My Interview with Lindsay Nixon, the Happy Herbivore

A couple of weeks ago, Lindsay Nixon, creator of the vegan blog/website/empire the Happy Herbivore, posted that she was conducting a blog tour to promote her latest cookbook, Everyday Happy Herbivore. (Lindsay’s first cookbook, The Happy Herbivore Cookbook, has been a huge success!) Lindsay offered to be interviewed via email by any blogger who was interested. I was definitely interested! I sent my list of questions to Lindsay, and she replied. She also graciously permitted bloggers on the tour to share a recipe from EHH. You’re going to LOVE the recipe I’ve decided to share – and you’re likely to be surprised by a slightly unusual (but common) ingredient.

In case you aren’t familiar with Lindsay and the Happy Herbivore, here’s a little info:

Lindsay S. Nixon is a rising star in the culinary world, praised for her ability to use everyday ingredients to create healthy, low-fat recipes that taste just as delicious as they are nutritious. Lindsay’s recipes have been featured in Vegetarian Times, Women’s Health Magazine and on The Huffington Post. Lindsay is also a consulting chef at La Samanna, a luxury resort and four-star restaurant in the French West Indies. You can learn more about Lindsay and sample some of her recipes at happyherbivore.com.

After vegan chef Lindsay S. Nixon wrapped up her popular cookbook The Happy Herbivore Cookbook last year, she went back to her kitchen in her new home of St. Maarten. Island living encouraged Nixon to come up with simpler fare, which led to a follow-up cookbook focusing on recipes that bring tasty back to quick-and-easy.

Now, in Nixon’s much-anticipated follow-up cookbook, Everyday Happy Herbivore, readers will see, once again, that just because plant-based eating is optimal for health, it doesn’t have to also be expensive or time-consuming.

Everyday Happy Herbivore includes more than 175 doable recipes–recipes that are so quick and easy, you could cook three healthy meals from scratch every day like Nixon does.

Each of Nixon’s recipes are made with wholesome, easy-to-find, fresh ingredients and include no added fats. With additional notes indicating recipes that are ideal for preparing ahead of time and those you can whip up with just a few dollars, Everyday Happy Herbivore will be the must-have cookbook for anyone desiring a healthier, happier menu!

I don’t have my copy of EHH yet, but it’s on my anniversary list. (Mr. M and I will be celebrating our first anniversary, which is traditionally celebrated with exchanges of paper, on Christmas Eve, so we’re giving each other books.) I do, however, have a well-worn copy of The Happy Herbivore Cookbook; I can’t get enough of the different cheeze sauces lately. Mmmm….(I used one of them in my Health Nachos.)

Here is my interview with Lindsay:

Where do you get your inspiration for new recipes?

It’s a good mix of trying to replicate recipes that I used to eat that were either not vegan or not healthy, I’ll create something on the fly or I’ll be inspired by an ingredient. For example I saw a beautiful bunch of chard I couldn’t pass up so I took it home and created a recipe for it.

How many times do you test a new recipe before you publish it (either on HH or in a cookbook)?

On the blog I make it and then I publish it within the next day or two, whenever I have time. With the book I make it, give it to my team of testers, and they make it. After they make it, and I read their feedback, I decide to publish it, can it, or send it through another round of testing after adjustments.

Who taste tests your recipes before they’re publicized?

A large team of testers and their family, friends, etc. I list them in both books in the “acknowledgments”

What’s a typical day of food like for you? Do you follow your own meal plan?

I do follow my own meal plan — I built the plans based on how I eat everyday. Now that I’m writing another cookbook, I don’t follow it exactly since I’m tasting and creating all day, but my new recipes fit within the plan, so in a way, I’m still on it.

And here is an AWESOME recipe from EHH:

P. Chocolate Smoothie | serves 1

Peas & Chocolate? Yes, I know, it sounds crazy but you can’t detect the peas at all. The smoothie only tastes chocolately but the peas give it a nice boost of protein and other nutrients to start your day right.

1 c nondairy milk
½ frozen banana
½ c frozen peas
2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa
agave to taste

Combine milk, banana, peas and cocoa in a blender and whiz until smooth, adding more nondairy milk as necessary. Taste, adding agave or other sweetener, as needed.

Per Serving: 108 Calories, 1g Fat, 20.5g Carbohydrates, 4.7g Fiber, 11.3s Sugars, 7.5g

I know it sounds weird, but you seriously cannot taste the peas. And who doesn’t have a bag of frozen peas in their freezer? (I do because I feed them to Betty, my 8 1/2 year old vegan goldfish. More on her soon!)

I’ve tried a couple other recipes from EHH (that Lindsay has emailed to blog subscribers), and they’ve all been delicious. One of my favorite things about HH and the cookbooks is the lack of oil/fat. I don’t use much, if any, fat in my cooking (even when I bake, unless it’s for other people), so it’s really nice to find recipes that don’t need to be altered, which means no surprises on the final outcome. Awesome! I’m so appreciative of the lack of oil/fat used on HH and in the cookbooks that I ended my interview by telling Lindsay that I barrow her saying, “The fat you eat is the fat you wear,” all the time to my family and friends. She attributed it to Dr. McDougall, whom I’ve admired and been following since before I went vegetarian. Double awesome!