Moreno - The colorful family table: seasonal plant-based recipes for the whole family

Contents

With The Colorful Family Table, Ilenes ensuring that everyone in your family will love tasting the rainbowof plants. Talia Pollock, author of Party in Your Plants With its brilliant mix of simplicity and creativity, this cookbook and its flavorful recipes belong in every veggie lovers kitchen. This book is perfect for families, singles, roommates, and friends who love to cook together. Every recipe is rich and flavorful and will make you appreciate and enjoy vegan food in a fun and whole new way. Kim-Julie Hansen, founder of Best of Vegan and author of Vegan ResetALSO BY ILENE GODOFSKY MORENOThe Colorful Kitchen Copyright 2019 by Ilene Godofsky Moreno Cover and interior food photography by Ilene Godofsky Moreno Lifestyle photography on pages iv, viii, x, 2, 7, 4849, 68, 7677, 106107, 118, 140141, 162163, 166, 172173, 205, 222, 232, and 242 by Desirea Corbett Photography Lifestyle photography on pages 5, 10, and 171 by Alexa Korman All rights reserved. BenBella Books, Inc. 10440 N. 10440 N.

Central Expressway, Suite 800 Dallas, TX 75231 www.benbellabooks.com Send feedback to First E-Book Edition: December 2019 Library of Congress Control Number: 2019016562 ISBN 9781948836470 (trade paper) ISBN 9781948836722 (electronic) Editing by Trish Sebben Malone Copyediting by Jennifer Brett Greenstein Proofreading by Christine Florie and Cape Cod Compositors, Inc. Indexing by WordCo Indexing Services, Inc. Text design and composition by Aaron Edmiston Cover design by Sarah Avinger Printed by Versa Press Distributed to the trade by Two Rivers Distribution, an Ingram brand www.tworiversdistribution.com Special discounts for bulk sales are available. Please contact . For my mom, Lynne , and all the mothers and fathers whose cooking gathers the family at the table. contents From enjoying a cozy mug of spiced apple cider next to the fireplace on a chilly fall afternoon to snacking on fresh watermelon thats bursting with color and flavor at the park on a hot summer day, each of the four seasons has its own quintessential moments that are inevitably tied to food. Food brings the family together, through small moments like a quick breakfast before school at which we chat about the day ahead, as well as huge holiday celebrations for which we happily travel far and wide to visit family and feast on dishes that we look forward to all year.

Whether were conscious of it or not, what, when, and how we eat affects us on a much larger scale than just keeping hunger at bay. The act of cooking and eating with our family can nourish us on many levels, and each season provides a unique opportunity for us to fill our plates with a rainbow of healthful food that provides exactly what our bodies need at that time. MY FAMILY I grew up in South Florida, where there are two seasons: hot and hotter. My family would happily sweat in the humidity outside, then keep the air-conditioning pumping at full blast inside our house to cool us off. For us, the changing seasons had little to do with food and were instead marked by the school year starting or ending, or long breaks from school when it was slightly less hot outside and we got lots of presents. Year-round, our meals came mainly from frozen packages, boxes, plastic bags, and restaurants.

There were a few foods that were special to us as seasonal delicacies, all of which could eventually be found at the drugstore marked at 50 percent off: Oreos stuffed with orange filling in the fall, powdered packets of hot chocolate in the winter, cream-filled chocolate eggs in the spring, and neon green, blue, and pink popsicles in the summer. As far as I knew, the same food was always available at the grocery store, and my family ate the same meals no matter what time of year it was. This was during the 90s, before the internet brought mainstream Americas attention to the culinary worlds growing evolution toward seasonal, local, and organic producenot to mention the idea of a plant-based diet. We werent yet scared of the unpronounceable ingredients on the back of our cereal box; in fact, if it tasted good, we didnt even glance at the ingredients. My mom was our familys cook, and she tried to make us healthy food, but life was busy and finding the time to try out healthful recipes that we would actually eat was easier said than done, so the convenience of Hamburger Helper, frozen fish sticks, and other quick-to-prepare processed foods always ultimately won out. At the time, there were no local farmers markets in our town (today theres one for every day of the week!), and my family had no idea that the area of South Florida we lived in is an ideal climate for growing tons of varieties of fruits and vegetables at different seasons throughout the year.

We did have a key lime tree in our backyard, and when the little green fruits would show up, it truly felt like magic. They just appeared out of nowhere and we were able to use themfor free!to make key lime pie. I didnt know a single family with a home garden (and had never even visited a farm on a field trip), so the idea of something we could eat that grew in the ground right outside our house completely blew my mind.