Blissful Bites: Vegan Meals to Nourish the Mind, Body, and Planet is Christy Morgan's (of The Blissful Chef blog) first cookbook baby, and it's packed full of nutritious and easy vegan recipes. Based on natural foods like whole grains and fruits and veggies, this isn't a book to turn to for faux meats (though there is an ace BBQ seitan recipe), but there are plenty of recipes using both tofu and tempeh (hello "fish" tacos).
What strikes me most about Blissful Bites is how accessible it is by folks who just want a good selection of simple dishes to throw together without hours of effort. It's a good book to open when looking for week night meals - just select two or 3 dishes and you've got a complete dinner (Christy provides some sample menu ideas at the back of the book).
The book is picture heavy and is laid out in an orderly fashion, first by meal and food groups and then by seasonal ingredients. Helpful icons indicating allergens, timings, and favourites are also a nice addition to the already easy to read recipe listings. Basically the inside pages are really, really pretty.
Most of the ingredients are easily accessible here in the UK, so I'm assuming the same would apply for much of Europe.
I've tried a small selection of recipes from the book and believe it to be best suited to people who lead busy lifestyles and want to consume more natural whole foods and grains in their diet. There are also quite a few macrobiotic and raw food recipes if that's your thing. Quantities of salt and sugar are kept minimal as well (but you can always be cheeky like me and add more), the latter often replaced by increasingly popular sweet subs like brown rice syrup.
Unfortunately I haven't been able to capture many decent pictures, but I'll be adding more Blissful Bites recipe images as I cook my way through the book! That is, of course, provided I ever make anything but the miso thyme soup ever again (so, so good).
If you like the look and sound of this new book, please support Christy and purchase Blissful Bites.
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