Why being vegan doesn’t mean boring mealtimes

Dutch food blogger Rita Serano has a few bones to pick with people who dismiss veganism

AVETERAN of vegan cooking who has never had a taste for meat, Rita Serano can rattle off a long list of misconceptions she’s heard about vegan food: “That it’s boring, that it doesn’t taste good, that I only eat salads and that it’s hard to do” – to name just a few.

It’s exactly ideas like these that Rita is on a mission to change.

Her new book, Vegan in 7, features recipes that require seven ingredients or fewer, and the pages are far less green than you might imagine; multi-coloured stir-fries, stews and cakes show there’s a lot more to her diet than salad.

The Dutch food blogger and recipe developer splits her time between Amsterdam and the French countryside, where she’s cultivated her vegan pedigree for decades.

“I know vegan food is fashionable at the moment, but for me, it’s really a lifestyle,” she explains.

“Eating this way, for me, is the only way to feel alive and healthy.”

She is buzzing with passion about the impact veganism has had on her.

“I’m nearly 44 and I have so much energy – I’m not sick and I don’t use medicine at all.”

Her enthusiasm for the diet – which contains no animal products of any kind – knows no bounds; she excitedly describes her recipe for salmon lax, with a twist: “It’s not salmon, it’s carrot.”

“If you close your eyes and if it’s cut the right way, really thinly on a little cracker with fresh dill – it really has the same mouth feel, and the same taste,” she explains.

Rita worked as a make-up artist in the Netherlands before swapping foundation for food and setting up her blog.

Now, she has more than 40,000 Instagram followers relying on her vegan tips.

She hopes keeping her recipes to seven ingredients make them as accessible as possible.

“If you go out to a store to buy a book or look at a recipe, sometimes it can be really intimidating,” she admits. “You think, ‘Oh wow, I need this and I need that’.

“But there’s so much variety, not only with seasons but from food all around the world.”

Whether it’s red cabbage ‘steaks’ or nut-filled breakfast tacos, coming up with surprising vegan mixes is something Rita says will never tire of.

“I’m at my best when I’m cooking,” she says with a smile.

“Food is like a little bit of edible love.”

Rita Serano, right, and her new recipe book, Vegan in 7, above Vegan in 7 by Rita Serano is published in paperback by Kyle Books, priced £16.99. Photography by Laura Edwards.