Check Out The New Vegan Cookbook Bridging Healthy and Delicious With Hawaiian Flavors

With Chef Hollan Hamid's new cookbook, Good Food Gratitude, tasty and health-forward vegan food is achievable from home, without hiring a private chef.

Good Food Gratitude. PHOTO BY @MAZA.TRAVEL

Chef Hollan Hamid (hollanhawaii.com) loves sweets and she loves to eat healthy. The two aren’t mutually exclusive, she says. As a private chef based out of Hawai‘i, Hamid dishes out delicious plant-based food for a host of devoted clients. Now, with her new cookbook, Good Food Gratitude, tasty and health-forward vegan food is achievable from home, without hiring a private chef.

Author and chef Hollan Hamid. PHOTO BY @MAZA.TRAVEL

Perfect for vegans and nonvegans alike, Hamid’s wish is to share the recipes that have changed her health for the better, refusing to sacrifice rich and craveworthy flavors. Having grown up in San Francisco, Hamid fell in love with island life upon visiting Hawai‘i, soon relocating to an aloha lifestyle and raising her family here. She travels to the mainland occasionally to cook too, but her meals are often savored on the islands. Clients especially love her avocado-filled vegan play on fish tacos and her gluten-free lasagna made with creamy cashew cheese mixed with tofu or cauliflower rice—both of which are broken down in the new book. Her delectable desserts are always highly anticipated too. “The lilikoi cake is my favorite,” Hamid says. “It’s sweet. It’s decadent. It’s tart… It tastes like Hawai‘i.”

Multivitamin bowl with purple sweet potatoes, roasted beet, carrots, sauteed mushrooms, kale and sweet corn. PHOTO BY @MAZA.TRAVEL

PHOTO BY @MAZA.TRAVEL

SWEET AND SOUR LIKE A LILIKOI CAKE

Ingredients

For the cake:
1 ½ cups of lilikoi (about 15 fruits) or
1 ½ cups of frozen passion fruit puree
1 ½ cups water
½ cup olive oil
3 cups flour
2 cups sugar
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
For the icing:
2 cups powdered sugar, sifted

Cake

1. Blend the lilikoi with the seeds or use frozen passion fruit puree and set aside ¼ cup for icing.
2. Mix the remaining blended lilikoi with the water and olive oil and set aside.
3. In a Kitchenaid or in a large bowl, add all dry ingredients and mix.
4. Slowly add in wet ingredients.
5. Pour into a prepared (oil and flour) Bundt pan.
6. Bake for 30 minutes at 375 degrees.
7. Let cool for about 30 minutes.

Lilikoi Icing

1. Stir together sifted powdered sugar and ¼ cup of lilikoi puree in a container.
2. Pour over the cake and enjoy!