Small steps to becoming deliciously plant-based with Ella Mills
Ella Mills with her husband Matthew and their children, Skye, three, and May, 22 months. Pictures: How to Go Plant-Based by Ella Mills. Hodder & Stoughton Publishers 2022.
"Broccoli alone is not the answer to feeling well."
Food writer Ella Mills, aka Deliciously Ella, is a passionate advocate for a plant-based diet as a way of eating healthily but she is also aware that it doesn't work in isolation. "It's important, but it's not a miracle. There aren't any miracle cures out there. It's just making those small steps. It can be making things like veggie tray bakes, going for a walk, going to sleep half an hour earlier, and trying to spend half an hour with a friend on the weekend. It can be those very, very, very simple, very tangible things," she says.
Mills, who is based in London, speaks from experience. She started the Deliciously Ella blog in 2012 to record recipes focused on whole foods and plant-based cooking after a diagnosis of postural tachycardia syndrome (an abnormal increase in heart rate that occurs after sitting up or standing). Plant-based wasn't a term that we were familiar with then. "When I changed my diet," says Mills, "no one used the words plant-based... It was - statistically and anecdotally - incredibly niche."
It didn't stay underground for long: after the blog came supper clubs, pop-up events, an app — and then Mills's 2015 debut cookbook , which became a bestseller. Now she's just released . "This is our sixth book, which is crazy. My mum told me she thought I would be punching high to sell 500 copies of the first one."
sold 32,000 copies in the first week of release. Mills, together with her husband and company CEO Matthew, have gone on to establish Deliciously Ella as a brand, incorporating a range of plant-based food products — energy balls, snack bars and granola — and opening a restaurant in Central London. They're a power couple: Ella is a scion of the Sainsbury supermarket family, while her husband is the son of British Labour politician Tessa Jowell. With two young children (Skye is three and May will be two in October) and 50 people working in the company, it's been a busy few years for Mills.
"It's been just over two years since I published our last book and in that time, I just really wanted to take a bit of time to reflect. I'm very passionate about everything we do with the brand, that everything has a genuine use. We could have licensed the brand to do X, Y and Z, and we would have made a lot of money quickly. And that's just not appealing to myself or my husband. We want everything at Deliciously Ella to have a mission to help people."
Mills's passion for eating plant-based doesn't discriminate against those who describe themselves as flexitarians. Bord Bia's 2021 Dietary Lifestyles Report noted that 2% of the Irish population identified as vegan — compared to just 1% in 2018 — but 16% of respondents said that they consider themselves flexitarians, defined as someone who has a primarily vegetarian diet but occasionally eats meat or fish. This flexible way of eating has led to an increase in households buying plant-based or vegan products, and it's where Mills sees her niche: "It felt like we could give people more information and help dismantle some myths and make sure people are really well equipped. Even the most basic questions like: where do you get protein, calcium, and iron or what supplements do you take? Or, can my children do this? What about my teenager? What about my toddler? But also why this is important to our collective wellbeing. I really felt that there was an opportunity to bring that all together in one kind of easy, one-stop-shop for people.”
With subtitled 'A Definitive Guide For You and Your Family,' the book's first half focuses on answering questions about this way of eating, explaining what a healthy diet is and showing how to build a properly balanced plant-based diet. Mills gathered a team of experts to work on this section with her. "If something is going to be a definitive guide, it needs to be a definitive guide. You need to answer everybody's questions. And one person can't do that. That's why I've got seven different experts in there."
No stranger to sceptics, Mills is focused on making sure that the facts in the book are correct. "This is up-to-date, relevant, statistically correct information that I'm getting because I think there's still a nervousness that wellness and wellbeing can be a bit woo woo and wishy-washy. And I wanted to make sure that that was not the case at all, that it was interesting and inspiring, but equally very robust," she says.
While the recipes in the book's latter half are vegan, Mills is relaxed about people who want to mix it up: "It's progress, not perfection. It's not about trying to tell people anyone's doing anything wrong. You've got to have flexibility and a sense of balance in your life for this [plant-based eating] to be something that's long term. It's just about equipping yourself with a bit more information, a bit more knowledge, so you feel more confident when you're approaching what you're cooking."
The recipes are simple, achievable and, a touch of cacao or coconut sugar aside, use easily accessible or store cupboard ingredients. From breakfast (the slow-baked creamy berry and coconut oats recipe is one to bookmark) to speedy lunches (good things on toast, a 10-minute pea and pesto orzo) and tempting traybakes, there are plenty of family-friendly pasta, gnocchi and curry recipes that will appeal to everyone.
"I like meeting people where they are, which is, for the vast majority of people, that they want to eat more healthily, maybe dip their toe into plant-based food on a Monday night, at the beginning of the week," says Mills.
She is adamant that this mode of eating is not a diet: "We know that diets don't work. It's a fact. So you need to look at this as slow, small, sustainable steps toward a healthier diet. So what's one thing you could change this week? Maybe you could focus on adding one extra portion of fruit and veggies daily. Or you could say: 'I'm going to try one new healthy plant-based recipe this week', or 'I'm going to try meat-free Monday'.
"Do just one thing at a time and ask, where I would like to be 365 days from today? How would I like to be living my life? How would I like to be eating? What healthy tools would I like in my life? Not, what do I want to be doing tomorrow or next Monday? So, small and steady, thinking about decades, not days. And making it taste good. Because if it doesn't taste good, it won't last."
"It's actually on the front cover of the book. It's a good one because it just has a nice funkiness to it, a heartiness to it. I think when you have anything with pasta, it immediately feels quite accessible."
"It's really easy, but also it feels quite acceptable."
"That's just a very simple, easy little recipe."
"This is also very popular because again, it's just so straightforward. It's just about ten ingredients."
Simple Baked Ratatouille
This looks simple, but it’s so delicious and is always such a hit. Having everything in one pan makes life a lot easier too.
Servings
4Preparation Time
24 minsCooking Time
30 minsTotal Time
54 minsCourse
MainCuisine
FrenchIngredients
1 large aubergine, sliced into 0.5cm rounds
1 tbsp olive oil, plus extra for drizzling
1 red onion, thinly sliced
2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1 tsp dried thyme
500ml passata + 50ml water to rinse out
the container
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 yellow pepper, deseeded and sliced into
0.5cm rounds
2 medium courgettes, sliced into 0.5cm
rounds
sea salt and black pepper
Method
Preheat the oven to 180°C fan.
Arrange the aubergine slices in a colander (place it over a bowl to keep the counter dry) and sprinkle with one teaspoon of salt. Leave it to one side while you prep the sauce.
Place a casserole dish (about 25–30cm in diameter and preferably a shallow one) over a medium heat and gently heat the olive oil. Add the onion and fry for 5–10 minutes until soft, season with salt and pepper then add the garlic and fry for another couple of minutes.
Add the thyme, passata, water and balsamic vinegar; turn up the heat and bring to the boil. Let it bubble for 2–3 minutes then remove from the heat.
Rinse and pat the aubergine dry using kitchen paper.
Arrange the aubergine, yellow pepper and courgette in a spiral on top of the tomato sauce, overlapping them slightly and alternating the vegetables until they are all used up.
Drizzle a little more olive oil over the top, season with salt and pepper, then bake in the oven, uncovered, for 30 minutes, until the vegetables are slightly charred and the sauce is thick. Serve immediately.
For very little ones, blitz their portion to make a veggie sauce.
- How To Go Plant-Based: A Definitive Guide For You and Your Family by Ella Mills, published by Yellow Kite, is out on August 18
