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Hey all,

Just a quick update for you. I'm on Blog Lovin now, so if you'd like to follow there, please do! Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Living Lettuce Experience

Apparently I love chicken lettuce wraps, so much that we're having it again! I'm now thinking about taco lettuce wraps, sloppy joe lettuce wraps, salmon lettuce wraps, etc.  My new love for lettuce wraps will be address in another post, back to the subject at hand! I may be slow on this discovery, but I was in the grocery store a few nights ago looking for butter lettuce, aka Boston Bibb, aka Butterhead for our Chicken Lettuce Wraps.  I couldn't find that, but instead I found living lettuce! I thought, "Hmm, it looks similar to butter lettuce."...so I picked it up. I figured, why not try it.

I Googled living lettuce and found out that it supposed to last for 10 days, which is super long for lettuce! That's a good thing.  

It taste pretty good. It's a very mild flavored lettuce.  It's easy to peal off the leaves with minimal breakage.

But, it should be noted that this lettuce doesn't work well for lettuce wraps unless you double up the leaves. The meat mixture makes the leaves soggy super fast. I didn't like the texture of the leaves for my purpose. It was VERY soft almost velvety to the touch. It may be good for a salad, but not for wraps.

Have you tried living lettuce? Tell me what you thought of it. What types of dishes do you use it for?

Product Review | Ling Ling Asian Chicken Lettuce Wraps

I don't use meal kits very often, but my husband and I were wondering around the Costco freezer section last weekend and saw this meal kit, by Ling-Ling. I was a bit leery but since it only cost about $9, I said, "Okay, lets try it"!  It actually was pretty good. 

Did I feel it was a good purchase? Yes, sort of. Would I purchase it again? No, I'll make it myself. 

I liked that it was super quick to throw together when you're short on time. I liked that it's pretty low carb if you leave off the fried noodles they included.  This is perfect if you don't have time to do your own food prep, ie. tons of dicing. Cook this on the stove top in for about 10 minutes on a high heat, add fresh iceberg lettuce and you're ready to go!

I cooked up the entire box. It said the whole box would serve 8 people. It was split into two sets of packages meant for 4 people each.  But I think that's an appetizer serving size. If you're eating this as a meal, I'd say the entire box serves 4 people. Which is still a very good deal for $9!

My main issue was that there were WAY to many onions! Over kill seriously.  It was good, but with proper planning, I can make it from scratch with less sodium! And it will probably taste better because it's all fresh ingredients.

Rating: 3 forks

Easy Low Carb Meatloaf Muffins

My plate is 1 meatball short... I ate one before I got the shot!

Ever since my husband heard his co-worker say "meatloaf muffins" he's been wanting me to make them. They taste exactly the same as my regular meatloaf, except it's now easier to transport for lunches and such. Anyways, here is my version of Meatloaf Muffins.  Of course, since we are still low carbing it, I made this slightly differently than I normally would have by replacing the bread crumbs with ground pork rinds. 

The only thing missing this time, which I normally add is the green bell peppers. We didn't have any and I didn't feel like going to the store. So, these are sans the peppers.  I made some cheesy cauliflower mash to go along with it. 

Source: Me!, Original Recipe
Rating - 5 forks

Ingredients:

2 lbs Extra Lean Ground Beef

3/4 cup of BBQ Pork Rinds, ground to a fine powder (measure after the pork rinds have been ground)

1/2 cup of small diced green peppers

1 envelope of Onion Soup Mix

1 extra large egg

3 Tbsp of Ketchup

2 tsp of Worcester Sauce

Pepper to taste

Instructions:  Preheat oven at 350.  Mix everything in a bowl. Careful, don't over mix! Use a ice cream scoop to make the same size "muffin" for each cup.  Bake for 25-30 minutes depending on your oven.

Makes 12.

Meaty Egg Cups: Bacon vs Ham!

Thanks Pinterest! You have me making all type of low carb goodies! Earlier this week I saw some bacon and egg cups aka muffins. They looked really good, but they only tasted okay.  I added fresh spinach chiffonade to half of the cups.  

Not so pretty...right?

My husband and I both like our bacon with crisp to it, and this bacon was totally soft. So that along wasn't that appetizing to us.  Also, they didn't have that eye appeal that I like when I make food. Mines definitely did not turn out looking like the ones in the original recipe! Instead I got little egg balls! LOL, I contribute that mostly to using to much egg in each cup.  I also didn't even taste the shredded cheese. If I make these again, I'd have to play around with how to get the bacon crispier, change the cheese, add more seasonings to the eggs and I would reduce the amount of eggs used.  In my personal opinion, this recipe needs some serious tweaking.

Source: Bacon Egg Cups 

Rating: 3 forks

Prep time!

So I returned to the scene of the crime (Pinterest) and saw a picture of some ham cups.  After what I consider the bacon and egg cups to be a mild fail, I thought this would be a good option to test out next.  So a few nights ago I decided to make ham egg muffins and they are AMAZING! It reminds me of a  western omelette. So because I felt I couldn't detect the shredded cheese in the bacon ones, instead this I used Sargento Double Cheddar slices and cut them into four smaller squares. I briefly cooked fresh bell pepper and onion in a tablespoon of butter!  I also added various seasonings including a dash of salt and pepper in the egg mixture.

Step by step layering ingredients!

They totally top the bacon ones not only are they delicious they are beautiful to look at also! The only thing I would change is I purchased thin cut ham, so I used two slices of ham for each cup, next time I will get a regular cut ham and use one slice per cup. I'll be making these again, for sure!


Source: Ham Egg Cups 
Rating - 5 forks

Ham Cups are the clear winner! Delish!

Both of these recipes are highly customize-able  so you should throw in what ever you like. Change it up and add cooked sausage or mushroom or even some fresh tomatoes or spinach!  

Have you made any egg cups? How do you like them?

Breadless Mozzarella Sticks

Ready to eat!

I've been seriously back on low carb for a few weeks now and I'd been seriously craving some cheese sticks! So I started Googling and found this awesome recipe.  It  was great inspiration and easily modifiable.  I quartered this recipe quantities so that I could try it out.  I used 1 egg and changed up the dry ingredients. I added dried parsley, used garlic powder instead of salt and added a dash of Kosher salt.  I also used Jalapeno Mozzarella sticks! It really added some extra flavor. It didn't even need a marinara sauce to dip them in.

The original recipe didn't really give me timing so I was nervous about burning it. Basically from start to finish this took like a minute and a half.  With the heat on medium high, 45 about seconds on each side. You could go a bit longer if you want it darker, but you will notice the longer it's in the grease the cheese will start to seep out and lose it's stick form. So DON'T walk away from this. Stand there until it's done. :-)

Rating: 4 forks

Source: Breadless Mozzarella Sticks 

Holiday Cookie Exchange 2012

About two weeks ago I held my second annual cookie exchange party. It was really fun and I must say that we had a pretty good turnout it was 7 of us baking this year, versus 8 from last year.  I must say, this year everyone seemed to step it up with the types of cookies. We had an orange cookie with a candied orange rind on top, a lemon sandwich cookie, a cranberry and white chocolate cookie, among others.

To the right is a photo of everyone's packaged cookies. My cookies aren't in the photo of because unfortunately I forgot to take a photo before everyone packed theirs up, so what's left are the 6 boxes I received from others.

2012 Packaged Cookies

Again this year, I went ahead and made a little recipe book to give to the guest as a favor. They're pretty cute. I made a jpeg of the recipes and print them on photo paper which was much easier than last year. Last year I did a lot of cutting pasting, it was just too much work.

I've included a photo of both this years in last years booklet since I didn't post about it last year.

2011 Packaged Cookies

This year my cookie was a Hot  Chocolate cookie. I found it on Pinterest, and it was an excellent recipe. Everyone loved them. When I did my test run on about a week before the exchange, I sent all of the cookies to work with my husband. All his coworkers love them. I think that this will be a cookie I'd make every year when I want to give gifts.  

Last year, I made a chewy coconut cookie. That cookie was amazing and easy to make.  My husband requested the cookies be topped with milk chocolate. So I made a batch especially for him and he liked them so much he has asked for them on more than one occasion. Of course I had to make a few batches for him this holiday season. 

Are you participating in cookies change this year? How about last year? What are your favorite cookies to bake for exchanges?

2012 Booklet

2011 Booklet