Do you ever have days when you just don’t feel like eating anything in particular for dinner?  Well, this was one of those days and so I asked my husband what he wanted because I REALLY was at a loss and figured if he had a dinner option on his wish list, I would make it for him.  Well, he was no help and was in my same boat.  Thus, we were SOOOO close to just having eggs/omelets.  But, then I made one last effort to peruse the refrigerator to see if anything would jump out at me.  That’s when I came up with these babies.

I was too lazy to follow a recipe, so I just made up my own.  I threw in some ground turkey with onions and peppers and a few Mexican spices, added some fire-roasted tomatoes for additional flavor, some kidney beans for fiber/antioxidants/vitamins (and gobs of other good purposes), and some green chilies for a little heat.  With a little tomato paste added to the skillet, the mixture thickened right up and it fit beautifully in my little lettuce shells.

Lettuce is also a smart way to “wrap” up your food.  It has very, very little calories (like 7-10 for 1 cup).  I loved adding the carbohydrates to the mixture (rather than eating my carbs in a wrap) and, since the lettuce is so low in calories, I could eat as many “wraps” as my serving of mixture would allow.  You can do the same by adding as much mixture from your serving to each individual lettuce wrap.  You could walk away eating as low as 2 wraps, or as many as 6.  Of course, the amount of mixture you eat is the same but sometimes it does my mind good to think I was able to eat 6 lettuce wraps from dinner.  Ha, ha!

I included a list of optional toppings below.  Depending on your end goal, you’ll want to be careful with the toppings as they do add a smidge of extra calories.  I decided to top mine with a light sprinkling of reduced fat cheese, salsa and  Fit Ranch Dip (which I made using Hidden Valley’s Spicy Ranch flavor).

Not only did this come together fast, looks pretty and fun, but they tastes yum, yum, yummy!  I was so pleased with the outcome that I’m adding these to my quick, weeknight dinner meals rotation.  Heaven knows we all need more of these meals in our collection!

Mexican Lettuce Wraps
Mimi’s Original

1 medium onion, diced
1 bell pepper, diced (I used a red and yellow combination.)
1 pound ground turkey
1 1/2 teaspoon taco seasoning
1 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon garlic salt (or powder)
1 (14.5 ounce) can fire-roasted tomatoes
1 (4 ounce) can green chilies
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 (14.5 ounce) can dark red kidney beans
Lettuce for serving (I used baby Romaine.  Butter lettuce or iceberg would work well too.)

Optional Toppings:
reduced fat cheese
salsa
light sour cream
diced avocado (or guacamole)
Fit Ranch Dip

Heat a skillet over medium heat.  Add onions, peppers, ground turkey, taco seasoning, cumin, and garlic salt.  Cook until onions and peppers break down and ground turkey is no longer pink, stirring often to break up ground turkey.  Add tomatoes, green chilies, and tomato paste.  Stir to combine.  Simmer until mixture thickens and a lot of the juice from the tomatoes evaporates, about 10 minutes.  Stir kidney beans into mixture and cook until heated through, about 1 minute.

Meanwhile prepare lettuce leaves by washing, separating leaves, and patting them dry.  Fill leaves with turkey mixture and, if desired (and you can spare a few extra calories), top with optional toppings.

Serves 5.

Nutritional Information
(Per Serving = 1/5 of the Recipe, about 1 C. of Mixture, W/O Toppings)
Calories:  213
Protein:  23.2g
Carbs:  17.6g
Fat:  6.9g (2g = Sat.)
Fiber:  6.4g
Sugars:  5.4g