Vegan Food Is Sexy!

Aimee Hughes, yoga devotee and blogger over at The Sexy Vegan Kitchen, has a new cookbook! And it's all about foods that can enhance your love (and sex) life.

The Sexy Vegan Kitchen (her book has the same name as her blog) is filled with wholesome, mostly raw recipes (but there are some cooked recipes too), each containing what Aimee calls the "sexy players" or aphrodisiac foods. Bet you didn't know that celery, dates, strawberries, bananas, sea veggies, and a host of other common plant foods are believed to be able to help you in the bedroom. Yep.

I picked two recipes from the book to try. One was the Slinky Kelp Salad.

Since kelp is a sea veggie, it's the "sexy player" in this recipe. Sea veggies are believed to help produce sex hormones.

I'd picked up some kelp noodles at the Rainbow Co-op in Jackson, Mississippi last time I was passing through. I've never seen them for sale in Memphis, but I'd long wanted to try them. I don't like most sea veggies aside from a little nori on my veggie sushi. And dulse is okay. But kelp powder? Blech. I was worried that, like kelp powder, kelp noodles might be too fishy, but nope! They're actually flavorless! And they have a delightful soft-chewy texture.

Aimee's recipe adds plenty of flavor though with sesame oil, rice wine vinegar, ginger, onion, jalapeno, and carrot. It was supposed to have scallions too, but I forgot to buy them. The best part about kelp noodles and this recipe? Low-cal as hell! Only 110 calories in the WHOLE recipe, and it makes two to four servings. I ate half the recipe in one sitting.

The other recipe I tried was the Soulful Cucumber Slaw with Cashew Dressing.

 
This was awesome! Raw, blended cashews mixed with oil (I used less than the recipe called for), garlic, and lemon made for a very creamy dressing for the chopped local English cucumbers, grated carrots, celery, and raisins.

The celery was the "sexy player" here since celery produces apigenin in the body, which is responsible for dilating blood vessels in the you-know-where area. Uh-huh.

Both of these recipes came from the chapter on salads, but the book also has chapters dedicated to appetizers (called foreplay in the book), smoothies and juices, soups, grains (yay, cooked food!), desserts (a mixture of raw desserts and wholesome baked goods), elixirs (yes, there are cocktails!), and travel snacks.

I've bookmarked a ton of recipes to try soon, but the Avocado Cacao Cake of Adonis is definitely way up the list. I love that name, and it's a gluten-free cake made with avocado! I also hope to try the Killing Me Softly Kale Chips, Beautiful Biriyani (a cooked dish), Strawberry Oatmeal (also cooked), and the Date Muffins (because I LOVE dates so much I want to marry them).

If you're looking to spice up your love life or just looking for a great balanced book of super healthy raw and cooked vegan foods, The Sexy Vegan Cookbook is your man. Or woman. Or whatever you're into.