If you already can cook a bit, then transitioning dishes over to plant based is easy. Here are some tips to get you going.
Recipes
There are a number of reasons I'd like to live on a commune. The main one is that I like celery, but I never want 20 stalks of it. I find a whole head of celery a bit oppressive. When I go to the supermarket and buy veggies, I usually pick the biggest one to get good value. With celery, though, I pick the smallest one, because I usually only want to use 2 stalks of it in a recipe and then don't know what to do with the rest. So until I live on a commune where I can share celery with people, and (mint and coriander for that matter, who wants a massive bunch of it) this soup will have to solve my problem. So enjoy! It's delicious, healthy, and uses up a shipload of celery.
I love potato and eggplant curries, so working on this to add to my regular dishes. Another work in progress. Restaurants often fry the eggplant and potato before putting it in the curry. A bit of a mission to get anything as tasty oil free.
As someone once said to me, the good shepherd doesn't eat their sheep!
This is an attempt to make a decent, healthy curry from scratch. I asked Gemini AI for a recipe that was high in calcium and protein. Then a few tweaks, such as adding sweet potato, and here it is.
Chilli time! This is another Whole Foods plant-based recipe, so no oil but you can add it to fry the onions if you wish. Personally, I'll get healthy oils by adding some delicious guacamole on top. Finish with a squeeze of fresh lime juice and freshly chopped coriander. Serve as is, in wraps, on baked potato, over brown rice, with guacamole, or alongside a simple green salad.
What's the healthiest kind of soup you can make? This recipe is a result of asking that question, looking to add a new regular dish to my roster of regulars. This recipe focuses on being high in plant-based calcium. Broccoli is high in calcium. White beans have more calcium than other beans. Unhulled tahini is a source of calcium as well. Lots of other good things in the soup as well. Note there is no additional oil or salt in this recipe. Unhulled tahini has oil in it, and the stock powder I used has salt in it. That said, if you really need more salt and oil feel free to use them, or on the other side use a salt free stock.
A great variation on lasagne, works pretty much every time so long as you get a decent bit of pumpkin. Note you can skip the bechamel and just use vegan cheese, which means you'll be eating a little quicker but I think the bechamel makes it better.
It's easy to make delicious things using oil, sugar, refined grains, and by frying everything. Eating that all the time though, isn't good for us. I once went to a pizza party where a person who worked in a restaurant specialising in pizza brought dough for everyone. It was delicious, but I was shocked that the dough was swimming in oil. If you want to eat more homemade pizza, then it's a good idea to make it healthier. This recipe tries to balance healthiness and the pleasures of the palate by blending white and wholemeal flour and minimising the less healthy stuff. This recipe assumes you are making two medium/large-sized pizzas, depending on how thin you roll them.
A decent and quick scrambled tofu recipe is essential for every cook. This one ups the creaminess, healthiness and protein by adding blended cannellini beans. Beautiful and filling, serve alongside some toasted bread, baked cherry tomatoes and mushrooms. Some sliced veggie sausages or toasted pine nuts wouldn't go astray either. You'll note there are a lot of substitutions and optionals here. That's because once you have the basics of the scrambled tofu and give it a little flavour, whatever else you add is up to you.
Tempeh (or Tempe) is an Indonesian food, made from soy beans that we should all probably be eating more of. Cooked in a satay sauce, this dish is as tasty as it is healthy.
Books
This was the first cookbook that I really got into after I became vegan. It doesn't rely on mockmeats, the recipes are not too easy (ie aimed at someone who doesn't know how to make toast), but not too hard (someone who wants to spend all day in the kitchen)...