Happy New Year, friends! I hope this finds you feeling fully celebrated, full of delicious food and fresh memories. I don’t know if you’re feeling like I am, ready for some clean eating and a recommitment to healthy habits – no better time than today, is there?
Maybe you’re considering a focus on more vegetables on your plate—anything from a meatless weeknight to a plunge into becoming a full-time vegan. I have a whole vegetarian chapter to peruse, filled with recipes that might inspire you. Some of my favorite recipes found there include this farro salad with Treviso and walnuts (that I would eat now with sorghum swapped for the farro to be gluten-free), this pumpkin dish with labneh and skhug, this red quinoa and almond pilaf with sautéed mushrooms, or this mousakka, in which red lentils are a healthier stand-in for lamb. For vegans, I love this recipe for three-bean chili; though this curly zucchini salad with tofu and peanut sauce is hard to beat. This buddha bowl whatever-it-is is my very favorite one-bowl meal.
Or maybe you’re interested in cleaning up your pantry – giving up gluten, say, or trying a restrictive diet to heal your gut? The above recipes work for those avoiding gluten, as does all the more recent content you’ll stumble upon on The Wright Recipes: ranging from a cake or two (or this addendum that hacks wide open my Cake Magic! cookbook, rendering over 100 cake recipes gluten and refined sugar-free), to my family’s favorite way to eat pizza. (After all, my recommendation to those diving into the gluten-free life is to actively seek out replacements for favorite gluten-filled foods, so you don’t feel left out at mealtimes. Psst, this is your best bet recipe for pancakes; waffles too.)
Personally, I am inspired by the EWG’s “Dirty Dozen / Clean Fifteen” lists here to be most conscious about my shopping – to buy organic and local always, of course, but to educate myself on what I can also buy conventional, too. For the clean contingent (so, conventional approved, ): this avocado smoothie would do the trick; if I still ate corn I’d gobble this farro, corn and basil salad like I once did (swapping the farro for sorghum as I previously mentioned); some sliced pineapple swapped for the mango in this beet salad; my dad’s beef and onion stew (swapping arrowroot for the flour these days); papaya, just scooped from its skin drizzled with lime juice, no recipe needed; this baked risotto (swapping spring onions for shallots this time of year, doubling up on the frozen peas in celebration of their cleanliness); this couscous – sub millet – with asparagus, chervil and white wine topped with pistachios; these dumplings with cabbage (made with gluten-free wonton wrappers, of course); this warm mushroom salad with arugula and walnuts is a true favorite. Best of all, this winter kale salad with carrot combines veggies from the clean and dirty lists. I have so many veggie-forward recipes that will help you celebrate your particular brand of thoughtful eating at this new year of ours begins.
Reading here with a paid subscription helps to support my family and is one of the creative ways I make a living so I can be with them as much as possible. I hope you’ll consider upgrading to a paid subscription – just $70 for a whole year! As thanks, your paid subscription will unlock access to a new recipe I made just for you at the end of your newsletter. Other ways to support my work include buying my books: Twenty Dollar, Twenty Minute Meals (whose Simple Miso Soup with Asparagus ticks clean eating off, well, simply); Cake Magic! (the addendum for which I’ve told you about, the key to gluten-free celebrations year round); Catalan Food (whose Samfaina, or Catalan vegetable ragout, is a stellar gluten-free and a vegan main); and Soup Club (full of exclusively vegan recipes that are worthy of a whole meal, but whose Hoppin’ John I’m preparing today as you read this). Pre-order a copy of my next cookbook, Seconds, here to take a look at even more vegan soup recipes when the book launches at the end of the month!
Happiest of new year wishes to each of you, with a side of thanks for gathering here. For the paid subscribers among you, hang back, I have an unexpected recipe that spans the gamut of cooking-and-eating cleanup I’ve rambled about here. See you all back here in a month for more recipe ideas! In the meantime, I wish cooking and eating in ways that inspire you and make you feel your best.
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