Guest Blogger: Create Mindfully – Tofu Spring Rolls with Peanut Dipping Sauce

Put your hands together for our newest Vegan Bloggers Unite! member – Willow Moon. Willow is the author of Create Mindfully. I enjoy the variety she blogs about from vegan recipes (sometimes gluten free too!), to DIY projects, and thoughts on the vegan lifestyle as a whole.

Here she is in her own words, “Hi my name is Willow Moon. I am glad to be a part of a community of like minded people! I started my website about three weeks ago. Create Mindfully is a blog about living naturally, healing and thriving. I share posts about creating abundance, losing weight naturally, and releasing blockages and pain with tapping. I write reviews on natural beauty and food products, as well as books on healing and self development. I share vegan, gluten free and some raw recipes that are simple and easy to make. I also sell original artwork on apparel, phone and tablet cases, mugs, canvases, posters and more.”

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Have you ever gone to a Thai restaurant and ordered their delicious spring roll appetizers with peanut or sweet chili dipping sauce?

They are one of my favorites things to start a meal with. The spring rolls you get at a restaurant usually have carrots, cabbage, tofu (if you’re lucky) and transparent rice noodles. The transparent rice noodles are made from starch, and so is the rice wrapper. With the rice wrapper and the rice noodles, that’s a lot of carbs! If they come with the sweet chili sauce, and you like a lot of sauce, like me, that’s a bunch of sugar! Even though I love them, I don’t love the carbs and the sugar. When I’m at home I will eat the spring rolls as a meal, but I like to change it up, adding more protein and less carbs. I use brown rice spring roll wrappers instead of white. Here is my healthier version of Thai restaurant spring rolls.

Serves 2-4
Peanut Dipping Sauce
Ingredients (organic when available)
You may want to double this if you like a lot of sauce like me!

• 2 tablespoons creamy peanut butter
• 1 tablespoon Thai Kitchen red curry paste (or your favorite curry paste)
• ½ cup Lite coconut milk
• 2 teaspoons low sodium tamari (or to taste)
• 1 tablespoon brown rice syrup

Instructions

1. Mix all ingredients with a whisk or fork until blended.

 
Spring Rolls
Ingredients (organic when available)

• 4 brown rice paper wraps
• 1 cup spinach
• 4 tablespoons mint
• 4 tablespoons cilantro
• 14 oz sprouted tofu (4-6 tablespoons per spring roll)
• coconut spray oil
• 2 cups of water to soak the wrappers

Instructions

1. Remove water from tofu and slice into squares. I like to turn the tofu so that it is standing up, then I slice it into thirds. Then I lay it flat and slice into fourths. This way you have 12 tofu squares, which is easier to flip on the frying pan.
2. Spray frying pan with coconut spray oil and fry tofu until golden brown. Set aside.
3. Heat 2 cups of water in microwave.
4. After water is heated, put the water in a large enough container to hold the brown rice paper wraps.
5. Dip one of the wraps in the water, turning until it is pliable.
6. Put the wrap flat on a plate and fill with ¼ each of the above amounts of the cilantro, mint, spinach, and tofu.
7. Roll like you would a burrito.
8. Repeat with each wrapper.
9. Serve Peanut Dipping Sauce.