Plant based eating is a growing trend for many individuals seeking nourishing foods to maintain their active lifestyles while avoiding the over consumption of animal derived foods. Jeffrey Boadi’s Plant Fuel brings a healthy diet to the everyday kitchen with 80 low-fat, high-protein recipes that revolve around how much fiber, flavor, and easy preparation. The publication by Bloomsbury “is centered on the use of basic whole food ingredients and on providing meals that are easy to make.”
Plant Fuel shows a food philosophy that shows feeling full and satisfying meals are possible, without compromising on health. Boadi offers recipes for those looking to increase their intake of plant foods whilst still being aware of increased protein and fiber requirements. The book is entirely vegan in nature, but also adheres to those on vegeterian or flexertarian regimens.
It does not just limit itself to salads or light calorie-conscious meals, the recipes ranged from breakfast brunch lunch dinner snacks, smoothies, and also includes dessert recipes. This enables the reader to have a variation of options when creating a plant forward lifestyle without feeling like they are always having the same thing at each meal.
The plant-based reliance on high protein ingredients, such as tofu tempeh seitan lentils black beans, butter beans, chickpeas, nuts, seeds, and plant protein powder. These foods feature in various styles of preparation, providing the reader with ideas for using common plant foods in heartier, protein-focused dishes.
The meal options with this cook book were a Thai peanut tempeh salad, spicy seitan and butter bean salad, jerk BBQ tofu kebabs, tempeh, and walnut ragu, tofu massaman curry, sumac, and lime lentil bowls and the black bean tostadas. Each of the meals also provided the protein and fibre counts of the dishes, which provided more detail to the content.
Convenience is also a consideration within Boadi’s approach. The recipes are designed for convenient meal preparation, ready in a short time for busy evenings, or make-ahead meals. The use of easily sourced whole-food ingredients, rather than difficult techniques or specialist ingredients, is emphasized in this book.
Breakfast may consists of an array of breakfast like berry cheese cake overnight oats with snack and desserts like peanut buter stuffed dry dates and chocolate protein brownies. The book would also have recipes for a quick drink/ post work out like raspberry ripple smoothies.
One of the most prominent recurring themes throughout Plant Fuel is the diverse selection of recipes. A gochujang tofu stir fry introduces Korean influenced flavours into a hearty plant-based protein dish while tempeh and walnut ragu offers a different style of familiar pasta sauce.
Other recipes, like the Ghanaian red stew, mango, and cashew cheesecake and the gochujang tofu stir fry have been selected by Bloomsbury to demonstrate the variety of tastes in the book.
One more sample recipe includes, for instance, spinach, and pistachio spaghetti: it mixes yellow wholewheat pasta with spinach pistachios silken tofu, nutritional yeast, garlic, and lemon to prepare a plant-based creamy sauce.
