Anyone Can Cook!

There are a lot of great things about living in a small town. One of the things that we really miss, however, are our favorite restaurants. Friday night after we got the kids in bed, Josh said he was going to go out to pick up some food. He asked me if I wanted anything. I thought about it (McDonalds, Pizza Hut, Jack-in-the-Box, Arby's, Little Caesars) and said "no". Leftovers sounded better than any takeout in town. Sad.

So, Saturday I decided to try to recreate one of our favorite restaurant dishes: Pei Wei's Lettuce Wraps. They are also known as PF Chang's "Soothing" Chicken Lettuce Wraps. Soothing is the wrong word when describing the prep-work. It was no small undertaking, and after two hours and 18 ingredients purchased and assembled, I was ready to begin! There was chopping and marinating and measuring and "wok"-ing, and combining and frying. My favorite was frying the rice sticks - have you seen rice sticks cook? It's like an explosion, but a good one! I used too much chicken (I think I used 2 1/2 lbs instead of 1 1/2 lbs), but it still tasted great with the sauces and seasonings, and was just as tasty the next day! Josh also gave it two thumbs up. It's not something I'd make every day, but for a special treat, I'm filing this one as a keeper!