Cookbook Review

The wonderful folks over at Ben Bella Books have gifted me with three books to review for you this summer!  Each one will involve a chance to win your very own copy too!  For now, though, I need to tell you about Plant Pure Nation.  The movie, the book, and that I loved it so much, I’ve pretty much destroyed it…..

Much in the same vein as one of my favorite veggie movies – Vegucated (seriously….watch it if you can.  Funny, poignant, and available online too!) – Plant Pure Nation is a documentary that is being screened all over the US.  It’s not yet available for sale, and I am hoping that it hits my area of the East Coast soon!  What’s even more fun, is they have published a companion book and that’s what I’m here to tell you about!

Over the past month, I’ve made about 20 of the recipes in here, and have yet to be disappointed.  True, I had a mini-explosion with the Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread, but we can talk about that later!

Written by Kim Campbell, with a forward by her famous father-in-law and co-author of one of my favorite books, The China Study, I found Plant Pure Nation to be one of my favorites from this family so far.  The recipes are very flavorful, but also incredibly healthy.  I for one, love to eat healthy, but don’t like to sacrifice flavor.  Life is too short to eat boring food!

Food Porn and Recipe!

Here are some of the few dishes I’ve made, as well as a recipe to share!

Who doesn’t love a good blueberry muffin?  The kids had friends over when these came out of the oven, so they didn’t last long at all!

Another breakfast dish were the pancakes, which were wonderful.  It’s nice to find a fluffy pancake recipe, and served with a little marmalade, they were fantastic.

One of my favorites, by far, is the Southwestern Bean Salad.  Plain, on tacos, or on salad, I ate this for days.

The Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread is the only recipe that gave me any trouble.  It blew up slightly, and was a little under cooked in the end.  Easy enough to fix by either using a bigger pan or not letting it raise the entire time.  Cleaning my oven after baking wasn’t too much run, so while a delicious bread, I’ll have to play with it a bit to perfect it.

And finally, a recipe I get to share!  It was delicious both warm and cold, and I used the leftovers as a spread for wraps.

I give to you…

Warm Spinach – Artichoke Dip!

Ingredients

• 1 onion, diced
• 2 tbsp minced garlic
• 1/3 cup tofu cashew mayonnaise (only sub here for me, since we’re a Nut Free family is I used Just Mayo instead)
• 1 cup canned cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 2 tbsp water
• 1/4 tsp mustard powder
• 2 tbsp nutritional yeast
• 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
• large pinch of ground nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp sea salt
• 1/4 tsp black pepper
• 6 ounces baby spinach, washed and dried
• 14 ounce can/jar of artichoke hearts, drained
• 1/4 cup panko bread crumbs
• 1/2 tsp paprika

Directions

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
• In a skillet over medium-high heat, saute the onion and garlic in a small amount of water until tender.  Set aside.
• In a food processor, blend together the mayo, cannellini beans, lemon juice, water, mustard, nutritional yeast, red pepper flakes, nutmeg, salt, and pepper until smooth and creamy.
• Add spinach and artichokes and pulse 8-10 times; do not puree them.
• Fold the onion and garlic into the tofu mixture.
• Place the mixture into a baking dish and sprinkle with the panko bread crumbs and paprika.
• Bake for 20-30 minutes, or until bread crumbs are browned.

This is a great dish and I’ve already made it several times, both for my family, and for parties.  One hint for parties, is to keep it on low in a small crock pot – works perfectly.

Did Someone Say FREE?

Yes!  As a matter of fact, someone did!  So, if you’d like a chance to win your very own freebie copy of Plant Pure Nation, please just leave a comment below with your name and perhaps some information on why this book sounds appealing to you!

I will leave the contest open until Midnight on August 15th!

Good Luck!