Veganuary’s website gets a stampede of traffic, especially during January when participants are seeking out new plant-based recipes to try. And while some of those recipes ride high in the popularity polls, some have been languishing at the bottom of the pile for a very long time, overlooked and very much unloved.
This is not because they don’t taste great – all our recipes are really tasty – but their pages consistently go un-clicked because, and there is no kind way to put this, they look like they fell out the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down.
But, this is categorically not their fault! Some were caught from a funny angle. In others, the lighting was bad. And in one, the food definitely turned away just at the wrong moment.
So, now, in a bid to make the world see their inner beauty and to take a chance on making them for their dinner, we have taken five of our absolute ugliest recipes and given them a shiny Veganuary makeover.
1. Cheese on Toast
Back in the early days of Veganuary, things were super busy as we tried to sell our vision to a sceptical world. And so, it’s possible that, while caught up on a call, we might have left our cheese on toast under the grill for just a minute or two too long. Maybe three.
It didn’t help that the photo was posted the wrong way up and left that way for 12 years, and no, we don’t know what is poking in from the corner either. There are many mysteries in this one photo, that’s for sure.
But, we maintain that this is a REALLY GOOD recipe, delicious, healthy and comforting, with the cheese made entirely from whole foods.
It deserves so much more love than it has ever had, and so we took the time to treat it nice. And just look at it now! Contrasting backdrop, some fresh juice to highlight its colour. Heck, we even picked some flowers. And what an absolute stunner this recipe turned out to be. Now it looks as good as it tastes.
2. Mexican Plate
Continuing with the theme of posting images the wrong way up, we give you… our Mexican-inspired plate consisting of chili, refried beans, guacamole, and black rice.
We don’t know what scared the food so badly that it hid in the corner of the plate but it must have been serious to make the refried beans use the guacamole as a non-human shield.
And it’s an unfortunate double-whammy of unloveliness as we note that the Chilli Non Carne in this recipe links to yet another of our ugliest recipes, which, far from showcasing those much-loved Mexican flavours, looks like we irradiated a can of baked beans.
We certainly had our work cut out here. We started with a clean, fresh background and a pretty dish. With natural lighting, it’s possible to tell that those are grains of rice and not just a sinister mass that had slimed its way out of a bog. And then we gave it a little pop of colour from the chillies.
“But where are those ugly refried beans?” you might ask. And the answer is… They’re in there. You just can’t see them. And that is exactly as it should be.
While we were prettying up this plate, we took a pass at the chilli itself. We simply turned off the irradiation-filter and added some fresh green tones with the avocado and lime. Now it looks good enough to eat without the precaution of wearing a biohazard suit, which honestly is the least we should expect from a meal.
3. Quick Stir Fry
The two best things about a stir fry are all those lovely bright colours, which really get the taste buds going, and the crisp freshness of the vegetables that we cannot wait to bite into.
So, it’s quite something to be able to create a dish so muted and so mushy that it looks like it spent the night on a pavement. Plus, we have managed to get the entire photo out of focus, for which, as you will soon see, we have quite the talent.
Now, we love edamame as much as the next hipster but it is possible to have too much of a good thing, and so when we came to sprucing up the photo, we cut back on them just a touch.
Then, like the mavericks we are, we lightly cooked the veg so they kept their brightness and zing and we gave the image more of a homely feel. Because stir fry is a homely meal – it’s quick, easy, nutritious and tasty. And if you want to eat your own bodyweight in edamame, be our guest. They are still right there, but in a bowl. On the side.
4. Greek Vegetable and Butterbean Stew
If you didn’t believe that getting the shot out of focus was very much our thing… ta da! Squint, and you can just about make out some green beans in this Greek-style stew, and something orange, maybe. And brown.
There is also what appears to be fingertips, absentmindedly lopped off by the chef, perhaps. And there you were, thinking that all our recipes were vegan.
This is an old-school, veg-packed, flavourful bowl of absolute comfort, and it deserves to be made and enjoyed. We accept that part of its unpopularity may have been that we didn’t offer any quantities for the spices in this recipe, but this is not a fascist state, comrade!
We are not here to tell you what to do! Nonetheless, we went ahead and added those. And then we cooked it up, put it in a Hellenic-coloured bowl, and FOCUSED THE CAMERA so it’s possible to work out what you are eating. Not so shabby now, huh?
5. Zoodles with Pesto
What in the name of all that is maggoty is going on here? A hundred different horror-movie scenes instantly spring to mind, and also a few memories from our own real life. No, we don’t want to talk about it.
But also, we really really don’t want to eat these zoodles either. Is it the colour, the texture, the dollop-on-a-plateness? We don’t know, but we can’t afford the therapy to find out, and so instead, let’s do something wonderful and make this dish pretty again.
The thing about pesto and courgettes is they are GREEN and, in terms of making something look enticing, we felt showcasing that was a pretty good place to start.
We cooked the tomatoes more lightly so they kept their shape and didn’t look like something you might fish out of the plughole after a grimy guest had overstayed their welcome. We scattered those chickpeas across the dish rather than dumper-trucking them on top, and suddenly, you have a light and healthy, summer dish that looks really rather tasty.
So, now that these overlooked dishes have been transformed, we hope you will show them some love. Click on them! Share them! Make them yourself and share your own photos with us! And wouldn’t it be something if these five beauties appeared on next year’s Most Popular list? Let’s make it happen.
