Free Form Friday: The Premiere Edition

Welcome to the premiere edition of Free Form Friday!  Where I'll throw out whatever.  Again, pretty much what I do all the time but with a catchy title.

The sun peaked out this afternoon so I took some pics of my garden.

In this corner, we have the butter lettuce run amok, French lavender which is doing really well, jasmine which is doing well despite the fact that I have yet to re-pot it, and the cucumber bush. 

On the patio table for now is the romaine, which I thought would be bigger by now.  I found some extra pots under the deck that I had forgotten about so I may transplant these into one bigger pot that I can hang off the deck.  Like I did with the carnations.

Isn't the color on these gorgeous?  And can you see there are a dozen more buds getting ready to burst open?  When I bought these, I thought they were in a six pack that I could break up and spread out but they are kind of one big clump.  There's lots of room left over in the pot; I think I will get a couple of something like pansies or Sweet Williams to put on either side and balance it out.  I also have strawberries getting ready to bloom.

Sorry about the fuzzy picture.  Strawberry starts were two for $1.00 at Fred Meyer so I got six into this pot.  There are three different varieties in here.  One will have pink blooms and there is one that should bloom in a couple of days.  When I read it would be pink, I thought some light girlie pink but the blossom I've got is magenta.  If more pop up that will be spectacular!

So when you have lettuce run amok, you need to eat it or it will stop growing.  Here's a recipe for quick and easy chicken caesar salad wraps.

First, harvest the lettuce.  Can you believe this growth is from the past several days?  I cut it back pretty good but by Monday it'll be ready to pick again.

Next, get out the chicken that you grilled up last week.  This is part of the 20 lbs of chicken from the Zaycon Foods deal I did.  The flavor is amazing.  Makes you wonder what they do to the chicken you get in the store.

For wraps, you need, well, wraps.  A couple of 10" tortillas will do the job.

By the way, can you tell I'm not a professional food photographer?

Chop up the chicken and then get your favorite caesar dressing.  My personal favorite is Safeway's Eating Right brand of fresh garlic caesar.  It's a perfect consistency -- I hate gloppy, thick dressing -- and best of all it's low cal so you can use enough not to have a dry wrap without adding a ton of calories.  I think this is 40 calories per two tablespoons.

Mix up the lettuce and the chicken with enough dressing to coat everything thoroughly but not so much that there is a lot of dressing sitting in the bottom of the bowl.  While it sits, heat up your tortillas in the microwave between damp paper towels.  I do about 45 seconds for two tortillas.  The warmth and the damp helps them to be more malleable and not tear.

As I mentioned, without enough dressing your wrap will be dry and tasteless.  Too much dressing and the flavor is overwhelming plus the tortillas tend to get too wet and tear.  With lettuce and chicken for two wraps, I used about four tablespoons of a moderately thin consistency dressing.  I then lay down a line of about a tablespoon of dressing on each tortilla before putting on the lettuce and chicken.  I then topped with a couple of pinches of shredded parmesan.  You can mix your parmesan in with the lettuce and chicken but I find that the parmesan tends to clump all together and then stick to the bowl.  This way you get an even layer of cheese.

Now wrap and enjoy!  Total time to make:  15 minutes, including time to dodge hungry dogs.

I have to work this weekend but I've got time for one last picture of my new baby:

Isn't it beautiful??  To give you an idea of the size, the entertainment center is 46" wide.  I didn't think to measure the height inside before I got the TV so I was very lucky that it just cleared it.  I have maybe an inch and a half of space at the top.  I'm thinking of taking July 5th off so I can have a four day orgy of television.  It's the little things in life, right?

Cheers,
the CilleyGirl