Recipe Round-Up: Food52 Vegan

Another new entry into my Recipe Round-Up rotation! Food52 Vegan by Gena Hamshaw is a lovely book of 60 healthy but tasty recipes. The book has a photo for every recipe, which I know is important for some, so you can definitely picture what you will be ending up with!

Muesli: This is a simple, sweet, overnight oats recipe. The full recipe makes four servings, I made a generous quarter of the recipe (probably closer to a third) to get my breakfast, served with fruit. I used raisins, cashews, pumpkin seeds and chia seeds, which made this a filling way to start the day.
Rating: :)



Green Smoothie with Avocado: I love avocado, but I am suspicious of it in smoothies. Sometimes I find that it just doesn't suit me. Happily, this recipe uses just enough avocado to give a good boost of healthy fats, but not enough to give it that weird blended avocado smoothie taste. It also has frozen bananas and frozen mango in it, making it extra thick and cold and creamy, just the way I like my smoothies! There is a touch of vanilla extract in it, which was nice.
Rating: :)



Parsnip (and Carrot) Fries with Spicy Harissa Mayonnaise: This was great! The recipe was meant to be all parsnips, but I ran out so I added some carrots as well. My oven has roast and bake features, so I gave them 20 minutes at 230dC on the roast, then again on the bake to get them at least a little crispy (the recipe said only 25 minutes all up, but they were not crisping). The mayo, which is based on cashews, is thick, creamy and delicious! I used a little bit of a very mild harissa paste that I had made from another cookbook, and added the teeniest amount to give just a very mild heat, and I left out the cayenne all together.
Rating: :D



Creamy Tomato Soup: I made a 1/2 recipe of this, which gave my one serve (with some grilled cheese on the side). The creaminess comes from a mix of cashews and non-dairy milk (I used oat milk), and I also left out the red pepper flake. Because I was making a half batch, I used a golden shallot instead of an onion as it was smaller.
Rating: :)



Sweet Potato and Peanut Stew with Kale: I feel like peanut butter, tomatoes, and sweet potatoes make for a pretty great soup base. This soup also has loads of kale (obviously), but also some red lentils to help thicken and bulk it up. I used the tinned tomato option for this, rather than fresh tomatoes. I got about 3.5 serves from this.
Rating: :)



Heirloom Tomato and Golden Beet Panzanella: This one time, I chanced upon some golden beetroot. They are super hard to find here! And I was excited, so I made this recipe. It was just me eating, so I scaled it down to a half recipe for one serve (though I used slightly less bread that required). This was a great salad, though I felt like maybe there was a bit too much tomato in the balance of flavours.
Rating: :)



Butternut Squash Mac and Cheese: Of course I make the mac and cheese! This recipe had a lovely sweet flavour from the butternut, but I think it could have been cheesier. I like things cheesy. I decreased the amount of pasta from 450g to 250g, and increased the broccoli from 2 cups to 4 cups, and I used panko for the dry breadcrumbs to top it with. Served over spinach, and with a vegan BBQ sausage on the side. This recipe said it would serve 6-8, and with the full amount of pasta it would, but my changes made for four serves.
Rating: :)





Kabocha Squash and Tofu Curry: A simple curry, based on red curry paste. Though of course I cut down on the red curry paste from 3TBs to a dessert spoon scoop. Apparently I accidentally doubled the sugar in the recipe, making it a bit sweet, but it was still good. I only had 350g of kabocha, so I made up the extra 100g with carrots, and I added some peas rather than capsicum. I also mixed some coriander through, instead of just using it for garnish, as I had a bunch that I needed to use up. Served over some baby spinach and brown basmati rice.
Rating: :)



Eggplant Tagine with Millet and Preserved Lemon: This was quite remarkable! At the end of cooking, the tagine has the most wonderful savoury and saucy broth, that is great soaked up by the millet. It has a mix of eggplant, chickpeas, and olives... also capsicum, but I used peas instead, and I added some coriander. I used some preserved lemon that I had made a while ago from another book and had stored in my freezer.
Rating: :D



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



This sweet ginger boy made himself a cave while waiting for his dad to come and pick him up.