This one is for the runners, the gym bunnies, the climbing nuts. A delicious, milkshakey chocolate smoothie with a whopping 29 grams of protein to power your workout.
Powering your workouts with plants
So you want to power your workouts with plants, but conventional wisdom (i.e. the guy at the gym) is telling you that you need way more protein than you’re already getting, and that protein == meat (or dairy, or egg whites). This is far from the full picture. Muscles are made of protein Muscles are made up of water, protein, …
How to make your own nut butter
Growing up, peanut butter was a sandwich standard (of course) and I only encountered other ‘nut butters’ as an adult. Almond butter could be found in the health food aisle as an expensive alternative to peanut butter, and later we could find cashew butter and macadamia butter. Nut butters are a convenient and delicious way to get a good dose of healthy fats, and protein, …
13 ways to eat more beans
I’ve talked about how important it is to eat beans (or other legumes) every day: they’re a super important source of protein, fibre, iron and many other good things. But when we’re not used to the idea of eating beans regularly, our imagination might not stretch much further than emptying a can of beans into a bowl. We forget that there are hundreds of …
Easy Pesto with Beans
Pesto fans, rejoice! Here’s an easy blender-friendly recipe! It’s vegan, but packed with flavour and a cheesy tang. It’s quick and easy, and you can use whatever fresh herbs you have on hand: I used parsley, basil and coriander. No cheese necessary, because nutritional yeast packs a cheesy flavour punch.
Fun facts about nuts & seeds
You know how health blogs always harp on about the benefits of nuts and seeds? Well this one is no exception. Indeed, plenty of nutritional studies (including rigorous interventional trials) have found that regular consumption of nuts and seeds significantly reduces the risk of lifestyle diseases and premature death overall. And despite their high calorie-density, they are causally linked to …
Who gets to use the word ‘meat’?
I saw a comment on a social media thread recently where someone expressed confusion at the term ‘vegan meat’—as though it was an oxymoron. He’s not an outlier: probably most people around the world refer to meat as animal flesh. But it’s not the only meaning for the word, as you’ll see. And it’s definitely not the only word that’s …
Tofu Scramble
You could fool many an egg-lover with a couple blocks of tofu, a some turmeric, and kala namak (black salt from volcanic rock, with a sulphurous taste). I’ve made variations of this scramble so many times over the years, for vegans and meat-eaters alike, and it’s always a hit. Depending on the type of tofu you use and what you add to it, you can really get a very eggy scramble going: but without the cholesterol and saturated fat.
Protein intake on a plant-based diet
“Where do you get your protein?” is of course one of the most-asked questions about a plant-based diet—largely thanks to the meat industry that for decades has sold us the message that we must eat animals to get the protein we need. (Also thanks to the more recent hype around high-protein diets—which are poorly supported by scientific research.) While the term ‘complete protein’ …
Lentil Soup
I grew up eating lentils so often, they were a staple in our home. My mom’s Mauritian upbringing meant that lentils were always available to be served alongside a curry with rice, and my dad was always a big fan of a big bowl of lentil soup—and now, so am I.
Quinoa Banana Muffins
I tried out a variation on vegan banana bread that is gluten-free and sugar-free, using quinoa flour as a one-to-one substitute for wheat flour. And it’s wonderful! I used the quinoa flour from Woolworths, but you can also just buy quinoa and process it into a flour using a food processor or Nutribullet. This flour is a fantastic option for gluten-free baking, since it’s much more nutrient-dense than other gluten-free flour blends that use potato starch and other low-protein flours.
Savoury Chickpea Pancakes
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.
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!
Falafel
If there’s one legume I could eat every single day, it’s chickpeas. They’re incredibly versatile: sprout them to eat in a salad; grind them into a flour to make savoury pancakes, cook them to make hummus, or soak them to make falafel. Amazing little things, and true superfoods (they’re high in protein, fibre, iron and other minerals).
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.
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.