mango | beets me

For all you party people out there who enjoy the likes of PF Changs, you’re in luck today! I’m going to woo you with Mango Chicken Lettuce Wraps as a way to distract you from nagging me about another blog post. Yes, I’ve been MIA and the person whose mostly losing out is my sweet grandmother, Winnie, who is about to be featured here. Grandma, my apologies for not writing this sooner!

Here’s the recap on the past two months: I went to a wedding in Sunset Beach, North Carolina where I had the most delicious mojito and danced the night away. I visited Lake Burton with my ATL crew and said farewell to friends moving to Boston. My dear friend Claire got married in Savannah where I ate the most deliciously moist lemon cake and my friend Sean broke his chair at brunch. Much to his dismay, it was the best part of the weekend. Monroe City, Missouri stole my heart with its rolling cornfields, welcoming community, and overwhelming wildflowers. Lastly, I visited Austin, TX for the first time where I was treated to the BEST food thanks to my lovely host Molly. My sister and I talked all things growing up while we gorged on tacos, amazing smoothies, kolaches, barbecue, and brunch. I am still dreaming of the mezcal drink I had with my sistahwife Molly along with many a cucumber-grapefruit-gin drink that I tried at every place we went.

Lately I’m saying many goodbyes to friends who are starting new adventures in new cities. While I’m sad to see them go, it’s exciting to see people go on their next adventure and become a little bit more of themselves. Throughout the process of saying goodbye, I got to partake in bucket list items that I might not have ventured to otherwise 🙂 This really means new people will have to learn to partake in my late-night baking activities and that I’m going to have to start trolling Yelp in the cities where my friends move. Note to all my friends out there – when I come to visit you, I will have already found the best food instagrammers in your city and will have at least one opinion about following their food recommendations.

Let me tell you about these lettuce wraps. My grandmother loves to take the girls in my family to PF Changs where we always like to get the chicken lettuce wraps. Every time I’ve had them, I never really thought they’d be easy to make at home. THEN my friend Cessie taught Christine and I how to make these really healthy chicken lettuce wraps just like the ones at the restaurant (where you wrap it up like a massive burrito and stuff it in your mouth gracefully and then everything falls out).

After trying it once, I wanted to try out these lettuce wraps from Cookie and Kate for my grandma on Mother’s Day. My grandma Winnie is such an inspiration to me and also the person who gave me a bad habit of laughing anyone’s actually said anything. She can’t start a story without laughing which has entirely rubbed off on me. We also like to sit and eat snacks and chat about love, life , family , and most importantly faith. I was blessed to have so many wonderful Indian dishes from her kitchen over the years, and it’s been a joy to me to be able to actually make something of my own for her. Serve this dish as a light meal with coconut rice like I did or as an appetizer like at PF Changs. I actually made it in advance and it warmed up nicely. I think the mango salad benefits from some extra time marinating as well.

Thai Mango Chicken Lettuce Wraps

adapted from this recipe from Cookie and Kate

Peanut sauce:

⅓ cup creamy peanut butter

2 tablespoons white wine vinegar or apple cider vinegar

2 tablespoons reduced-sodium tamari or soy sauce

2 tablespoons honey or agave nectar or maple syrup

2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil

½ lime, juiced

2 garlic cloves, pressed or minced

Mango pico

2 ripe mangos, diced

1 medium red bell pepper, chopped

½ bunch (about 4) green onions, chopped

⅓ cup packed fresh cilantro leaves, chopped

1 jalapeño, minced

½ lime, juiced

⅛ teaspoon salt

Chicken:

1 lb chicken breast, cubed

soy sauce

sriracha or chili garlic sauce

For the rest: small head of green cabbage

Coconut rice:

1 cup rice ( I used short grain brown rice)

1 cup coconut milk

1 cup water

pinch of salt

1. Boil water and coconut milk in a small pot. Add rice and salt and bring back down to a simmer, covering rice for about 25-30 minutes or until rice is tender. (you can skip this step if you just want the wraps as an appetizer)

2. In a jar or small bowl, whisk all the peanut sauce ingredients together and place in the fridge to meld flavors.

3. Mix all the mango pico ingredients in a large bowl or serving dish. I know you’re thinking there’s not much in this but I promise it taste delicious and doesn’t need much to it!

4. Cook chicken: Heat a saute pan to medium-high heat and add a few teaspoons of coconut oil or another light flavored oil. Once hot, add chicken and soy sauce. I would recommend about a tablespoon since that’s what the tofu in the original recipe is tossed in, and I added some chili garlic sauce as well. Saute chicken for about 3-4 minutes on each side and then turn off the heat. Drain sauce out and place chicken on a serving plate.

5. To serve, cut the bottom thick part of the cabbage stem off and slowly peel back the layers of the cabbage. Really get to KNOW your cabbage. I found this to be actually pretty hard, but the good thing is that the green cabbage leaves are so thick that even if they rip they can hold a good amount of food.

6. Eat your rice on the side or make a big mound of lettuce wrap and put chicken, mango pico, and rice in your wrap. You can either pour sauce into the wrap or dip the wrap into it.

If you’re like me, you’ll ask your grandmother a gazillion questions about growing up, how to know what God’s calling you to do next, why men are from Mars, what her favorite thing about Grandpa is, and oh yea please pass the vino. Dear Grandma, sorry this post is so late but I’m so glad you like the meal! (and I hope you read this)

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❤

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I am back friends! Sorry for the extensive delay, I have no excuses! I have to tell you something – these are the best steak tacos I’ve ever made. Coincidentally the ONLY ones I’ve ever made as well. I haven’t entertained in a while and had it easy this time because I cooked with my friend Caelan – a gem of a host. The fact that it took us 30 minutes to cook a steak didn’t phase him a bit and I’m also very grateful he didn’t get mad at me for literally incinerating his pans while frying tortillas! Thanks Caelan!

If you are going to make this recipe, please use your grill! It’s quite a simple recipe taken from mountainmamacooks, however we tried to cook the steak in the broiler and haven’t mastered that quite yet….SO, here we go.

Are you loving loving loving summer? Or just one loving? It’s a triple loving summer for me. I just moved into an apartment with about 1 foot of counter space, have a porch swing, my roommate’s moving here in a week, and it’s the season for endless frozen yogurt.

Let me tell you very briefly about a few things I’m triple-loving this June. My mom brought me three herb plants for my front porch which was the highlight of my week. Let’s all cross our fingers that they don’t get knocked over or stolen (yes, that’s happened). I’ve had some solid popsicles in the past month including a blackberry ginger one and a pomegranate margarita. There’s beer ice cream out there also. I ate a jalapeno corndog at a festival and discovered the sensation that is Trombone Shorty. Annnndddd I made these tacos.

I’ve had this recipe on my pinterest for some time now, but I wanted to save it for a time when someone familiar with steak could help me out! Cue damsel in distress music. Honestly, this meal – while served about 1.5 hours later than expected, was fantastic. When I told my mom about how there happened to be enough for everyone, she said “like the loaves and fishes!” And I thought, exactly.

It’s funny how there’s always enough, isn’t there? The more people that you are surrounded with, it seems that we’d all need more food to keep us going – but really the more good company there is, the less the food matters. Shoot, is this post becoming pointless?! I’ll post pics soon, then you’ll listen.

Korean Steak Tacos with Pear Mango Cilantro Slaw, adapted from mountain mama cooks

1 2.5 lb flank steak

1/2 cup fresh cilantro (stems are ok)

2.5 TBS brown sugar

3 TBS soy sauce

3 TBS veg oil

2 cloves garlic

1 -2 tsb chili garlic sauce

1/2 tsp coriander

juice of half a lime

for the slaw:

1/2 a head of green cabbage

1 pear, in thin strips

juice of 2 limes

3-4 TBS rice wine vinegar

1/4 bunch of cilantro, minced

1/2-1 mango, diced

kosher salt, red pepper flakes

For serving:

Corn tortillas, sauteed peppers, rice, guac, refried beans

Marinate this steak in the morning or the night before you are going to cook it. I couldn’t tell if the recipe specified to actually blend (as in blend in the blender) the marinade or if it just meant mix the ingredients together. I decided to puree the marinade in the food processor which worked well as a sauce for the steak. Place the steak in a non-reactive dish or plastic bag with the marinade and place in the refrigerator (I did this in the morning of the day we cooked)

When it is time for the partay, assemble the slaw while you’re preheating the grill/broiler. Try to slice the cabbage as thin as possible. Toss together all the slaw ingredients to let the flavors meld before cooking the steak. Grill the steak for 10-12 minutes (says the recipe it took us like 30 minutes including stoppage time to broil it) total and let sit for 5-10 minutes before slicing.

To fry tortillas I used two methods. One was to fill a saute pan with half an inch of oil and fully fry the tortillas. The other was to fry them in just a thin layer of oil to make them thick. Either way I pretty much burned down my friend’s kitchen so maybe use flour tortillas if you don’t want to worry about this!!

Serve family style and NOM! If you make these please let me know I’d love to hear how they turn out for you!