Hey guys, happy Friday! Welcome back to our Vegan Cookbook Challenge, where I attempt to cook through all of Angela Liddon’s Oh She Glows Everyday. Angela’s cookbook, which is all vegan/plant-based and mostly gluten-free is such a creative collection of recipes that are all super approachable for any kind of cook. If your new year’s resolution is to eat a little bit healthier, I urge you to pick up a copy of this cookbook! All of her dishes have a ton of flavor and are really easy to pull together. And they’re healthy. What could be better than that?
The recipes I made this week are a continuation of the recipes I made in the last two Vegan Cookbook Challenge posts – full of clean flavors, fresh veggies, and altogether food that makes you feel good on the inside and out.
I am a huge fan of savory peanut sauces. I probably make a peanut sauce once a week to have with noodles or with brown rice and steamed veggies – it has the ability to turn some pretty bland, basic food into a meal bursting with flavor. When I saw that Angela’s recipe called for almond butter instead of peanut butter, I toyed with the idea of picking up some almond butter at the grocery store. I really did. I’m confident that her almond butter sauce is delicious but I knew that I wouldn’t enjoy it as much as I enjoy peanut sauces so I used peanut butter in mine instead. So sue me. I stuck with her other ingredients and in the end it tasted delicious – a touch sour from the lime juice, and a kick from the fresh ginger. I added a touch of sesame oil to the sauce because I had it in my fridge and I couldn’t NOT use it, you know?! My peanut sauce recipe usually has vinegar in it to give it more of a tanginess, and I think I prefer that, but in the end Angela’s sauce recipe is quite delicious too. You really can’t go wrong with nut butter, ginger, and lime juice.
This salad was the whole reason why I made the peanut sauce in the first place! Like I said, I usually use peanut sauces in warm meals like pasta and rice, but I never really use it as a salad dressing. Well, that’s all going to change now! Now, just a disclaimer: I was really hungry and racing daylight hours (screw you, winter in New England! You get dark at like 3pm!) so my photo doesn’t really do this meal justice. But trust me when I say that it is goooood. I’ve been loving romaine in salads -it is so fresh and crunchy and hydrating! This salad also has red bell pepper, green onions, slivered carrots, roasted tamari almonds, and some cast-iron tofu. It has so many flavors and textures and when drenched in the peanut sauce it is addicting! Like I said a couple weeks ago, red bell peppers aren’t my favorite veggie, but when chopped nice and small, and with a lot of other flavors, I’m actually growing to like them. I think that if you eat something enough times, and in delicious, flavor-packed dishes, you can convince your body to like something you haven’t really liked before and red bell peppers are at the top of that list for me right now!
You know how I said that I try to convince my body that it likes certain foods? Garlic has been a huge one for me. Only recently did I realize that it isn’t just a taste thing – my stomach tends to hurt when I use a lot of fresh garlic! I still use garlic powder pretty regularly, and I’ll use fresh garlic when building flavor in soup, but other than that I tend to steer clear from it. When I saw Angela’s recipe for a roasted garlic and sun-dried tomato hummus, I knew I wanted to try it because I’ve heard for a while that roasted garlic is a lot easier on people’s stomachs. I actually loved roasting the garlic and squeezing the garlic out of the head! I love sun-dried tomatoes and hummus so I definitely do enjoy this recipe, but I’m still on the fence about the garlic flavor. It’s definitely milder than un-roasted garlic, and it does give the hummus a nice creaminess, but I think I prefer simpler hummuses like this recipe from two weeks ago. I’ll still definitely eat this, but probably in a sandwich with other veggies and other flavors.
Love, Brenna
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