Cooking from the Spirit Easy, Delicious, and Joyful Plant

Based Inspirations

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 Dedication
To my fans,
who continue to
love and support me
in the kitchen—
thank you.
This is for you.
 Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication

Introduction

Breakfast & Brunch

Sausage Scramble
Carrot Bacon
Pumfu Scramble
Sweet Potato Avocado Toast
Sweet Potato Hash
Hash Browns
Cheese Grits with Sausage
Raw “Egg and Bacon” Breakfast Burrito
Sweet Potato Pancakes
Oatmeal-Banana-Pecan Pancakes

Pizza & Good Stuff

Flatbread Veggie Pizza with Pineapple
Mexican Pizza
Broccoli Alfredo Pizza
Sausage Lover’s Bagel Pizza
Portobello Pizzas
Stuffed Bell Peppers
Loaded Baked White Sweet Potato
 Stuffed Avocado
No-Cook Stuffed Avocado
Stuffed Spaghetti Squash

Burgers, Sandwiches & Tacos

Cheeseburgers
Chili Carrot Dogs
Roast Beefless Cheddar Sandwich
Sloppy Joes
Philly Cheesefake Hoagie
Spinach and Mushroom Quesadilla
Guacamole
Pico de Gallo
Raw Cheesy Pecan Tacos
Sweet Potato Tacos
Spicy Caribbean-Style Jackfruit Tacos
Pecan-Cheese Rolls

Appetizers & Sides

Saved Eggs (aka Angel Eggs, aka Vegan Deviled Eggs)
Coconut Ceviche
Mexican Street Corn (Elote)
Spicy Tuna Roll
“Seafood” Salad (aka Crab-less Salad)
Lemon Pepper Potato Wedges with Blanch Dressing
Mac & Cheese
Who Made the Potato Salad?
Sautéed Hearts of Palm with Coconut
Yam Halves Topped with Maple-Cinnamon Pecan Glaze
Thanksgiving Dressing
 Air-Fried Okra, Shiitake Mushrooms, and Chickpeas
Green Beans
Stewed Collard Greens

Main Dishes
Nachos
BBQ Vegan Meatballs
Jackfruit Pot Roast
Vallops (Vegan Scallops)
Tab’s Traditional Lasagna
Eggplant Lasagna
Creamy Garlic Basil Zucchini “Pasta”
Chance’s Sausage and Veggie Pasta
Bow Ties Alfredo
Maple BBQ Kebabs
Country-Style Steak with Gravy
Vegan Sausage and Cabbage
Moma’s Meatloaf
Fried “Fish” with Tartar Sauce
Crab-less Cakes with Spicy Tartar Sauce
Cast-Iron Oyster Mushrooms and Mango

Soups & Salads

Broccoli Cheddar Soup
Vegan Chili
Okra Lentil Stew
Spicy Vegetable Curry Soup
Tortilla Soup
Okra, Bell Pepper, and Cucumber Salad
Vegan Cobb Salad
 Tab’s Favorite Salad
Chopped Salad
Kale and Raspberry Salad
Beet Salad
Rainbow Salad
Warm Lobster Mushroom Salad

Sweet Treats & Fresh Juices

Lazy Peach Cobbler
Strawberry (or Blueberry) Cheesecake Cups
Chocolate Banana Toast
Smoothie Bowl
Fresh Juices
Carrot-Apple-Ginger
Pineapple-Cucumber
Pear Pie Delight
Pain Blaster
Refresh
Cherry-Apple
Holy Green Juice
Grapefruit-Pineapple

Menus for Gathering

Universal Conversion Chart
Acknowledgments
Index
About the Author
Copyright
About the Publisher
Introduction
Hello there. I am so happy we’re here. It’s the moment you and I have both
been waiting on. I wanted to make sure I didn’t just give you a cookbook,
but me in the form of a cookbook, so it would feel like we are in the kitchen
together. So thank you for your patience, honey. Well, with that being said,
let’s get into it.
Cooking is love, it’s friends, it’s family. Food is just so amazing in how
much it holds, how many memories, how many feelings. It has all this power
in it. But also, food and cooking saved my life. I was very sick for a year and
a half. One day I got a headache in the back of my head that rested back
there for one year and seven months. My body was attacking itself, and my
doctors couldn’t figure out how to fix it.
Then I watched the documentary What the Health and decided then and
there to go on a vegan challenge for thirty days. I originally did it for my
health. But the advantages extended so far beyond just my headache
disappearing. It not only healed me—it changed my entire life!

What Does It Mean to Eat Vegan?

First things first: Vegan food is just food. When I hear people say, “Oooo, I
hate vegan food,” I think, Really?? You hate apples, pickles, blueberries,
strawberries, rice, beans, potatoes??
Retrain your thinking around this concept, and don’t get stuck on the
word “vegan.” In fact, lots of people just say they eat a plant-based diet. The
point is, don’t let the word stop you from considering something that could
change your life—like it did mine—before you think about what it really
means. The list of what you do eat as a vegan is so much longer than the list
of what you don’t eat. A vegan, plant-based lifestyle excludes animal
products of any kind, meaning anything made with meat, fish, dairy, eggs, or
honey. Everything else is yours for the eating. You can have every vegetable,
every fruit, every grain, every bean, every legume, every nut and seed.
If the mere thought of changing what you eat makes your shoulders and
stomach tighten up, if you suddenly feel like you need to protect everything
about your diet and change nothing, especially not the meat and fish and
cheese you eat now, it’s okay, there’s no pressure, but I want you to take
some deep breaths. Don’t think of it as losing something, but rather as
gaining something new. Go ahead, take a few more deep breaths. I’ll be here
when you’re done.
Listen, when we get afraid of stuff related to food, it’s because we put
so much thought into eating. We put more thought into food than we do most
things. Sometimes when people hear that I’m vegan, they express a lot of
disbelief and, strangely enough, worry. I often wonder why people didn’t
express the same worry about what I was eating when I was sick. I think it
all comes down to us resetting our minds sometimes—how we think, where
we put our focus. It starts with what we put in our body, but it’s really in
your mind that the reset happens.
When I first started my vegan journey, suddenly I met so many
“doctors” I’d never known were doctors. All sorts of people came out of the
woodwork giving me advice and warning me about “dangers.” Be mindful
of these folks; don’t let them distract you or discourage you. You focus on
what feels right to you. If you want to try vegan eating for thirty days, go
ahead and try it for thirty days. Don’t listen to the people telling you that you
won’t get enough protein. The folks saying that probably couldn’t tell you
what amount of protein is “enough,” anyway.
One of the biggest misconceptions about a plant-based lifestyle is that
vegans don’t get enough protein. I don’t know why this is such a trigger for
folks, but I am asked about it all the time. Before I was vegan, I was never
asked if I was getting enough protein. On a plant-based lifestyle, we get our
protein from the same place that cows get theirs: plants! Crazy but true,
right? Seriously, plant-based foods—leafy greens, beans, quinoa, seeds, nuts,
the list goes on—have all the protein we need.
So if you’re interested in trying a plant-based lifestyle, just take it one
day at a time, even one meal at a time. There’s no right and no wrong. Start
by doing the things that feel comfortable to you. Don’t be hard on yourself.
Life is hard enough. We don’t want food to be part of the hard. Be gentle
with yourself.

Transitioning the Family to Veganism

Another question I get asked all the time is how I got my whole family to
join me in this vegan lifestyle. Honey, I made it taste good! And I took it
slowly.
 I think it’s a mistake to try to transition your family to a plant-based diet
unless they make the decision to do so. Simply make amazing meals and
allow them to try them with you, but don’t force it. If your family is on
board for the new journey, start with some traditional nonvegan favorites
that can be made vegan, so no one feels like something is missing.
At the beginning, I still cooked chicken and fish for my husband and
kids, but everything else I prepared was vegan. I focused less on what I was
taking away and more on what I was adding, and I made sure those sides and
extras were really delicious. At the same time, I was swapping out our pantry
and refrigerator staples and replacing them with vegan options. So I made
their grits with vegan butter and their grilled cheese with vegan cheese. I
added nutritional yeast to pastas for a cheesy flavor. They didn’t even notice.
Kids, especially, often just don’t know the difference.
I certainly wasn’t advertising that the new dishes were vegan. I was just
serving food to my family like always. And I let them all make their own
decisions. If they didn’t like it, I didn’t force it. As they got comfortable with
what they were eating, and even began to request my vegan versions of
things, I talked to them a little about how nourishing the food is. When we
know better, we do better, right? I’m thankful for what I’ve learned and want
to share it, but only when people are ready to hear it.
As for processed foods, whether vegan or not, I’ve always tried to
minimize them. But when my husband was on his vegan journey, he craved
things like turkey sausage, and I was so glad to find great substitutes made
by companies like Field Roast and Beyond Meat. When you are new to the
vegan journey, sometimes you just wanna know you won’t miss out on your
family favorites. I call it walking into a new journey like you’ve been there
before! A few dishes in this book, such as Nachos, Chance’s Sausage and
Veggie Pasta, and Country-Style Steak with Gravy, came from our early
days of eating vegan. There are some other dishes that were favorites in my
family from the very start and that I like to recommend to anyone just
starting out; these are Mac & Cheese, Fried “Fish” with Tartar Sauce,
Traditional Lasagna, and Vegan Chili.