Leftover Beef Asian Lettuce Cups

I didn’t do a true meal plan this week, because I knew I had plenty of food in my house to make the week work.  Especially after I found six bags of different types of frozen chicken.  I said on my Instagram page that if anyone was in the NW suburbs and saw me looking at chicken in the discount meat pin, they had full authority to punch me in the face.

In cleaning up my pantry, I found the last Bay’s sourdough English muffin.  I am going to try to make English muffins tonight, but these are worth all the 4 points.  Mock McMuffin with Jennie-O hot turkey sausage – so good!  7 points total.

The Biz and Jenn show were back on the air.  Not sure why that video is a link.  Of course Macy’s is all decked out for the holidays, Christmas music and all.  Jennifer has a dress up holiday party for her office – we found the perfect one!  It only cost $579!  She didn’t buy it.

I had my artichoke stuffed chicken for lunch yesterday.  So good – I love the extra spice of the crushed red pepper in the gravy.  This was 6 points.  3 for the chicken and gravy and 3 for the mashed potatoes.  

Over the weekend I bought a chuck roast steak.  You might be asking yourself, what the hell is that?!  Well, it’s basically a chuck roast that has been cut into a thin steak.  I of course, buying it off my meat bin, bought this piece for $1.09, but usually my store sells this cut for $2.99 a pound or less.  While you would think you would have to cook it low and slow, you can cook this fast and furious to medium rare, it its as delicious as a sirloin steak.  I realized I didn’t take many pictures, so I had to do screen shots from my Instagram stories – ha!

With my $15 fruit and veggie grocery shop this week, I bought bibb lettuce, not really knowing what I was going to use if tor, but on the train ride home decided to make Asian lettuce wraps.  If you can find this stirfry sauce, buy it – there are several flavors to chose from, all of them 25 calories or less per tablespoon.  This one is spicy but flavorful spicy, and only 14 calories a tablespoon.  I have found this at both my Jewel grocery store and Walmart.  You can find it online here – no affiliate link, just an FYI.

This meal came together in 20 minutes, and that included cooking quinoa rice.  For the pickled veggies, I just used my vegetable slicer and made ribbons from cucumbers and carrots and then soaked them in . . . pickle juice.  That’s how I pickle at home – why make a brine when I always have pickle juice on hand.  This was from a spicy pickle my Mom bought me, and it’s so good.  Just took 10 minutes to pickle since the slices were so thin.

To assemble:  three bibb lettuce, 1/2 cup quinoa rice mixture divided between the three (3) four ounces of leftover sliced beef cooked with 1 tablespoon of the kung pao sauce over high heat for 30 seconds (4), pickled veggies, sriracha, parsley, toasted sesame seeds and .25 ounce of chopped cashews over the top (1).  8 points for all this!

This was sweet/spicy/salt/sour – I forgot to mention that after I put the quinoa/rice in the lettuce cups, I drizzled with a bit of rice vinegar.  I puffy heart vinegar.  So good!  And I loved the little crunch of the cashews.

I actually don’t mind not having a meal plan – it prevents me from having the same things over and over.  But I am still having taco Tuesday tonight – I am not that crazy! 😀

Happy Tuesday friends – make it a great day!