500 Vegan Recipes by Celine Steen and Joni Marie Newman
I'm already a fan of recipes from these ladies. Celine with her recipe-filled blog Have Cake Will Travel, and Joni from Just The Food and the author of one of my favorite comfort food cookbooks, Cozy Inside. I've barely scratched the surface of this huge recipe collection. 500 Recipes is no joke, especially for only $19.95. I was disappointed to see that none of Celine's gorgeous food photography made it into the book, though I have a feeling this was to help keep the cover price reasonable. I hope the publisher goes for color images with these gal's next title, at least.
But the recipes are what's important, you know. And there are a shit-ton of them in 500 Vegan Recipes. From sweet to savory, easy to more complex, everything you could possibly want is included within. They even have a whole chapter on my favorite food category, Faux Meats! You thought I was gonna say Desserts, didn't you? Well, there's plenty of that, too. I had a chance to try the Laurel and Hardy Peanut Fauxsage recipe, and it was super easy to make. It's basically baked seitan, rolled into a sausage shape. So tasty and economical.
Also from the Faux Meat chapter I had a chance to make the Black Bean Grillers. These are truly phenomenal burgers. Ken really went crazy for them, too. Unfortunately, we devoured them before I could get a photo. But I'm sure you can imagine what a great vegan burger looks like. Again, another easy and economical recipe. Store bought veggie burgers can cost as much as $6.99 per box of four! And they are never as good as homemade.
We also tried the Cauliflower Pasta Crisp from 500 Vegan Recipes. The sauce was nice and creamy thanks to blended cauliflower, and kind of reminded me of hummus with the addition of tahini, olive oil, cumin and paprika. Much different from the typical Italian style pasta dishes. Plus, it was topped with a ton of bread crumbs. Can't go wrong there. This was hard to take a good picture of, but trust me, it was delish.
I'm looking forward to cooking more from 500 Vegan Recipes soon. I have my eye on some other yummy-sounding recipes like Crispy Coconut Tempeh Nuggets, Enchilada Casserole, Pumpkin Spinach Ravioli, Savory Tomato Olive Muffins, Chocolate Chip Cookie Pie, Peanut Butter Blondies, and more.
Later next week, I'll bore you with my take on two new dessert cookbooks, one you have heard of, and another you might not know about. See you then?
2 comments:
Great review! Hopefully you'll be seeing an order from me for one in the next month or so! :)
Oh I would so like to get these, but many of the recipes are based on vital wheat gluten and vital wheat gluten is so hard to come by in the U.K. Maybe I will get them anyway, who knows. Thanks for sharing.
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