Recipe: Five Spice Tofu Lettuce Wraps

Presenting yesterday's lunch.

Also today's lunch.

Probably tomorrow's lunch, too, because it's really frickin' tasty.

My recent quest to eat lots of plants and be healthy and shit has led to me playing around with a variety of tofu recipes. I've done cutlets (with General Tao sauce wilted spinach--yum!) and stir fries (with vindaloo and pees--yum the second!), but my favourite so far is these lettuce wraps.

I love them so much that I want to share them with you. They're plant-filled, gluten-free, and vegan (as long as you buy or make a sauce without any gluten or animal products in it). Yay!

This amount of tofu and sauce makes two lettuce wraps, which does me for lunch. Those of you with larger stomachs may wish to increase the proportions.

Ingredients

• around 85g of extra firm tofu
• one mushroom
• one small carrot
• olive oil
• cooked basmati rice (or whatever rice you like)
• Romaine lettuce (or whatever kind of large-leaf lettuce you like)
• a little less than 1/4 cup Chinese five spice sauce

Drizzle some olive oil in a small pan over medium heat. Cut the tofu into either cubes or little rectangles, depending on how you like it, and pop it in the pan. Turn it every now and again so it gets golden brown and squidgy on more than once side.

While the tofu's cooking, wash your lettuce and pat it dry. Chop your mushroom and divide it in two. Peel and grate your carrot and divide it in two.

When the tofu's nice and brown, remove it from the heat and add the sauce. Give it a good toss and leave it to soak while you put a couple spoonfuls of rice down the centre of each lettuce leaf. Put the mushrooms atop the rice, then evenly divide the tofu chunks between each wrap. Use a rubber spatula to get all the sauce out of the pan and onto the wraps.

Top the wraps with the grated carrot. You might not need all of it, depending on your carrot-consumption preferences. I trust you to know your limits.

Devour the wraps. Resolve to eat them often in the coming months.

Also acknowledge they're customizable and you could easily use another kind of sauce, or different veggies, or some meat instead of tofu. Play around until you find your favourite flavour combination.