Lettuce Wrapped

Me and carbohydrates go way back. Some of my favourite foods growing up were carb-rich pasta dishes and all things potato, and I unsurprisingly gained a lot of weight.

One of my main nutrition goals for this year is to cut down on the amount of carbohydrates I eat - I steer clear of high-processed foods like white bread and white rice, but I do sometimes struggle to not overindulge, even on wholemeal products.

The other day when pondering what to have for dinner I was really craving something spicy, but I'd already decided to use some sweet potatoes for dinner and I really didn't want my plate to be about 75% carbohydrates. Something I've seen quite recently is the rise in using lettuce to replace bread (case in point, this Buzzfeed article) and I really wanted to try it for myself, so I thought 'why not': let's try fajita lettuce wraps.

Fajita Lettuce Wraps with Sweet Potato Fries

Time to make: 20 minutes

Calories per portion: 275

Cost per portion: £3.31

Portions of your 5 a day: 2-3

You will need:

• 1 Small sweet potato, cut into wedges
• 1/2 Onion, finely diced
• 1/2 Bell pepper, cut into strips
• 200g Kidney beans
• 200g Tinned tomatoes
• 1/2 pack Quorn fajita strips
• 2 tsp Chilli powder
• 1 tsp Cayenne pepper
• 2-3 tsp Paprika
• 1 tsp Coriander
• 1 tsp Lime juice
• Salt/Pepper, to taste
• 2-3 Lettuce leaves

Preheat your oven to 200 degrees C. Place your sweet potato wedges evenly on a baking tray and drizzle with olive oil before dusting with 1-2 teaspoons of paprika (you can of course cook them with salt or with rosemary, whatever you fancy!) and placing in the oven. Bake for 10 minutes before turning to prevent burning on one side, then place back in the oven.

 Heat the onion in a frying pan until lightly golden, before adding the bell peppers and half of your spices to lightly toast for 2-3 minutes (this is particularly key if you are adding cumin to your recipe, which I sometimes do, as it diminishes some of the bitterness in the seeds). Drain and add the kidney beans and tinned tomatoes, and allow to simmer for about 5 minutes before stirring in the fajita strips, coriander and the rest of the spices.

As your fajita mix begins to reduce, check on your sweet potato wedges - at this point it is totally up to your own personal preference as to when to take them out of the oven. I prefer my wedges soft to crunchy, so I removed mine almost as soon as I had stirred in the faijta strips and left them on the side to cool, but if you prefer yours a little bit more well-done then keep them in for longer. When your fajita mix is at the desired consistency (again, this is down to personal preference), take off the heat.

Arrange on a plate two to three lettuce leaves (I used romaine and sweet gem lettuce) in a bowl shape and dish up your fajita mix and sweet potato fries. Squeeze over some lime juice and some salsa if you'd like and you're ready to eat!

Despite normally having these in a tortilla wrap I found I really didn't miss the extra carbohydrates and the lettuce leaves kept everything together remarkably well - as a simple midweek meal this was just so quick to make and I had enough for lunch the next morning.