Asian Lettuce Wraps

One of my favorite restaurants (which also happens to be one of America's most unhealthy) is the Cheesecake Factory. We are damned/blessed to have a CF in the Burlington Mall, just twenty minutes from our apartment, and back in the day (last summer) we frequently dropped in for dinner. Now that we are in the heat of saving for a house and eating healthier, the Cheesecake Factory has been relegated to "special" occasions only: my birthday, my mom coming down to visit, etc.

One of our favorite dishes at the CF is a Thai Lettuce Wrap, which comes with three sauces and a handful of toppings (including carrots and slightly-pickled cucumbers). The chicken is small and well-cooked, and the wraps are fun to build. I've been interested in recreating this meal at home, and I have not, I will admit, had success.

Below is the closest I've come to something inspired by the CF lettuce wraps. I didn't deal with sauces (not yet my forte), and I kept the toppings minimal (to save money and calories, really). But this was a crunchy, easy, delicious dinner.

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The chicken slow-cooked in my CrockPot for about three hours. For those of you familiar with a CrockPot, you know it can take some of the hassle out of getting dinner on the table. Me? I had all day and plenty of the evening to cook, but I like the way this chicken comes out when it's cooked low and slow. I used the chicken thighs we got on sale at Hannaford this week. I removed the skin, took out the bone, and sliced the meat into strips. I laid the strips in the CrockPot atop a bed of onions (totally optional), and I mixed a simple teriyaki sauce. The recipe is something like half a cup of soy sauce, a third cup of brown sugar, and some minced garlic. I had to play around with it. Instead of the full half cup of soy sauce, I used about a quarter cup and supplemented that with chicken stock (both were the low-sodium variety). I also cut out a little sugar, figuring that a reduction in salt would balance a reduction in sugar. The garlic, of course, I kept. If I had had ginger root in the fridge, I would have sliced some of that in as well.

At any rate, just pour the sauce over the chicken, cover, and cook in the CrockPot on low for maybe three hours. At that point, I just put it on warm and let it sit until we were ready to eat.

I wanted something crunchy and cold to off-set the hot, tender chicken. I opted to use romaine lettuce leaves as the base, though bib lettuce is ideal (it doesn't have a thick vein, like the romaine, and its leaves are broader and better for folding over). I thinly sliced cucumbers and carrots with my new food processor/slicer (thanks, Gram!), and I chopped a little fresh cabbage. And, because they were in the cupboard, I threw on a few peanuts, too.

This was a great summertime meal for a couple of reasons. For one, it didn't require me to turn on our oven or stove, which seem to emit lava-like heat. And two, it was light and flavorful. If I had been able to visit a farmers' market beforehand, it would also have been locally harvested. This is also great because, like a taco, everyone at the table can build his or her own, creating just the right combination of flavors. You can't go wrong.

This catchphrase is already a little redundant, but I'm going with it-- and with fork in hand.