Food

Fettuccine noodles laced with Parmesan and butter have been a fixture in Italian cuisine since 1914. Over the years, this dish became popular in America and increasingly rich with the addition of cream and eggs. Today, there’s a reversal stirring as people search for plant alternatives to rich, creamy dishes without compromising flavor. Enter this dish! The silky-smooth tofu sauce coupled with garlic and cashew cheese is a delicious vegan alternative with the rich essence of traditional alfredo pasta.

Mixed with dairy-free yogurt and berries, this homemade, maple-infused granola makes for a knockout breakfast.

This is a fun way to incorporate dark leafy greens into your meal. It’s a low-fat version of grit cakes that calls for baking the cakes rather than frying them. recipe | Bryant Terry

If you are new to the world of plant-based baking, you may hear the word “aquafaba” and wonder what it’s all about. Aquafaba is that liquid you find canned legumes, most commonly chickpeas, soaking in. It works wonders as an egg substitute in virtually any baked good recipe, especially when you need to create a frothy or foamy yummy substance. This pie has a light and fluffy topping that is perfectly torched, and a rich, tart-yet-sweet filling that is completely addictive. I promise you will come back not only for seconds, but for thirds and fourths! recipe | Doug McNish Author’s tip  Everyone should get a kitchen torch because … using a blowtorch is awesome to create depth of flavor and caramelization in so many dishes.

Perhaps the classiest crowd-pleasing classic that I’ve veganized is this exquisite gooey cheese fondue. It’s perfect for dipping your favorite vegetables, breads, vegan meats, and basically any other edible you could imagine. Make sure you use arborio rice and potatoes, as the starch found in both gives this dish the characteristic texture of traditional gooey cheese fondue. There is something irresistibly fun about dipping and twirling your favorite foods in hot, bubbling lava full of flavor. For a sophisticated experience, serve in a traditional fondue warming dish complete with serving forks. recipe | Doug McNish Ooh la lactic acid!  Vegan lactic acid is great for making vegan cheeses and adding to other nondairy recipes. Most animal-derived bacteria, like the ones found in cheese, give recipes an explosion of flavor in the mouth. Vegan lactic acid does the same thing and makes flavors stand out and pop! Although it is not as easy to find in traditional grocery stores, it is available online and in specialty stores. I highly recommend picking it up and trying it out for yourself.

Confession time: We are both die-hard mushroom haters. Yet somehow, magically, when we mince the mushrooms for this gravy, our aversion to fungi disappears! Whipping up a batch of this gravy will make your entire home smell like Thanksgiving, but you certainly don’t have to wait for the holidays to make it. Goodness, no! We make this gravy year-round to pour over mashed potatoes. recipe | Toni Okamoto & Michelle Cehn

No holiday dinner is complete without stuffing, so we set about perfecting a recipe that we and our loved ones could enjoy year after year. This is it! When baked, it gets a decadent bread pudding texture at the bottom and becomes nice and crispy on top. We love it with mashed potatoes and Mushroom Gravy. We hope this becomes a staple on your holiday dinner table, just as it has at ours. recipe | Toni Okamoto & Michelle Cehn

Holiday nog holds a special place in our hearts. For many, it is the epitome of Christmas and brings back memories of holiday parties through the years. Well, don’t worry, dear friends. Just because you’re avoiding eggs doesn’t mean you have to forgo your favorite holiday drink. Using the magic of cashews and coconut cream, we’ve recreated a holiday nog that is every bit as luscious as the nog you grew up drinking. It’s redolent of the cozy flavors of winter recipe | Toni Okamoto & Michelle Cehn

Salted salad  Toss fresh greens with extra-virgin olive oil and lemon juice, and then finish with a few pinches of Seedy Salt. This flavored salt is also great on avocado toast, tomatoes, and roasted vegetables.

Finding fennel  Fennel pollen can be found at spice shops or ordered online. Fennel Coriander Salt gets used most often in our house on anything from crackers and homemade potato chips to roasted vegetables.

I pod—do you?  So often recipes only call for the vanilla seeds, while the entire pod is edible. You can use spent vanilla pods to get a fragrant salt from something that otherwise may have been destined for the compost pile. Use Vanilla Salt on cakes, cookies, fresh fruit, and my favorite: sliced tomatoes.

Pump up the plants  Use Smoked Lemon Pepper Salt on vegetables and plant-based meats.

Sundae best  This salt is perfect for gift-giving; it looks lovely in a jar. But it’s good for more than just looking pretty. Sprinkle Sweet Cardamom Rose Salt on top of dairy-free ice cream for a sophisticated sundae, then top with a touch of olive oil, or cap sugar cookies with a light dusting. This salt, like all the others, loves popcorn.

Though inspired in name and origin by Japanese Shibuya honey toast, which is a dessert often made with condensed milk or ice cream, this version is much lighter, with ginseng simply added to honey before smearing it on toast, along with any of the optional toppings.

The chameleon of the kitchen, cauliflower transforms into “rice” that, once seasoned and cooked, is remarkably similar to the real thing. It’s a blood sugar-friendly base for this quick yet flavourful Asian-inspired stir-fry. Grate expectations No food processor? Use the largest holes on a box cheese grater to grate each cauliflower floret into small pebble-sized pieces.

Tasting like everyone’s favourite schoolyard sandwich, this hearty porridge will surely find a very special place in your daybreak food-hungry heart. It’s full of blood sugar-regulating soluble fibre, oats, raspberries, and chia seeds that work together to make sure this morning glory hits the nutritional jackpot. Made by grinding up defatted peanuts, peanut butter powder is a great way to infuse oatmeal (and baked goods!) with lower calorie nutty flavour. Reheat leftovers with a couple splashes of additional milk in a small saucepan. The new instant oats  You can settle for soggy instant oatmeal, or you can turn to more satisfying and nutritious steel-cut oats as the backbone for your most important meal of the day. Sounds great, but what about their long cooking time? Soaking your oats overnight is a time-saving hack for yielding porridge with perfect chewy texture in mere moments.

Nachos meet pizza. Pizza meet nachos. All your favourite nacho flavours are piled onto a warm, oversized tortilla, proof that pizza night can play by the nutritional rules. If serving leftovers, leave off ingredients lettuce through cilantro on the portion of pizza you’re not serving immediately, then reheat in oven or a heavy-duty dry skillet until crust is warm. Top with remaining toppings. Flower power  Deep, corny flavoured masa harina is a flour made from nixtamalized corn (corn soaked in limewater) and has a lower glycemic index than white flour used for most pizza crust. Use extra to try making your own taco tortillas. Look for it at Latin grocers and some larger supermarkets.

With the stealth addition of legume-based noodles you can fret less about pasta night when it comes to blood sugar control. Even more so when you beef up the dish with tender-roasted broccoli. A drizzle of nutty-tasting brown butter makes the whole dish seem extra special. From penne to shells, nearly any shaped pasta works here. Wash cycle  For traditional wheat-based pasta varieties, drain well after cooking but do not rinse with water. The rules change with legume-based noodles, including chickpea, which require a post-drain rinse to remove excess starch and reduce clumping.

Kitchari is an Ayurvedic staple and is extremely good for digestion. Split peas, moong dal, lentils … kitchari is made from many types of pulses. Our version includes split peas and rice soaked overnight to make it even more digestible. Coupled with spices, ginger, and greens, it’s a cleansing life-giving meal in a bowl—particularly in this season. Kitchari can also be served as a base for roasted vegetables, providing additional nutritional benefits. Diced roasted butternut squash, cauliflower florets, broccoli, and dark leafy greens such as spinach or kale all offer added nutrients. But stick to adding only one or two additional veggies to keep it simpler on the digestive system to process. The longer you soak split peas, the easier they are to digest.

In this recipe, West meets East. Black lentils, aptly nicknamed “beluga caviar,” given their look, are grown in the west in cool, dry climates. We’ve paired them with a hint of Middle Eastern flavours and served them on a bed of thick lemony yogurt. Warm black lentils meet cool, creamy yogurt. This is a visual sensation that’s delicious served as an appetizer or as a side dish to seafood or chicken. Beluga lentils can be substituted with green or brown lentils if you wish. For added eye appeal, sprinkle with diced red pepper or tomato before serving.