Last December it finally happened, the long-awaited cookbook by Michael Greger was published. Fortunately, here in the Netherlands we didn’t have to wait for the Dutch version for too long.
In the How Not To Die Cookbook Michael Greger shows that a plant-based diet is a scientifically proven diet that can both prevent and reverse diseases. Greger quickly became well-known because of this ”Daily Dozen” in which he prescribes foods that we should eat every day in order to get old and healthy.
This cookbook was created together with Robin Robertson (a former chef with more than 20 vegan cookbooks on her name). In his cookbook, Greger first briefly discusses his theory that you can read extensively in his first book ”How not to die”, but he soon turns to the recipes. In this book you will find more than 100 recipes based on his ”Daily Dozen”. What I love about this cookbook is that it’s a great vegan/plant-based cookbook with recipes without processed products such as oil and processed refined white sugars. Greger recommends us to eat nuts, seeds and avocados instead of oils. He uses for example dates instead of white refined sugars. Dr. Greger is also not a fan of salt.
The result is a delicious cookbook with breakfast dishes, snacks, lunches, soups, spreads, salads, sweets, drinks and dinners with healthy grains, beans, nuts, seeds, fruit and a lot of veggies. What about a delicious almond chocolate truffle? Strawberry banana ice cream? French toast? Or a delicious pumpkin seed dip, three-seed crackers or Moroccan lentil soup?
Today I’m sharing two recipes from his cookbook with you and I’m also hosting a give away on Facebook. Hope to see you there!
Black eyes beans & roasted red pepper dip
- Yield: about 750 gram 1x
- Category: dip
- Cuisine: vegan, plant-based
Description
Black-eyed beans are just as nutritious as all other legumes. They can be found frozen, canned or dried in the supermarket.
Ingredients
- 2 roasted red peppers, or from a pot, drained
- 250 gr boiled black-eyed beans or 1 BPA-free can, salt free, drained and rinsed
- 2 garlic cloves, crushed
- 1 tsp finely chopped jalapeño pepper, or to taste
- 3 tbsp tahini
- 1 tbsp pureed peeled lemon
- 1 tsp Savory spice mix (nutritional yeast, onion powder, dried parsley, dried basil, dried thyme, garlic powder, mustard powder, paprika powder, ground turmeric, celery seed)
- 1 tsp white miso paste
- 1 tsp smoked paprika
- sliced raw vegetables, for dipping
Instructions
- Put the roasted red peppers, black eyes beans, garlic and jalapeño in the food processor and pulse to mix the ingredients. Add the tahini, lemon, savory spice mix, miso and paprika and mix until smooth. Add the dip into a bowl and serve with raw dip vegetables.
French Toast with Berry Syrup
- Yield: 4 1x
- Category: breakfast, snack
- Cuisine: vegan, plant-based
Description
The turmeric gives a warm golden color to this festive breakfast that contains six ingredients from the ” Daily Dozen ”. All in one recipe.
Ingredients
- Berry Syrup
- 140 gr fresh or thawed frozen berries of choice
- 1 to 2 tbsp date syrup
- French toast
- 300 ml almond milk
- 2 tbsp ground flaxseed blended with 60 ml warm water
- 1 tbsp date sugar
- 1 vanilla pod, 2.5 to 4 cm, cut open and scraped (or vanilla extract)
- 1 piece of fresh turmeric root, about 0.5 cm, grated (or turmeric powder)
- 1 tsp cinnamon powder
- 8 slices of salt-free 100% wholewheat bread
Instructions
- BERRY SYRUP:
- Put the berries and the date syrup in the blender and mix until smooth. Pour into a container or dish and set aside.
- FRENCH TOAST:
- Put the almond milk, flaxseed mixture, date sugar, vanilla pod, turmeric and cinnamon into the blender. Blend until the ingredients are well mixed. Pour the batter into a shallow dish. Heat a non-stick pan or a baking sheet on medium heat.
- Roll the bread slices in the batter so that both sides are covered, place them in the hot pan and fry until they are golden brown on each side, turn them over once. Keep the fried French toast in the oven at the lowest temperature while you bake the rest. When they are ready to serve, place the French toast on the plates and drizzle with the berry syrup.
I found the french toast recipe to be lacking after buying the book, to say the least.
1)berry sauce could be improved by adding lemon zest, especially if using blueberries, but it’s great with any berry. Otherwise the toast tasted somewhat bland.
2) the soaking time is far too short, resulting in a scrapeable layer of the batter on top, especially after frying it without oil as the recipe suggests. Resembled the skin on vanilla pudding. I had much better results soaking 1.5 inch thick slices of wholewheat bread for at least 10 minutes, better 30 mins to an hour, similar to a bread pudding.
Sure you need more ‘fun’ recipes when you’re focused on a whole food plant based diet, but not all of them (something as ‘sinful’ as french toast for example) have to be done 100% along the whole food oilless rules. I myself am much more likely to use this recipe with half a teaspoon of oil, since the results change the product from a 5 to a 8/10.
Hi Andi,
Thank you for your feedback! I’m glad to read you managed to modify certain recipes for better results. I’m making French toast on a non stick griddler and succeeded without oil so far.
Best,
Bianca