“I want to give everyone the opportunity to eat more plants in tasty ways. Amazing flavours are huge for me,” said Valentine.
“I want people to want to eat these dishes again and again.”
Valentine said it was easy for people to get stuck in the trap of recycling the same meals over and over again, but they could easily add a diversity of plants and their wide range of important nutrients.
“There is abundance in nature and in plants. There are so many we can use and they have fantastic flavours and health properties.
“Only plants have fibre, which is a huge issue for a lot of people; especially kids.
“So many people have trouble going to the toilet.
“You simply can’t have happy guts without fibre.”
Abundance features a range of comfort foods, which may surprise those yet to experience the versatility of fibre-loaded whole food ingredients like lentils.
“These’s cottage pie, spag bol, risotto, mac and cheese, plus some popular Indian dishes.
“But the roast dinner is definitely the ultimate comfort food. It isn’t as easy to make as some of the other recipes, but it’s so good.”
Four of the book’s five cheese recipes are plant-based, which Valentine said she was “pretty stoked about”.
“Cheese is one of the main concerns for people considering eating more plant-based, so I’ve worked really hard on these.”
Valentine described the book’s focus as helping people experience what’s possible with whole foods and plants, while picking up some crucial nutrition education.
“Health is really important to everybody, even if you don’t think it is.
“If your body’s working right, if you feed it the right things, you just feel better.”
Some of Valentine’s cheeses feature hemp hearts, which she described as “nutritionally incredible”.
“The magnesium and Omega-3 fatty acids they contain are something many people are deficient in. And seeds in general are on par with meat in terms of price.”
Valentine also said nutritional balance was a key consideration in her recipes.
“We need an equal mix of protein, carbs, fat and fibre for our bodies to work well.”
As for her penchant for using whole food ingredients, Valentine said these offered the most nutrition because they were the least processed so contained everything nature intended - including the crucial fibre.
She described the book’s first section as dedicated to everyday staples - milks, spreads, sauces and more - that people could make from scratch to save money and reduce packaging waste.
The book covers every meal of the day, from breakfast and brunch dishes to sweet baking and desserts.
Valentine recommended families who wished to make their mums a special breakfast try her hotcakes, which can be made sweet or savoury or as waffles.
It also features extensive salad and soups sections, and every recipe is vegetarian with instructions on how to adapt it to be vegan and gluten-free.
Valentine is a chef, recipe creator, cookbook author, food photographer, forager, plant medicine maker, mother and passionate plant-based foodie who’s been vegetarian since age 12.
She has worked in Wellington, Melbourne and London, and created New Zealand’s first commercially available kumara chips.
Valentine now runs a cook school and catering business in Kaeo, where she constantly gathers and refines recipes.
She had been working on another book when publisher Upstart Press approached her.
“Food is my muse; it inspires me,” she said.
“I get asked all the time whether I have a restaurant or cafe, so this lunch is my way of catering to those people who just want to be cooked for.”
Abundance: 100 plus plant-based recipes to savour year round, from Upstart Press, costs $45.
Valentine’s intimate Mother’s Day long lunch is this Sunday, May 14, from 12-4pm, At The Veggie Tree, located in Valentine’s historic kauri villa in Kaeo.
To view the menu and buy tickets ($150 includes 5 courses, drinks and a signed copy of the book) visit: theveggietree.com.
