The most delicious planet-friendly, vegan recipes from leading plant-based chefs and innovators 

From Nil Zacharias, the cofounder of multiple online platforms focused on the plant-based food space, and Forks Over Knives author Gene Stone, Eat for the Planet Cookbook is a delicious, informative guide to eating vegan—featuring 75 recipes from some of the world’s greatest plant-based chefs, businesses, and influencers. These contributors range from vegan chefs and influencers such as Fran Costigan and Derek Sarno, brands like Beyond Meat and Ripple Foods, and innovative plant-based restaurants such as Veggie Grill, Next Level Burger, and The Stanford Inn. With this exceptional collection of go-to recipes and insight from some of the most influential voices in the vegan world, Eat for the Planet Cookbook is an essential guide to eating responsibly and eating well.

Review

This is a great cookbook if you are a Vegan or Vegetarian or just want to eat more whole foods in your diet.  I always enjoy trying new recipes and so am always thrilled to receive new cookbooks from Abrams Books to try out on friends and family.    My husband is pretty picky but there are many side dishes in this cookbook that I could add to our nightly dinner and he would be none the wiser that it is vegan!

We attended a dinner party over the weekend and I was in charge of an appetizer and salad.  I was up for the challenge so pulled out this cookbook and decided on a few recipes to try.  There are other bloggers that are part of Abrams Dinner Party and several had tried the Baked Artichoke Bites.  I happened to have a can of artichoke hearts in the pantry and most of the other items so this was going to be my appetizer.  There are three different dips that it recommends serving with the bites.  I forgot to pick up a few items for the Spicy Avocado Crema dip so I decided to make the Avocado Aioli as the dip to serve alongside the bites.  Both items were a hit.  In fact, pork tenderloin was the main course and I used the aioli with the pork…delicious!

The artichoke bites are not hard to make and I have determined I need to find a better food processor since it took a while to chop up the artichoke pieces.  I might have done better chopping it up with my knife and stirring everything together in a bowl.  But I digress.  I realized I didn’t have all of the seasonings in my pantry but I don’t think that affected the recipe.  I found a copycat Old Bay seasoning recipe and made that up to add to the bites.  I didn’t have celery salt (really thought I did but I couldn’t find it!) or the nori or dulse flakes.  But even without those few things, I thought these were delicious and everyone at the dinner agreed.  These are definitely best served hot but I think they would reheat easily, probably best in a toaster oven versus a microwave.  Here are the bites with the aioli sauce.

The Avocado Aioli is super easy to make and I have so much I’ll be using it on sandwiches and so much more.  I didn’t use vegan mayo and should have added in more cilantro, but I still plan to use this for many things.  The photo has the recipe but I’ll share it at the end as well.  The bowl of aioli in the picture is what I made and not a part of the cookbook.

For the salad, I chose the Thai Slaw.  The book mentions that it resembles the flavors of a banh mi sandwich.  I’m not sure about that but I do know that it was delicious.  My only comment is that there was too much dressing by the time it came to serve it at the dinner.  I do not like my salads drowning in dressing and looking back I would have cut the ingredients in half.  I know when I first mixed up the dressing items it was very thick and I wondered how it would coat the ingredients especially when the directions say to “pour the dressing over the salad”.  It was not pourable!  Well, it “melted” nicely and there was more than enough for the salad.  I even added more shredded carrots and the whole cucumber.  When I transferred it to a smaller container when we got home, I used a slotted spoon to reduce the amount of the dressing that went into the new container.  Either way, this was delicious and I would make this again for another event.

Recipe

Avocado Aioli

Ingredients

1 large avocado, pitted and peeled (I used 2 because I love avocado!)

1 clove garlic, peeled

1T fresh lemon juice

1/4 C mayo (vegan or otherwise)

salt and ground pepper to taste

small bunch of cilantro or parsley, coarsely chopped (optional)

In a food processor, combine all of the ingredients and process until smooth.  Store in a tightly sealed container until needed.  This is best if used on the day it is made.

Makes about 1 cup (unless you use more avocado like me and it made more like 2 cups)