Make vegan treats with mainstream ingredients
Plant-based dishes from The First Mess Cookbook showcase accessible ingredients
“I start with the enjoyment of food and work out from there,” southern Ontariobased writer and photographer Laura Wright says.
Her streamlined, stylish and seasonal approach to vegan food on her blog, thefirstmess.com, has garnered a devoted readership — not to mention 185,000 followers on Instagram.
In her debut volume, The First Mess Cookbook, Wright shares more than 125 plant-based recipes.
Rather than focusing on restrictions, she says, pleasure and appetite are always front-of-mind. Elegant yet approachable, Wright’s recipes just happen to be free of animal products. Dishes are homey and substantial, and showcase accessible ingredients.
“I want (people) to look through the book and think, ‘I have all of those things already,’ ” she says. “Plantbased cuisine can just be part of what you’re already doing. It shouldn’t feel so ‘other.’”
Although she loves vegetables such as kohlrabi and ramps, she stuck to more mainstream ingredients in the book. Olive oil is her “main cooking oil of choice.” Whole grains and pulses (farro, lentils), flours (spelt, chickpea), sweeteners (maple syrup, medjool dates), “flavour savers” (miso, herbs and spices), and produce (Swiss chard, eggplant) are all widely available.
“(I love it) when someone who is an omnivore emails me through my site and they’ll say, ‘We eat meat, we eat cheese but we made this recipe of yours and my kids had seconds,’ ” she says. “Just those simple observations that are very real-life moments, that is so gratifying to me.” Recipes excerpted from
The First Mess Cookbook: Vibrant Plant-Based Recipes to Eat Well Through the Seasons. Published by Penguin.