Recipes to Welcome in a New Season

By Megan Grigorian 

In the Global North, fall is almost upon us, and a new school year has begun. The South is anticipating the start of spring when new life bursts forth. All around the world, we're experiencing seasons of renewal. Recently, CreatureKind hosted a LoveFeast wherein we considered ways the Church might renew its thinking about food and food practices. (Check out this link to the LoveFeast service on CreatureKind’s YouTube page. You’ll hear a profound story about renewal and be offered some reflection questions to help consider your own  experience.) The topic got me thinking about meals that highlight the harvest of seasonal vegetables. They remind me that opportunities for renewal come in many forms, many times per year. Hearty root vegetables in the fall, leafy greens in the spring. The satisfaction felt, inside and out, from a flavorful vegetable-forward meal is hard to beat. 

Below are a variety of recipes from plant-based chefs all over the globe that spotlight vegetables. In the spirit of renewal, perhaps you might try one  that features ingredients you haven’t used before or in a while. Enjoy the process. 

Lord, bless our meal, and as You satisfy the needs of each of us, make us mindful of the needs of others. 

-Prayer from Mount St. Mary’s Abbey 

Carrot and Coriander Soup 

Photo from Avant Garde Vegan, by Gaz Oakley 

When I think of my favorite cozy fall meals, I think root vegetables—sweet potatoes, turnips, fennel, ginger, and many more. Carrots are the root-vegetable star of this soup recipe by the Avant Garde Vegan, Gaz Oakley. A divine combination of spices leads to a creamy, flavorful, fresh soup with crispy homemade croutons topping it off to make the perfect bite. (For a simple, bonus carrot recipe, try this combination of orange-braised carrots and parsnips. Never fails.) 

Warm Kale and Artichoke Dip 

Photo from Blissful Basil

Lots of greens are coming into season in the Global South. This Warm Kale and Artichoke Dip by longtime plant-based chef Tal Ronnen is a fun way to incorporate those nutrient-dense vegetables, while still highlighting their inherent, undeniable tastiness. When you prepare this  healthier, flavorful twist on the classic spinach and artichoke dip, consider serving it hot with veggies or some salty crackers. Chef’s kiss. 

Chickpea Potato Curry with Peas 

Photo of Chickpea Potato Curry With Peas by Photographer Vanessa Rees

This list of chef Isa Chandra Moskowitz’s top five simple plant-based recipes has some real gems, but I keep coming back to her Chickpea Potato Curry for an easy weeknight dinner that uses most everything I already keep in my pantry. It’s fast, it’s fresh, it’s comforting, it delivers, and it’s fit for any season

Creamy Vegan Cabbage Pasta 

Photo from The Accidental Chef 

Another leafy green, springtime dish that is oh-so-satisfying is Creamy Vegan Cabbage Pasta. From UK plant-based blogger, The Accidental Chef, the pasta sauce here coats the cabbage, complementing its texture and makes for a filling meal that will have you coming back for seconds every time. 

Vegetable Pot Pie

A list of vegetable-forward meals wouldn’t be complete without a pot pie. This slam-dunk recipe from Ayinde Howell, an American soul food chef who specializes in vegan cuisine, wraps the fresh, delectable veggies in a flaky crust that looks like a dream and feels like a big hug. It’s perfect for a crisp fall night, or one of those chillier spring evenings as winter comes to an end. Take your time with this one to enjoy the prep and the beautiful rainbow of vegetables that go into this pie—that’s the fun of it. 

Blackberry Apple Crumble Cake 

Photo from Great British Chefs 

No vegetables here, but every meal is made better with a little sweetness at the end, and this Blackberry Apple Crumble Cake by Henrietta Inman marries spring and fall together beautifully. The tartness of these two fruits and the sweetness of the cake is just a perfect combination that is both rich and light, rustic and elegant, fresh and filling. This is also a great dessert for our gluten-free friends. 

DefaultVeg Dishes For a Tasty Summer

by Megan Grigorian

If you’re new to DefaultVeg, or just need some help gathering delicious plant-based recipes to bring to your next family or church gathering this Summer, we have you covered. These dishes will please any palate, and no one will be missing the animal products or protein. We’re bringing you flavorful bites, easy for any level of cook, that are solid stand-bys to have in your recipe box for potlucks or dinners at home. If you’re in the Global South, you might want to take a peek here at our cozy, hearty dishes for colder weather. Stay safe and enjoy!

Apricot-Sesame Cauliflower Wings

Photo: Tyler Essary/Today

Cauliflower is a perfect vegetable for delivering the flavors and texture of a crispy wing. Chef Chloe Coscarelli’s recipe brings all the sticky sweet goodness of this traditional US-American snack that will have your guests going for seconds. Check out the full recipe here.

Warm Butter Bean Salad

Photo: VegNews

Bryant Terry creates beautiful, flavorful food, with each recipe in his books so thoughtfully executed. His book “Vegan Soul Kitchen” even pairs the recipes with a song that complements the essence of each dish. It’s a touching collaboration that makes his recipes fun to prepare and share. This salad printed in VegNews from Terry’s latest book “Vegetable Kingdom” is delicious, comforting, and memorable every time.

Pulled Jackfruit BBQ Sliders

Photo: Tasty

Jackfruit is a fruit that is a perfect stand-in for bbq dishes. The texture soaks up any sauce and mimics a bbq sandwich so well--it’s a great meal to serve people who are new to DefaultVeg eating or those who don’t like to eat processed animal meat substitutes. There are many good jackfruit bbq recipes out there, but this is a solid one for beginners that you can tweak based on your personal tastes. Just don’t skip the liquid smoke (which works great for making your own “bacon” out of rice paper as well). Check out the recipe here.

Crockpot Meatballs

Photo: Megan Grigorian

If you’ve been to a church potluck in the Southern or Midwestern United States, there is a good chance you’ve seen or tasted crock-pot meatballs. This dish is so comforting and incredibly easy to make plant-based. Just follow any standard crock-pot meatball recipe. Most call for 10 oz of grape jelly and 12 oz of your favorite bbq sauce or chili sauce, and a bag of meatballs. Gardein, Beyond Meat, Aldi, and other brands have great substitutes. They just need to be thrown into the crock-pot with the rest of the ingredients. Set on low for four hours, top with green onions or chives for color, and you have yourself a delicious appetizer.

Mac n Yease

Photo: Plum Bistro

This version of Mac n Cheese is so yummy and is a signature dish from Minki Howell, a Seattle chef who has built an empire from her mission to make vegan food part of the US-American culture. (Check out her compelling story and restaurant history here.) This recipe is really everything you want from mac n cheese--it’s rich, creamy, smoky, layered, and is the food equivalent of a long hug from an old friend. It’s great for a crowd, a picnic, backyard bbq, or yourself any night of the week. You’ll want to try this. Full recipe here.

Passionfruit Chocolate Tart

Photo: Delicious.com

A dessert that combines chocolate and fruit is going to be high on my list for a summertime treat. This simple and mouth-watering recipe comes from an Australian chef Shannen Martinez known for making fresh, casual, and creative vegan dishes at her restaurants and in her cookbooks. This is a beautiful dessert that is easy to make and impressive to serve. It’s a lovely end to any meal. Her full recipe is printed here.

Faith.Food.Family

by Ciyadh Wells

Faith. Growing up, it never failed that I found myself in a church of some kind every Sunday morning. My grandmother, a leader of our church, used to sit in the exact same pew week after week. She loved me and our family. For many of us, she was home and she never met someone she did not care for like her own kin. Even more, she loved God and proudly proclaimed her faith. When I think of a Christian, I think of my grandmother. Her love of the Lord has taught me what means to follow Christ. She has instilled in me a belief to be faithful in all things, even beyond that which I can see. She was faith, and that faith also she instilled in me and my family. 

Family. I’m so incredibly privileged to be part of such a wonderful family. I can’t stress this enough. My family is able to love each other, to grow aside one another, and ultimately support each other without giving it second thought or question. We gather with food, we gather because of each our bond, and we also gather because of our faith. No meal goes without a proper blessing to acknowledge our continued faith and belief in the grace that God has given us for that meal. There is a rhythm to the meal and a way in which the conversations always lead back to the heart of it: our continued belief in God who makes sure we never had to go without, or at least not for long. 

Food. More than anything else, all creatures of God gather around food. Food is for all;  humans and non-humans alike. As food is central to the nourishment and sustaining of life, it is essential for healthy hearts and minds. Food—how it is produced, accessed, or consumed—brings an impact on God’s earth and the lives of its inhabitants. We, human creatures, at the very least owe it to the Body of Christ, including our non-human siblings, to understand how the food on our tables impact their lives. How does our communal plate affect the real lives of created beings near and far? 

Holidays. Gathering around special dates is important to many of us. These times provide humans ways to consider our connections to each other and to the rest of the world.  These times of celebration and sometimes of grief provide us essential opportunities for considering how human and non human animals come together around the communal table. How might we be connected to each other and to God via the food we eat when we gather? How might the food that connects and comforts us also be sources of comfort for non-human animals? For many people, food is comfort and food is home. The bread of the body and the spirit of life, it is home in a way that only home can be. How can food be home and shelter and comfort to those with whom we are entrusted with care? 

How are we able to know that change is possible if we have never experienced change for ourselves? 

When my family gathers for holidays, faith, food, and family come together. There is always a rhythm and a pattern that, as I grew up, began to bring a source of comfort in an ever-chaotic world. On Mother’s Day we would often have a specific, but not so dissimilar, meal than what we would have during the big holidays (Thanksgiving and Christmas). Those holidays brought an extra special meal following the traditional American meals while adding in touches of our lived experiences as Black people, who like many, live on Indigenous lands. Central to all of these meals, though, was some sort of meat. Yes, veggies and fixings dressed the meat, but meat was always the center of it. For many years I failed to question the presence of meat because I thought that it had to be that way. How are we able to know that change is possible if we have never experienced change for ourselves? 

In the last several years though, I began to reexamine my own relationship with food, mainly around what the continued consumption of animals means not only for me but for others as well. Who suffers alongside our animal friends before they become holiday centerpieces? I came to understand that no life—human or non-human—enters or leaves this world without a great cost. When any class of living being (plant, animal, or human) no longer lives, there is an impact on all of us. Nothing is perfect, but I am not striving to create a society that is perfect. I am striving to work with others to create a society that is just when it comes to the lives of animals. 

There are opportunities for us all here. Traditions are traditions because we have made them so, but change and innovation are necessary for us all if humans and non-human animals want to continue to exist on God’s created Earth. Traditions at gatherings will need to change as care and concern for those most impacted by animal agriculture, BIPOC growers and climate refugees, come to the forefront. Change can start at the center of our tables. 

Food. It all means something different for me now. I want to eat in a way that causes as little harm as possible to animals and even less harm to those whose jobs and livelihoods depend on farmed animal agriculture. During holidays, this means choosing to create, in abundance and without waste, a meal that I can feel good about consuming. Change is imminent and that is okay. 

Family. My work as an advocate on behalf of all life, human or not, begins and yet does not end with my family. It might be throughout our lives that those closest to us may never truly understand our decisions and we may never understand theirs. That is okay. I am hoping, though, to continue to have the conversation about what it means to be a person of faith who takes great care and shows great concern for non-human life. It is well within the bounds of our faith to want to care for all living creatures. After all, they were here first. 

Faith. Faith can and will always be at the center of this for me. Finding CreatureKind was like finding a home. A home where I could bring my Christ loving, Black, Queer, and plant-based eating self to the table and receive celebration without judgement. We are in a disciplined pursuit of less. Consuming fewer of our animal kin and their products, creating less harm. Living lives that by producing less helps all of us to create more. That is what I am hoping for. I am hoping that we as people of deep faith can continue to have conversations and engage with one another about how our ethics for animals start with our faith and can and should be guided by such.

Ciyadh Wells currently lives in Austin, Texas. She is a graduate student at the University of Georgia. Ciyadh was raised in the Baptist church and still identifies as such. During her CreatureKind Fellowship, she is working on a podcast about Christians and how their faith supports their animal advocacy work.

Top Five Tips on Navigating Christmas as a Vegan

Christmas is a magical time of the year when many people come together to celebrate and indulge in delectable meals and treats. Yet with meat typically served at most Christmas meals, life can be tricky for vegans. Don’t worry, help is at hand!

Veganism is one of the fastest-growing lifestyle movements of our age and will find its way into more homes this year than ever before, but if you find yourself in the position of being the only vegan at the dinner table or gathering this season, have no fear and do not feel overwhelmed. Here are a few tips on navigating and enjoying Christmas as a vegan!

1. Why Not Host Christmas This Year?

If you have the time, opportunity and cooking skills, why not plan and execute a Christmas feast for your loved ones this year?

Start with some tasty appetisers. Swap the turkey for a nut roast or whole roasted cauliflower (yes, this is a thing!). Add some mouthwatering side dishes like spiced Brussels sprouts, coconut and turmeric roast potatoes, bright salads and roasted mixed vegetables. Then finish things off with a spectacular vegan Christmas pudding or chocolate truffles.

Remember, it doesn’t have to be anything too complicated, but you can still make a big impression with a thoughtfully chosen menu.

2. Show Off Your Skills and Contribute a Vegan Dish!

If you are invited to a meal where the vegan choices may be limited, why not offer to bring a tasty vegan-friendly dish or two along?

Not only does it guarantee that you will have something to eat, but it’s a wonderful opportunity to show your friends and family how delicious and satisfying plant-based meals can be.

It’s also a fun way of getting a friendly conversation about veganism started and chances are that everyone will want to try what you bring, so make sure you take enough.

3. Be Sure to Inform Hosts in Advance

If you are all set to attend a non-vegan Christmas meal, be sure to inform your host in advance to avoid any awkward moments or having to explain your dietary requirements when you arrive.

A gracious host will ensure that there is something for you at the table and you may even be able to suggest ways that they can veganise certain dishes. When in doubt, contribute a dish that you will be able to enjoy as well, or eat in advance so that you are not too hungry when you arrive.

4. Brush Up On Your Vegan Knowledge

Questions about your lifestyle are likely to come up and this is a great opportunity to share your thoughts on how plant-based eating is a compassionate way to care for our animal friends, our health and the environment.

Try to remain patient (even in the face of incredulity or attack) and avoid heated debates, lectures or graphic descriptions of industrial farming around the dinner table. Focus instead on all the beautiful, positive aspects of being vegan. Keeping calm and setting discussion boundaries is a great way of ensuring that you enjoy the occasion as much as possible.

5. Remember Christmas is a Time for Giving!

If you are fortunate enough to spend Christmas with loved ones this year, it is important to remember those who are not in the same privileged position.

Giving back can involve anything from donating your time and energy to helping out at a food bank, donating plant-based meals to shelters, volunteering to cook at your church, and lots more. Let’s use this time as an opportunity to spread the most important aspects of our faith and lifestyle—love and compassion.

This post originally appeared on the Sarx website and is reprinted here with kind permission. Sarx was founded on the belief that creation is the very outpouring of God’s love and their aim is to respond and witness to this divine love by encouraging Christians to strive towards a world in which all animals are enabled to live with dignity, in freedom and in peace. For more vegan recipe and lifestyle inspiration, visit www.vegannigerian.com.