My New Roots Inspired Plant Based Recipes for Every

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I dedicate this book to my readers, without whom this would never have
been possible. Thank you for making my dreams come true.
Copyright © 2015 by Sarah Britton
Published in the United States by Clarkson Potter/Publishers, an imprint of the Crown Publishing
Group, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.
www.crownpublishing.com
www.clarksonpotter.com

CLARKSON POTTER is a trademark and POTTER with colophon is a registered trademark of

Random House LLC.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Britton, Sarah.
My new roots / Sarah Britton.
pages cm
Includes index.
1. Cooking (Natural foods) I. Title.
TX741.B68 2015
641.3′02—dc23 2014018135

ISBN 978-0-8041-8538-7
Ebook ISBN 978-0-8041-8539-4

Cover design by Marysarah Quinn

Front cover and interior photography by Sarah Britton
v3.1
 CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION
ESSENTIAL TECHNIQUES

SPRING

EARLY SUMMER

LATE SUMMER

AUTUMN

WINTER

STOCKING THE PANTRY

GRATITUDE
INDEX
INTRODUCTION

MY NEW ROOTS BEGAN WITH A TOMATO. It was yellow and shaped like a pear,
about the size of a walnut shell. It hung on the vine like a golden teardrop,
warming itself in the sun’s slanted late afternoon light.
When I put the fruit in my mouth, I immediately noticed the softness and
delicacy of its skin. But then I pressed it against the roof of my mouth with
my tongue, and it burst into a universe of flavor quite unlike anything I had
ever experienced before. It was bright, fresh, grassy, sweet, and overflowing
with juice. The tomato tasted of all the things that had made it—the sun, the
rain, the soil, the hands that had tended it.
In that moment my life changed. Here I was at twenty-three, a total city
slicker, just having graduated from design school and thinking I would be
happy behind a computer for the rest of my life. The tomato I picked hung
on a vine on an organic farm in Arizona. I was here because it was part of a
larger project I had read about during my studies, and I thought it would be
a fun experience for a month. Now I was contemplating staying at the farm.
Forever.
My whole life I had eaten only processed foods, or fruits and vegetables
that had been picked before their ripeness and traveled thousands of miles. I
was a sugar addict, overfed and undernourished, never really considering
what I ate. I realized with that tomato that food matters, and that we are
connected to what we eat. That the beauty of the world can be experienced
through the taste, smell, and texture of a single fruit. Whole foods became a
revelation.
The four-week workshop on the organic farm turned into a yearlong,
immersive food experience. I ate what we grew, worked the land and my
body, gave up processed foods, and the mental fog that I had been living in
suddenly lifted. I felt like an entirely new person, and I was.
When I returned to Toronto, I had no idea what to do with myself.
Something inside me had shifted so strongly toward a life more in tune with
the natural world that I knew my direction had to change. I enrolled in the
Institute of Holistic Nutrition to deepen my understanding of food and the
body and learned that what we eat impacts our health not just on a physical
level but on an emotional and spiritual one as well. One day, while I was
enthusiastically telling my uninterested boyfriend about all that I was
learning, he suggested that I start a blog to share with people who would
actually care. Needless to say the relationship didn’t last very long, but the
blog, My New Roots, was born.
Later the same year I ran into a very handsome Dane on a street corner in
New York City. Romantic fool that I am, eighteen months later I found
myself on a plane, moving to Copenhagen to live with the man who would
become my husband. Being in Denmark was wonderful, but professionally
I was rather lost. After moving overseas, I discovered that my certification
as a holistic nutritionist wasn’t recognized, and that it wasn’t legal for me to
practice. Suddenly I had no direction. Despite the fact that I had no
professional cooking experience, my next idea was to apply what I had
learned in a restaurant kitchen. I biked around the city handing out résumés
to all six vegetarian cafés in hopes of finding a job. The last place I visited
was foolish enough to hire me. After destroying many soups with too much
cayenne pepper and burning a few lasagnas beyond recognition, I got the
hang of cooking and loved it. I developed a new menu each day, using
seasonal produce. Because of the ever-changing supply of seasonal fruits
and vegetables, I was forced to be creative, think on the fly, and invent new
dishes every day. The reaction from diners in the restaurant was
overwhelming, and the successes and experiences there were brought to my
readers through the blog.
Suddenly requests for cooking classes and lectures started pouring in.
Seizing these new opportunities while working full-time in the restaurant
and keeping up the blog became nearly impossible. I needed some sort of
sign from the heavens on how to handle it all. Unfortunately, this
manifested in my husband literally falling out of the sky and breaking both
arms in a hang-gliding accident. He was completely dependent on my help
twenty-four hours a day—to eat, bathe, dress, or just to make a simple
phone call. I had to quit my job to take care of him. Serendipitously, being
at home resulted in my having a lot more time to work on the blog and
allowed me to focus on projects that I had always wanted to pursue, such as
writing for magazines, giving lectures, and teaching cooking classes. As a
consequence, My New Roots became my full-time job and passion and I
haven’t looked back since.
Even though My New Roots began as a way for me to share what I had
learned about wellness and healing, it has become so much more than that.
Over the past eight years, through sharing my adventures in the kitchen and
my burgeoning obsession with plant-based cuisine, I have inadvertently
created a community of readers who are passionate about cooking food that
is not only delicious but also very healthy. I found many people hungry for
direction and guidance in preparing nutritious food, and discovered that my
recipes were actually making significant changes in people’s lives. E-mails
began flowing in with stories from readers whose families and communities
had become more energetic, lost weight, healed from disease, and
rediscovered the joy in cooking. My New Roots is no longer just my passion
project, but a resource that thousands of people turn to every week.
Knowing this calls me to the cutting board to create yet another dish to
satisfy those who want to take charge of their health and reclaim their
kitchens. Their inspiration becomes mine, and the cycle continues. Even
though I’ve never met most of my readers, I can feel us standing side by
side at our stovetops, making so much more than dinner.
MY FOOD PHILOSOPHY

I love to eat. A lot. I often joke that my current way of living evolved from
needing to find a way to eat a lot and still be healthy. Therefore the diet I
follow and encourage others to is not about sacrifice, deprivation, or labels.
It is about enjoying delicious food to the fullest extent without counting
calories or fat grams. It is about adding healthy, whole-food ingredients to
what you are already cooking, taking things slowly, and approaching food
with an open mind and a curious belly. I get many e-mails from readers
asking for the nutritional breakdown of my recipes, and I can happily tell
them that it doesn’t matter because every one of those calories is good for
them. Health is the natural consequence of using whole foods, organic
ingredients, and conscious cooking techniques. What you eat becomes
something to celebrate, instead of something to scrutinize. For me that
means abandoning diets and embracing this way of eating as a lifestyle,
because that is exactly what it is. It is quite simply the most liberating way
of eating and living.
The recipes in the book are what I call “all-inclusive,” meaning they are
vegetarian, with options to make vegan versions of the majority, and often
gluten-free. I do this so that everyone can use my recipes, even those who
have food allergies, sensitivities, or a lifestyle that doesn’t include animal
products. I use ingredients such as eggs, goat or sheep cheese, and ghee
only in certain recipes where I feel it is necessary for flavor or texture, but
you can omit them if you like. Overall, I prefer to use the term “plant-based
whole foods” to describe my recipes—it makes them approachable even to
people who do not label themselves vegetarian or vegan. It is not about
what the food is or isn’t. The bottom line is, it’s delicious and it just so
happens to be good for you.
EATING IN THE RHYTHM OF THE SEASONS

A great deal of my cooking inspiration comes from following the seasons.

Food is the most intimate connection we have with our Earth, as we literally
become the food that we eat. In that sense, eating what is seasonal and local
is a priority for me, as this not only helps my body acclimate to the external
environment but also contributes to the health of the environment in
choosing foods that travel shorter distances. It is not a coincidence that
certain foods give us what we need during specific times of the year: high-
water-content foods in summer, such as crispy cucumbers and tomatoes
cool us down; sweetly rich, starchy, calorie-dense foods like pumpkins and
beets to fuel us through the winter. Seasons have a flavor. For me, spring
tastes like wild leek pesto: garlicky, green, and youthful. I like to fold it into
tendrils of fresh pasta, or slather it on seed-studded toast with avocado and
lemon. Autumn tastes like fig and walnut jam: succulent, sun-ripened fruit
cooked down slowly with honey, woody thyme, and fragrant lavender into a
divine, perfumed love potion.
By taking our cues from nature we align ourselves with the rhythms of
the Earth, and consequently our bodies’ needs, meanwhile sensually tuning
in to the exquisite yet fleeting deliciousness of each cycle.

WHY FIVE SEASONS?

While I was in school studying holistic nutrition, I was introduced to
Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), a holistic, integrated system of
thinking based on five elements: wood, fire, earth, metal, and water. Each
element corresponds to a compass direction, a life stage, a color, a shape, a
time of day, specific emotions, internal organs and senses, and a season:
spring, early summer, late summer, autumn, and winter.
We are very accustomed to the four-season system in North America and
Europe, but if you consider the changes that actually take place during the
warmer months, it makes a lot of sense to divide summer into two parts as
the Chinese do. This became abundantly clear to me the first time I worked
on a farm—as we progressed from early summer to late, the types of
produce we were harvesting seemed to be in distinct groups. Early summer
has the first really hot weather, bright sun, and long days. Late summer is
those last few weeks when it’s still warm but the light becomes a deeper
golden, the days are noticeably shorter, and you can feel the fall
approaching. Since working on many farms and having my own vegetable
garden, I now see and feel the benefit of eating with the seasons, and of
setting aside extra time for the late summer celebration. In fact, looking
back on my life, I can hardly believe I didn’t pay attention to it for so long,
as it has just become second nature. Although it is customary to divide
cookbooks into chapters for each course, I knew when I started to write this
book that the seasons would determine the flow. I hope you, too, will fall
into the natural rhythm and enjoy connecting with the cycles of the nature
all around you—and inside you as well.

As you cook your way through this book, you’ll notice that a handful of
symbols appear under many of the recipe titles. I hope you’ll find them
useful as you go about planning your meals.

the recipe is vegan (use coconut oil, not ghee, and/or maple syrup, not honey).
the recipe is gluten-free.
the recipe requires planning ahead (such as dough that requires rising) or has a make-
ahead element (such as a condiment).
the recipe requires 8 hours or more (to allow for soaking) or is an overnight or long-term
project (such as fermentation).
ESSENTIAL TECHNIQUES

The first time I cooked dried beans, I felt like I had discovered the Promised
Land. What a triumph! What a revelation! I never imagined that a process
that seemed so intimidating could be so easy and practically foolproof,
especially for a kitchen novice like myself. I vowed right then and there
never to open a can of beans again, and I am proud to say I’ve kept that
promise.
This breakthrough inspired me to see what else I could whip up myself,
instead of relying on ready-made and packaged foods from the grocery
store. Soon I was cooking whole grains, making ghee, nut milk, and nut
butter, and growing my own sprouts. I felt proud and empowered. My food
tasted better, cost less, and was healthier than ever.
These are what I call my essential techniques: the very simple and easy-
to-learn methods that I use in my kitchen on a daily basis. They form the
foundation of much of what I cook at home and many of the recipes in this
book. Mastering these easy processes will not only help you cut back on the
amount of prepared staples you purchase and save you money but will also
give you the confidence you need in the kitchen to tackle anything.
HOW TO COOK DRIED LEGUMES

Dried beans, peas, and lentils make up a large part of the plant-based diet.
They are full of satiating fiber, good-quality protein, and health-promoting
phytochemicals. Most people shy away from cooking their own because
opening a can seems so much easier, but once you get into the habit, you’ll
see that it takes little time and the benefits are many.

1. Select your legume: Choose organic whenever possible, and look for
beans or peas that are relatively uniform in size and color. Do a quick sort
and discard any legumes that are cracked or broken, and any stones or
debris.

2. Give the legumes a good rinse in a colander under cold running water.

3. Pour the legumes into a pot and cover them with a couple inches of
recently boiled water (warm water will also help break down indigestible
starches). Add a couple tablespoons of acid, such as lemon juice or apple
cider vinegar (2 tablespoons for each 1 cup legumes). Soak for 8 to 12
hours. Drain, rinse again, and return to the (clean) pot.

4. Cover the legumes with plenty of fresh water; it should reach at least 2
inches above the legumes themselves. Add a piece of kombu, 3 to 4 inches
long, to the pot. (Kombu, an edible seaweed, has the unique ability to
neutralize gas-producing compounds in beans.) Cover, bring to a boil, and
skim off any foam that rises to the top. Reduce the heat and simmer until
the beans are tender—soft but not mushy. Remove from the heat and add
salt: at least 1 tablespoon for each cup of beans, or more to your taste.
(Adding salt before this point will prevent the beans from cooking.) Keep
the beans covered and let them soak in the salty water for at least 15