We all know by now that we should be eating more plants, but incorporating plant-based meals into our diets can be difficult without some direction. Plant Forward is filled with delicious, colorful, satisfying, and easy-to-make plant-based recipes that will become staples in your own and your family’s regular meal rotation. Jodi Bornstein, a clinical occupational therapist at Hebrew SeniorLife in Boston who also teaches at the Massachusetts General Hospital Institute of Health Professions, created a popular food blog called Redgate Kitchen for her favorite recipes and food photography.
In Plant Forward, nearly ninety of Jodi’s recipes, from salads and sides to soups and mains, draw from the flavors of the Mediterranean, Middle East, and Asia, using easy-to-acquire ingredients from your fridge, pantry, or local grocery store. The recipes’ step-by-step instructions are easy to follow, and Jodi’s own photography illustrates the pages, making for a bright addition to your kitchen library you will come to rely on.
Jodi is not a formally trained chef, and she doesn’t think you need to be one either to make healthy and flavorful meals. Her number one rule of cooking is to have fun in the kitchen, which shines through in these Plant Forward recipes. Her philosophy to great plant-based cooking is to create easily interchangeable sauces, dips, and dishes to give cooks a large variety of plates and flavors for mixing and matching. How many ways can you cook an eggplant? In a roll, baked, grilled, or as a dip, with sweet chili glaze or with tomato and herb sauce. Chickpeas? Hummus, in a sandwich, crisped, or in a salad. Using Plant Forward you can bake your own pita and dip it in lemon, green, or siracha tahini, or better yet, stuff it with some za’atar and sumac roasted tofu, red onions that you pickled yourself, and drizzle one of those delicious tahinis on top.
This is home cooking using a full palate of spices and real whole food ingredients. Cook Plant Forward and you’ll thank yourself at mealtime, as will your friends and family.
