butter lettuce actually IS a thing.

Week two of training. Last weekend, I didn't do so awesome. I skipped two of four days at the gym, but A.J. did all four. This weekend, we got a new bed and mattress on Saturday (!) so we spent pretty much the whole day doing that and pretty much no time at the gym. But Sunday, yesterday (double gym trips for me) and today were/will be pretty intense workouts for both of us. We're both feeling great!!

A.J.'s snoring has decreased SIGNIFICANTLY since we started training. We're eating better, we're more active, and we're only drinking alcohol on the weekends. According to the Mayo Clinic, those are a few of the  risk factors for snoring. That, and our glorious new mattress will hopefully set me up for sleep success in the very near future.

I am so excited that my new schedule will permit me to be home by 3 on Mondays! Last night I got to cook dinner, and we got to actually sit at our dining room table and eat it! This has been a rarity in our home for the past year or so. I wanted to kick off our Monday nights at home by trying a new to me recipe that falls in line with our better eating.

I went to Mariano's to get the items I needed for dinner, because Mariano's. I wanted to base my recipe loosely on this one for lettuce wraps. When I got to the produce section, I picked up a small bunch of this lettuce:

I continued throughout the store and gathered the rest of my ingredients. By the time got up to the checkout, I had enough groceries to feed an ogre for a week-ish. It was one of those times when you definitely didn't want to be the person behind me. But since EVERYONE does their grocery shopping mid-day on Mondays (I never knew), someone took their place behind me almost immediately. The cashier started ringing up my treasures and when she picked up my lettuce, she looked at it like it was a little shrunken head. "What is this?" I told her it was butter lettuce. She flipped through her picture book at all the produce, their names, their codes... no butter lettuce. I said, "I'm pretty sure it's called butter lettuce." She continued to look through all of her many cashier spellbooks and encyclopedias but could find no butter lettuce.

Finally, after a good three or four minutes of me awkwardly smiling at the, now two, people behind me, I asked her if I could just go to the produce section to double check the name. No need. The man two people behind me shouted up, "It's BOSTON lettuce!" Indeed it was. And thank you, sir, for waiting patiently for just the right time to grace us all with your produce knowledge. Heaven forbid it had been three minutes sooner.

BUT. Look at butter lettuce:

They're freakin identical!! I know I didn't just make that up. I had to have seen the name somewhere. Maybe it was just on Chopped. But I swear, I've seen butter lettuce at Mariano's before. Can anyone confirm??

Anywhose. Here is the recipe I made and how our lettuce wraps turned out.
SPOILER: they were divine.


Thai-Style Lettuce Wraps

wraps:
1 shrunken head butter/Boston lettuce
1 bag shredded broccoli slaw w/ carrots and cabbage
1 can water chestnuts
1 can bamboo shoots
1 handful cashews, chopped
1 large chicken breast, shredded (this recipe for shredded chicken will make you drool)

sauce:
1 bottle sweet chili sauce
1-2 tbsp peanut butter
a couple tsp of soy sauce (don't go crazy, huh?)
lots of finely minced garlic
1/4 diced jalapeno
1/4 cup diced cilantro
red pepper flakes to taste

Stuff your little lettuce wrap until it's about to burst, pour sauce on top, roll it up and pop it in your mouth.

These things were awesome. Very easy for feeding a lot of people, because I shredded the whole pack of chicken breasts and we have tons of sauce, slaw, cashews, bamboo shoots and water chestnuts leftover. You would probably just need to buy two or three shrunken heads instead of one.

Guess what I'm having for lunch today...