. anything baked) and intricate, artistic dishes or those containing the words "wrapped", "stuffed" or "zest". Oh, also automatically excluded were any dishes involving an OVEN. Don't ask.

In the end, Allen requested a stir fry containing, but not limited to, carrots, water chestnuts, chicken and shrimp, with lettuce wraps as an appetizer. He also mentioned those round Chinese noodles but I couldn't find them in Giant, so I used flat lo mein noodles instead.

teeny tiny prep area

I found a simple recipe for lettuce wraps on Kalyn's Kitchen, a South Beach cooking blog I accidentally discovered, ironically, while researching baby names! Her recipes are simple, contain ingredients I usually have on hand, and are easily adaptable and of course I rarely have to actually measure out the ingredients.

So, a few spoonfuls of garlic here, a splattering of ginger there, a lil soy sauce, a splash of garlic chili sauce... resulted in an absolutely heavenly aroma! They were quite tasty, too. My lettuce wraps came out a little dry, but I suspect I cooked the turkey too long in an attempt to properly time the appetizer to be ready prior to the stir fry while only able to fit 1 other pot on the burner with the wok. I would post a picture of my wraps, but I used the wrong type of lettuce (romaine) and they didn't turn out pretty like Kalyn's.

The stir fry recipe is my own, but while delicious, it always turns out too watery. It's easy to drain in the end, but I haven't been able to figure out why this happens and how to fix it... any ideas?

Note: Do not attempt lettuce wraps unless you have a hard surface on which to eat (most people have these - they are called kitchen or dining room TABLES). Is it certainly not easy or enjoyable attempting to consume lettuce wraps while balanced on the edge of a couch with dogs underfoot and cats jumping abound and across the lap.

my assistant