good eats//chinese chicken lettuce wraps

when i was pregnant with maddox, two things happened: i failed my gestational diabetes test and i had a love affair with sriracha.

for those of you who have never been pregnant, thank your lucky stars that you've never had to do a GDM test (gestational diabetes millitus). basically, you have to fast for so many hours and then drink some revolting orange drink. it's non-carbonated and the thickness of syrup so you know every single pregnant woman is stoked out of her mind to take this test. guess what? THIS LADY GOT TO DO IT TWICE! because i failed the first test like such a loser. the first time was totally unfair because they changed my appointment at the last minute from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. and still made me fast. so i hadn't eaten anything since 9 p.m. the night before and look out if you ever encounter a fasting pregnant lady. i think i cried three times before 10 a.m. it was ugly.

so. i failed my test and had to retake it which meant that i had to redrink that shiz and then spend three hours getting my blood drawn. and by "blood drawn" i mean they let the students practice on me and they collapsed three veins and i walked out of there looking like a heroin addict. a pregnant heroin addict.

then i went to mcdonalds because i was so distraught.


ANYWAY.
when i failed the test the first time, evan and i decided to reevaluate our eating habits. we were eating a lot of carbs and so we decided to pretty much eliminate carbs from our life (RIP carbs) for a few weeks and work on eating cleaner.

i invented the best recipe and evan and i eat this at least once a week because it's an "everything-but-the-kitchen-sink" type of recipe. those are my favorite because i never have anything on hand that i need. and i hate going to the grocery store. grocery shopping is one of my least favorite chores on this planet.

moving on.

CHINESE CHICKEN LETTUCE WRAPS///
(i call this "chinese" because i put soy sauce in it. and also water chestnuts and bamboo. there's really no other reason why this is "chinese." other than i say so. and i'm the boss.)

BUY:
/chicken
/head of lettuce
/veggies (i.e. mushrooms, onions, peppers, water chestnuts, zucchini, bamboo, celery. but it's whatever i have on hand basically.)
/crunchy chow mein noodles
/sliced almonds
/soy sauce
/apple cider vinegar
/garlic
/sriracha

MAKE:
/cook and shred the chicken. (i prefer shredded. evan likes it in chunks. i'm telling you, shredded is better.)
/season the cooking chicken with (i like) apple cider vinegar, soy sauce, salt and pepper, garlic, whatever the heckfire you want.
/add the veggies and continue cooking until most of the liquid boils out.
/serve in bowls of lettuce and top with sriracha, crunchy chow mein noodles and almonds.
/devour.
/thank me.

one time my mom made the pinterest version of this, the one that is from PF chang's or whatever. this one is much better. hers had some kind of sauce with it and i just prefer sriracha i guess. also it took zero minutes to throw this together and hers took a while. still winning. sorry, ma. and i literally threw everything that we had in a skillet and served it up in some lettuce and drenched it in sriracha. it's a) the easiest meal to use up any left over veggies that you are so sick of (zucchini anyone? my gosh. one plant and you're like drowning in baseball bat sized zucchini for 36 years). b) a great left-over meal. evan and i haven't perfected the art of making extra so there's some for tomorrow but when we do have left overs of this, it warms up so great. which is important because i have zero extra minutes in my day to spend warming up and making food.

enjoy!