That Yummy Asian Theme!

I've been eyeing those lettuce "wraps" for awhile now. Seems like a great way to lower the carb content of a meal. And while I'm sure they're intended for cold salad type foods like egg, chicken or tuna salad, I was really tempted to try them as a wrap for warm food.

And so, there I was making myself a stir fry. I started by putting some mushrooms, garlic curly thingees (Um.. they have a name but see if I can remember what it is. Anyway they pop out of the middle of the garlic plant and you remove them so the nutrition will go into the bulb. They are quite edible.), some green onion, celery, asparagus, broccoli and red pepper into a small skillet to saute. Then I threw in some bean sprouts and about 1/2 cup cooked brown rice. Now, if you eat meat you could also put some lean strips of beef, chicken, etc. in there. I had some leftover tofu and while it's not my fave thing, I cut it into cubes and marinaded it in some tamari sauce with a splash of sesame oil for about ten minutes. I put the cubes of tofu into the pan first to saute a bit, then I just poured in the marinade to give the whole thing a bit of an Asian flavour.

Then I spooned it into the lettuce wraps. They made little boats for the stir fry that you can either eat neatly with knife and fork, or, with napkin on hand, pick up and enjoy! This meal is gluten-free, dairy-free and low in carbs for those watching their blood sugar. A yummy but healthy alternative to gluteny, carby grain wraps!!



Another great summertime meal! Shish~ka~bobs!! I had a package of natural stew beef in the freezer that I needed to use up, but the weather is just too warm for stew. So I made sure the pieces were cut small enough, then I put them in a marinade made in a small, glass bowl with about 1/2 cup g-free pizza/pasta sauce into which I added a good squirt of agave nectar, herbal vinegar (or lemon juice), some tamari sauce and a squirt of sesame oil. (Yes, we like that Asian influence, but you can make yours to your taste with other sauces and oils!) I made sure all the pieces of beef were covered in some marinade, covered the bowl and put it in the fridge for a little over 3 hours. This tenderizes the meat beautifully. I cleaned up some mushrooms and cut up some peppers and put all on bamboo skewers. (If you use any wooden skewers, remember to soak them in cold water for 20 mins. before you put the food on, so they won't burn on the bbq.) To go with these I made g-free fried rice. (The recipe for this is on an earlier post.)

Alas, that was a big package of stew beef and there were leftovers. To change it up for the fam, I made them Lo Mein noodles a couple of nights later with the warmed up beef, mushrooms and pepper pieces. Again an Asian theme, I used g-free rice spaghetti for this. While it was cooking I sauteed some more mushrooms, peppers and chopped green onion, then I added some organic chicken broth ~ about 1/2 cup. You can add more veges here too, such as snow peas, broccoli... whatever you like. Use some more of the broth to dissolve some g-free starch. I used tapioca starch and used it to thicken the veges and broth in the pan. Then I added the cooked, drained noodles, about 2 tablespoons of tamari sauce and yes, that splash of sesame oil for the right flavour. I turned it down to low and covered it while I warmed up the beef in the microwave. Then I served it all up.