Plant-based Fresh and Foraged Recipes
I adore beets! Red, purple, yellow, these stunning roots are always welcome on my table. Whether we’re making beets into sweets, replacing meats with beets, or serving up app-beet-tizers, beets are a treat that just can’t be beat. Moving past the puns for a moment (they can …
This vegan beet salad combines the sweetness of beets, a touch of sour, a tease of spice and an oceany taste. It made me think of a cool day at the beach, a slight wind tugging at your jacket (there’s nothing quite like a winter beach in New England), your red nose breathing in cold, salty, ocean air. And let me just say, I know beets and cold beach are not necessarily the most obvious connection- beets are dark red, vibrant and warm. The winter beach tends to be made up of muted colors, and the biting frosty winds seem to have little in common with the earthy warmth of the beet. But just a few bites of this salad will tell you right away how connected they are- cool, crisp and fresh, when I close my eyes I almost fell as if I’ve been transported to the salty, windy seaside.
When I think of Valentines day, I think of sugary pink hearts, stuffed teddy bears, roses and of course tons of chocolate. Dark, sweet, melting, sugar filled chocolates. Maybe with a creamy hazelnut center. I’ve always preferred savory foods to sweet, so I decided to flip a classic truffle on it’s head and try something new for Valentine’s day- chocolate pasta with hazelnut chili sauce. This dish brings in bright dashes of lime, bitter, dark and earthy notes of cocoa, aromatic cilantro, and spicy bits of chili. It’s all carried together with a light, creamy hazelnut sauce.
Well, the title already gave away almost half the recipe, but I still have 3 more ingredients to share with you for these delicious 5-ingredeint vegan banana peanut butter cookies. And a whole lot more to write before I get to those three ingredients. If you’re not interested in learning more about how I got to this recipe, you can click on the link for a print-friendly version to get straight to the baking- if not, follow me in an adventure of laziness, cookies and non-human primates.
Yum woon sen is a classic Thai dish- a quick noodle salad, traditionally made with bean thread noodles (also called glass noodles) and tossed with other ingredients in a fairly simple sauce. The sauce is salty, a little sweet and spicy. but primarily sour from the fresh lime juice- like all Thai food it puts everyone of your taste buds to work. I made this recipe for the first time when I was pondering the best recipe to try with my new spiralizer I had been given for Christmas (thanks Lurena!). I was actually looking at some turnips I had when a memory hit me- thin noodles, bright sauce, cold, snappy vegetables and rich, nutty peanuts. I spiralized my turnips, whipped up a salad and it was delicious. There was only one thing I wanted to improve- the turnips. Turnips have a slightly sweet and earthy flavor but they weren’t as well suited to this dish as their cousin, the radish, was. The second time I switched out the turnip for the radish, and I was 100% sold.
I grew up eating spaghetti with tomato sauce, but (since I didn’t eat meat) the concept of meatballs was foreign to me. It was never something I knew, so it was never something I missed. Recently, however, for some reason I don’t quite understand I got it in my head to make a vegan meatball recipe. I decided to use beets in this recipe, primarily because of their beautiful color, but also I love their soft, sweet flavor. I didn’t try to make this taste like meat (again, I’m not really sure what meatballs taste like), but I wanted them to have the following qualities-
Flavorful
Chewy
Filling
Beautiful Color
This vegan French onion dip is light, creamy and, most importantly, tastes like onions. When I was younger on vacation, we would always get a package of French onion dip to have around as a snack, and I loved it! In reality, I think that dip was sour cream mixed with onion powder and salt, but I thought it was the best thing ever. I’ve been wanting to snack a lot more than usual lately, so I decided to try and replicate that childhood nostalgia into a healthier, vegan version.
Cheesy, salty, crunchy, chewy on the inside- and decidedly recipe-worthy.
Homemade floral crown daisy (chrysanthemum greens) noodles in spicy, nutty almond butter sauce.
There’s something so incredibly satisfying about the combination of rice and beans- add cabbage to the mix and your body is left feeling nourished and loved. These lazy vegan cabbage rolls take advantage of that combination, while giving you a break from any of the …