Minced Chicken Lettuce Cups

My new obsession has been ground chicken from Trader Joe's.  It's just so dang delish.  I also adore Chinese Lettuce Cups.  The two are a match made in heaven.  I ate this every week during the summer.  It's spicy and crunchy and the lettuce cup adds a freshness that helps when it's hot.  It's also low carb if you're into that sort of thing.

You can get this an appetizer in some Chinese restaurants but it's so easy to make at home.  It takes about 20 minutes to make from start to finish.

You need:

1 head of iceberg lettuce (you can use endive or romaine if you want to make lettuce boats)

ground chicken (you can use cubed too)

1 small onion 

fresh chopped garlic

fresh minced ginger 

soy sauce

hoisin sauce

chili sauce (optional)

black pepper

water chestnuts

I start by dicing up one small onion

and oil to a frying pan over medium heat (I used olive oil)

Sauté for a few minutes

Season with black pepper (no salt since we'll be adding some soy sauce later)

I use Trader Joe's chicken because I'm a little obsessed with it, but you can use any brand.  

This is a 1 pound package 

Add ground (or diced) chicken to your frying pan

Add about a tablespoon or soy sauce (I use low-sodium)

Add a heaping tablespoon of minced garlic

And about teaspoon of minced ginger 

(my ginger is square because I mince fresh ginger ahead of time, 

freeze flattened in a zip lock bag and break into squares for cooking)

Cook for about 4 minutes and make sure to really chop up your cooking chicken so the texture is nice and crumbly.

Grab your can of water chestnuts (I'm also in LOVE with water chestnuts).

Even though the name implies it, these are not nuts at all.  It's more like a root and they are super crunchy and don't actually have much flavor.  They add crazy crunch even after being sautéed and I panic if I run out of them in my pantry.

Drain the water out of the can (these came sliced, you can get them whole too)

Using my knife, I give them a course chop

Add them into your frying pan

Next, I grab my hoisin sauce.  

Hoisin sauce is a thick, pungent sauce commonly used in Chinese cuisine as a glaze for meat, an addition to stir fries, or as dipping sauce. It is darkly colored in appearance and sweet and salty in taste.(Thanks, Wikipedia!)

Add about a tablespoon

I like all things spicy so I also add a tablespoon or more of Sambal Oelek chili sauce.  You can skip if spicy isn't your thing.

Give it another quick stir about to mix in all the seasoning and then you're done!!!

Spoon into washed, clean lettuce cups.  

You can garnish with chopped green onion and even fried rice noodles. 

Feed you face.

If you prefer, you can also use ground beef or ground pork.  Also, equally delicious.  I prefer chicken because it keeps this dish on the lighter side.

You may also use raw cabbage cups or even chop up your lettuce and make a salad.  This is also great to eat over rice or quinoa.  Happy eating.

Sour Cream and Salsa Potatoes

Sour cream.  Salsa.  Boom!  Seriously.  Creamy and savory. Yeow! So good.

The combo of these two things is probably something that bring about world peace.... Well, it could!  Imagine everyone sitting down and eating creamy sour cream and salsa with tortilla chips....smothered over baked potatoes...NACHOS.

I'm telling you- World Peace.

I don't foresee any of us being invited to the next United Nations or International Peace Conference anytime soon so maybe we can just focus on peace at our next meal or family dinner.

This dish is kind of like a take on potatoes au gratin, but not baked.  It's creamy and has a lot of flavor.  Works well as a side dish or even stuffed in a potato taco or for breakfast potatoes.

I looked in my fridge and pantry and I had these items so my brain and stomach started working overtime to come up with a way for my mouth to eat all the ingredients.

You will need:

2-3 medium potatoes (washed and scrubbed)

sour cream

milk or cream

onion

bell pepper

any kind of salsa

salt and pepper to taste

water

I started off with 3 russet potatoes that I scrubbed and washed.  I left the skin on because I couldn't be bothered to peel them.  The peels go everywhere and I hate cleaning them up.  I also like the idea of a little extra fiber, but you can peel them if you had the patience or don't like potatoes with skin on.

You can cut them anyway you like.  I diced them for this dish because I have one of these things:

My friend Lani gave it to me.  Usually, I like to do all my cutting and chopping by knife.  I find it relaxing.  Sometimes, when I'm in a rush to eat, I pull this sucker out and bang the potatoes through and I get a little bit of therapy while I'm cooking.  It's got two sizes for cubing.  This is the larger one.  Remember, you can cut any shape or size you want but you'll want to keep in mind to keep your pieces uniform for even cooking time and the larger you cut, the longer you'll need for cook time.  Don't feel like you have to cube the potatoes for this dish.  You can even do slices or julienne the pieces.  It all works.

I also diced my onion and bell pepper.  I used one half of an onion and half a bell pepper for this.  Usually I use more, but today I was using left overs.  I think onions and peppers are yummy and good for you (and a good way to get the guy I live with to eat veggies) so I usually go heavy on them.  

In a skillet over medium heat, I added a little bit of olive oil.

You don't need to add too much because we aren't frying the potatoes and onions.  We're actually going to cook them in the salsa and sour cream.  You just want enough to get your onions and bell peppers a little bit of softened.

I like to add Lawry's seasoning salt

and plenty of black pepper.

I'm big into seasoning as you cook.  Add your diced potatoes.

Give everything a nice stir to coat everything with the seasonings.

Then I turn the heat down to medium low and add about 1/4 cup of water.

Cover with a lid and walk away.

I gave it about 10 minutes to steam and soften the potatoes.  

Then I added 1 cup of salsa and about 3 tablespoons of sour cream with a splash of cream into a container.  You can use milk if you don't have cream.  I just needed a little liquid to make the salsa and sour cream mixture a little thinner.  I used Pace Picante for this one.  I think cooking with Pace is great because it's so chunky.  For chips and salsa, I LOVE the red salsa from Trader Joe's.

Like this:

Then I used a spoon to mix it all up.

Pour over your potato mix.  Try not to lick the spoon.  I dare you.

Stir it all up.

Cover again with a lid.  We're still on medium low heat.

I walked away and came back about 10 minutes later.  You may need more or less time depending on how big or small you diced your potatoes.  Check for tenderness using a fork.

You can eat it now or if you'd like to have them be a little less "soupy" or wet, you can turn up the heat to medium and cook uncovered for another 5 minutes or so.

Like this:

You can even get a nice crust on the bottom if you continue cooking uncovered. 

Remember, potatoes are starchy and eventually the liquid gets sucked up and the potatoes will become less soupy.  I like to eat these as a side with meatloaf.  The salsa goes well with meatloaf.  I also like to stuff cold leftovers into tortillas and carefully fry them for Tacos Dorados de Papa.   On this particular morning, I added a slice of ham and a over medium egg to make sort of a reverse Huevos Rancheros.  

World. Peace. 

By the way, you can use salsa and sour cream all mixed up together for salad dressing for taco salads.  Mmmmm.  This recipe makes a lot and can be used to feed 6-8 people as a side dish.  The leftovers keep well and can be refrigerated to use in breakfast burritos or quesadillas.

Sausage and Cabbage Soup

It's been cold and rainy here in Los Angeles for the last few weeks.  What I love best on rainy days is a nice bowl of hot soup!    So I decided that I would make a huge pot to eat throughout the week since the forecast calls for rainy (but no chance of meatballs).

I had originally bought a small head of cabbage to make sausage and cabbage stir fry but decided a nice sausage and cabbage soup might be just what I needed instead.

I grabbed:

1 package smoked sausage

1 medium onion

1 small head of cabbage

3 carrots

1 can of diced tomatoes

fresh, crushed garlic

3 cups of chicken broth

seasoning salt

black pepper

Italian seasoning 

You'll notice in the pic above, there's also some breakfast sausage.  I decided to throw that into the soup since it needed to be used up and the beauty of soup is pretty much throw it all in the pot and it pretty much always works out.

A few years ago, my partner bought me this Instant Pot pressure cooker for Christmas.  I LOVE it.  Sometimes, I go months without posting recipes because I'm using this pressure cooker.  Since I'm making soup, you can also do this in a crock pot or on the stove top.  What I love about this pressure cooker is that it's super easy to use and most importantly, I'm not afraid of it.  (For reals!  My mom had one that used to scare the crap out of me and we all stayed on the other side of the house until it was finished cooking in case it blew up.  It never did, but it was scary!)

The Instant Pot is awesome because it has a sauté setting on it!  So set it to sauté or if you're using a stove, heat to medium high.  

Add some olive oil to heat.

Throw in your diced onion

and sliced carrots

Season with seasoning salt or just plain salt.

Add a generous amount of black pepper.

Since I'm using up this breakfast sausage, I pop them out of their casing and throw into the pot.

Give it a quick sauté.

I used HALF the smoked sausage, but if you want more, you can throw it all in.  

I like to cut mine into bite sized pieces, but feel free to cut into whatever shapes make you happiest.

I love cooking and eating garlic so I'm not shy and added 2 large tablespoons of fresh, crushed garlic.

Then I threw in one tablespoon of this dried Italian Seasoning.

Rinse your cabbage and chop into rough pieces.

Since I'm cooking it into soup, I don't cut the cabbage into shreds.  I do nice big square chunks.  It's easy to cut up cabbage.  Just remember to cut around the center because you don't want to use the harder core part of the cabbage.

Throw in all your cabbage.

The pot is starting to look really full, but don't worry.  The cabbage cooks down a lot.

To my pot, I add one entire can of diced tomatoes (juice and all).

I like to make my own chicken broth and freeze.  You can find the recipe here.  You can used store bought broth for this recipe.  Beef or chicken works fine and even veggie broth too!  I used about three cups.   If you're using the stove top method, then you should probably use four cups of broth.  But in a pressure cooker, there's no means of evaporation so a little goes a long way. Plus the cabbage will also produce some liquid too.

Pour in your chicken stock.

Put on your lid.

Instant Pot has a soup setting.  It's 35 minutes. FAST and super energy efficient.

Just make sure the nozzle is closed and walk away!

If you're using the stove top, just let it simmer for about an hour.  Crockpots can be set for 2 hours on high.  If using the pressure cooker, it will be done in 35 minutes and you an either let the pressure come down on it's own or release the pressure.  Just remember the cabbage gets pretty soft so quick release is the way I go for this recipe.

You can add rice to this soup if you wanted.  It's very similar in flavor to stuffed cabbage rolls.   If you're interested in stuffed cabbage rolls, you can click here to see my recipe.  But if you don't want to spend all that time rolling, just make the soup!  There's plenty to share and this soup freezes well too.

Stay warm and dry!