When I was thoroughly into my “veganising everything” phase, one of the holy grails of vegan cuisine that I was trying to crack, was a vegan ‘omelette’. As you can imagine, there are a bunch of recipes online and I tried a few: some were cool, some not so much, but all were a bit complex with a long list of ingredients. So when I realised that the most important ingredient of a vegan omelette is chickpea flour (besan), and that there’s actually a very old Indian tradition of savoury pancakes made with besan, I was like, damn—that’s all I need.
Loaded Sweet Potatoes
When it comes to weeknight dinners, it doesn’t get much easier than this: just pop a sweet potato in the oven (or microwave), sauté some beans with onion and spices, and load up those spuds. You can pretty much use whatever you have on hand, but beans are great (for protein and iron), some spice for flavour, guac and vegan cheese for richness, and a sauce or condiment for freshness.
Fudgy Black Bean Brownies
I love a fudgy brownie. It’s brownie, not chocolate cake. I even like it slightly undercooked to up the fudge-factor. The great thing about a vegan recipe is that there’s zero risk of food poisoning from uncooked eggs!
Meaty Vegan Bolognese
If you’re the type who loves (or used to love) meat for its rich flavour and texture, this is for you. That’s the thing: usually, when people switch over to plant-based foods, the foods they miss the most have strong flavours and textures. So the challenge is to reintroduce those elements to your plant-based cooking.
Roast Butternut Soup
I had a couple of butternut squash that I’d bought pre-lockdown and almost forgot about them: a couple of months later and they were still sitting there, waiting to be turned into something tasty. I can’t believe how long those things last! Talk about pandemic survival foods, squash is where it’s at.
Homemade Gluten-Free Flour Blend
No more overpriced store-bought gluten-free flour blends for me! This blend is super easy to make at home if you can get hold of the ingredients. I got mine from Atlas Trading Co. in Cape Town, but do a little online research to see where you can get the ingredients in your area.
Homemade Oat Milk
One of the most exciting DIY foodie discoveries I’ve made in the last year. I can’t believe it took me this long to try it out. It’s tasty. Creamy. Great with coffee. Quick and easy. Cheap. Zero waste.
Classic Tomato Soup
I’m so into soups right now. Butternut soup, mixed veg soup, lentil soup, tomato soup… They’re easy, pretty quick, and they warm your soul.
Save money on your grocery bill
A lot of people think that plant-based eating is expensive. Makes sense, with companies (big and small) doing their very best to market their products to a fast-growing target audience. So you’ll see all kinds of vegan products advertised, from vegan cheeses and burgers to imported superfoods and nutritional supplements. What’s less visible, though, is the simple whole foods that …
Mixed Seed Crackers
When it comes to crackers and other carriers for avo or hummus, there are options in the supermarkets, but they’re often either not vegan-friendly, or very processed, or very expensive. So in that context, these seed crackers are a blessing: they’re really (really!) easy to make, very nutritious (high protein, good fats—but go easy on them), and easily adaptable to use different seeds and spices.
Piña Colada Smoothie
Smoothies have become a regular feature in my daily meals when the weather’s warmer, I like making one in the late morning (I’m a coffee-no-breakfast kind of person). I always keep frozen banana chunks in my freezer, and often other fruit, too. When pineapples are in season, I’ll buy a couple, chop one up and freeze it for smoothies. The rest are all easily available pantry items that keep for months.
Avocado Spinach Pasta
I had some beautifully ripe avocados on hand, some Swiss chard sitting in the fridge from a week ago (but still fresh because I had the foresight to de-stem, clean and pack them into airtight bags!) and some limes. Obviously, the answer was creamy avocado spinach pasta!
Red Lentil Curry
I grew up eating black lentils all the time, but I only really discovered red lentils as an adult. And I love them. They’re beautiful, nutritious, easy to cook, and cheap. While most legumes (especially beans) are best soaked overnight before cooking, these guys don’t need any of that forethought that organised people have. Especially split red lentils (same thing, but each bean is in two halves): their cooking time is way shorter than whole red lentils. It’s a wonderful thing for busy (or lazy) people.
Homemade Soy Yoghurt
Yoghurt wasn’t something I missed that much when I stopped eating dairy: I had enjoyed it, but it definitely wasn’t a daily feature. As a result, I never made much of an effort to recreate the yoghurt experience—that is until recently, when I found vegan yoghurt in the supermarket and realised I could make my own using the store-bought one as a starter. Before then, to make strictly-vegan yoghurt, I’d have had to find a probiotic supplement—and honestly, since I don’t use probiotics, they’re expensive, and I don’t desperately need yoghurt in my life, I couldn’t be bothered.
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