(I have to thank a reader seeking out this recipe – that was originally posted on another site – for letting me know the link to that recipe was no longer active. I’m bringing an older post up to the surface today, with the full recipe included. Have a great week! PS…thank you to all who commented on my last post on blog burnout, I appreciate every single one of you!)

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Originally posted on January 11, 2012.

Note to self: make lettuce wraps more often at home.

Seriously people, don’t you just love lettuce wraps? Why do I always forget about them?? I’m obsessed with the ones at PF Changs (the vegetarian tofu ones are awesome for first-time tofu tasting!) and have had the copykat recipe bookmarked for them for years, but never got around to it.

Well, these probably aren’t as good as theirs, but they are still good. And they are low carb, and diet friendly. And you just feel good after eating them.

Here are the cast of characters that made these lettuce wraps possible…

I like to keep the Asian section of my pantry and fridge stocked up for meals like this. For this recipe I cooked with lean ground turkey breast, and if you’ve cooked with lean ground turkey breast then you know that it can be kinda…well, kinda plain.

Chinese five-spice powder is still new to me and I really like it (I’ve made it on this fish before and it was awesome). It’s interesting…and unique. I sprinkled it over the turkey breast while it was browning with some onions and carrots. Nakano rice vinegar is pretty much a staple whenever I’m cooking up Asian because it just adds so much flavor and brightens things up without any calories, fat, etc etc. I combined the rice vinegar, tamari, black bean sauce and agave into a sauce mixture and added it to the meat toward the end of cooking to develop and finish off the filling.

My entire family loved these turkey lettuce wraps. This is the only time my son eats lettuce, the excitement he has over lettuce wraps is mind boggling since he is so anti-salad. If that’s not a reason for making them more often I don’t know what is.

Hope you’re having a great week!

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Hello Monday.

Call me crazy but I have been so looking forward to this Monday. This Monday (today) my kids went back to school after a long, full, and fun winter break. We enjoyed our time together but by about Wednesday of last week I was ready for ‘normal’ and most definitely routine. I had lots of holiday clutter around the house still and I don’t know about you but clutter makes me cranky. The kiddos and I had very different agendas if you know what I mean…

So this morning, after dropping off the kids and hitting the gym for a very rushed visit, I hit Target and came home with a few essentials I’ve been in need of…including my lovely new planner and some pretty new pens.

2012…I am so ready for you now.

Let me give you a little update on the ‘diet’ front. I ran into a little snafu this weekend. That snafu was this little number, and it was extra dirty with extra olives (stuffed with blue cheese omg!!) just the way I like it.

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So it’s day 4 of my 17 Day Diet and I have to say…it hasn’t been too bad! I think once you get your fridge stocked and you know your options and have your meals somewhat planned (and of course the WILLPOWER, which I must say is so incredibly important, and I am happy to have right now) then it’s totally doable. I haven’t attempted to try on the jeans that I wore on Sunday night. I swear, I thought the button was going to pop off while I was sitting in my seat at the Magic game. A very low moment for me, ugh!

But I have weighed myself, and I am happy to report that I am down 4 pounds since I started Monday! For the record though, I’m technically down 8 pounds, but I really don’t want to count the 4 pounds of salt and beer weight that I horrifically gained overnight Sunday. So, I’m sticking to what I weighed New Year’s Eve for good measure.

Do you want to know what I’ve been eating the last few days?

A typical day on this 17 day diet has been going like this for me:

Breakfast – 1 egg/2 egg white scramble (or 1 egg fried) with onions and sliced tomatoes, green tea.

Snack – kefir smoothie (1 cup plain kefir, 1 cup defrosted but still sorta frozen blueberries, squirt of agave), apples, oranges (all before 2 pm).

Lunch – big spinach salad with tomatoes, celery, cucumbers, tuna with a drizzle of olive oil and balsamic or lemon juice.

Dinner: broiled fish with stewed kale and tomatoes, fried eggs and kale chips, and this amazing salmon and veggie stir fry.

lots of iced green tea throughout the day

This salmon and veggie stir fry recipe rocks my world, people.

Every single time I make a stir fry, I always ask myself why I don’t make it more often. If you make it right, the veggies turn out perfectly bright and crunchy, and I use hardly any oil in this easy stir fry. Actually, I used non stick spray on my super hot wok, which was a first for me. Usually, I use a little canola oil, which isn’t a bad thing either!.

This recipe one I adapted after being inspired by a recipe I found in The Good Housekeeping Test Kitchen Cookbook. The only change I really made is that I added broccoli, used sliced sweet onion instead of green onion, and I didn’t add any cornstarch, sugar or water.

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So, it’s not a surprise that most of us start the new year off with resolutions and goals. While on that note, I’ll go ahead and share mine since one of my goals this year is to actually start writing down my goals and making them real:

• Write down my goals regularly
• Work smarter
• Use my calendar
• Practice patience with my children…and become less of a ‘yeller’
• Wake up earlier in the morning
• Meal plan better (2 – 3 days at a time works best for me I have finally learned)
• Create a ‘space’ for myself in my home
• Get strong (with weight training and pilates)

I love making lists like this. I have one I refer to daily taped on my my bedroom mirror that reminds me of the things I should do daily to make myself feel good. It’s probably time I move that list to a new place though, because I’m noticing I haven’t been ‘seeing’ it lately if you know what I mean.

So let’s talk about this ‘make myself feel good’ stuff. The whirlwind of the holidays are behind us now (barely, but they are back there, I promise). It’s time to clean up our homes, our minds and get back to routines. For some of us, it’s time to clean up our bodies too. I’m definitely in that club. I’ve indulged heavily on some yummy food and drinks this past month and with no regrets, I loved it all. But I’m really feeling the effects of it. I think I’ve ‘tasted’ more meat this past month than I have all year long (I cut out most meat over a year and a half ago, not fish, and have felt great because of it). It’s been fun, but I’m ready to get back to what works for me…eating clean, light, heavy on veggies, fruits, beans and fish…and of course daily exercise.

My SIL brought the 17 Day Diet to my attention last week…and as I read the book myself, I got motivated. I don’t like to ever say that I’m on a ‘diet’…I actually cringe at the word. I tend to rebel when I’m told what I can and can’t eat on a ‘diet’. But, in all honesty, I’ve been on a few with success and I know that’s exactly what I need right now. So 17 Day Diet, here I come.

The 17 Day Diet reminds me a lot of South Beach Diet (which I did after both my kids, and loved it)…it revolves around 17 day cycles where you adjust your eating habits and rev up your system. What I like about this program is that is heavily based on eating real food and creating good eating habits, and knowing I’m only thinking 17 days at a time helps. Yes, the first 17 days is going to be tough (it’s limited to veggies, fish or poultry, 2 servings of fruit and little to no sugar)…but after all the sugar and ‘crap’ I put in my body the past few weeks, I’m all for this healthy little detox. (to be clear, the book/diet has 4 different cycles, I plan on doing the first one and then deciding what I want to do from there…I’ll keep ya posted, I promise). I want to lose 10 lbs. And I’ve learned that when it comes to dieting, it’s about how bad you want to lose the weight, and I REALLY want it bad this time around.

I hit the grocery store yesterday, and this is what I came home with:

frozen mahi and salmon
lots of veggies: broccoli, green beans, asparagus, zucchini, tomatoes, celery, cucumbers, kale, lettuce
eggs and egg whites
non fat plain Greek yogurt
kefir
frozen blueberries, grapes and oranges

For the most part (other than the kefir), this is what I come home from the grocery store with often. Now it’s time to figure out how to eat it all over the next 17 days. This is the tricky part….finding recipes, ideas and techniques to cook it all up.

If anyone wants to jump on board this little 17 day journey here…please, chime in. The more the merrier. Here’s the site about the book itself (I have absolutely no affiliation with them by the way, these people have no idea who I am) and here’s a little resourceful forum I found on The Doctors website that can help answer any questions.

And for the sake of inspiration, motivation and ideas on what to cook up…here are a few ideas I found here on my blog. Also, I will be spending a lot of time over on Kalyn’s Kitchen looking for healthy recipes, I’ve been following her for years and she’s got an incredible collection of great food over there.

So here’s what I’ll be eating a lot of over the next couple of weeks:

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