COOKING WITH A CONSCIENCE Offers an inspiring and mouthwatering glimpse into the remarkable diversity and elegance of plant-based cuisine, and into the future of food on this planet. This cookbook gracefully celebrates the emerging glory of vegan cuisine a cuisine that is proving that kindness and awareness are also tasty and healthy. -- Will Tuttle, Ph.D., author, The World Peace Diet
Destined to become a classic. But I hope it will become a series. Priscilla Feral and Friends of Animals vision brings a community together to create a book that is more than the sum of its parts! Added between the lines is pure passion for plant-based ingredients. -- Linda Long, author, Great Chefs Cook Vegan
When you feel good, life is a lot easier, and the vegan food in this book makes you feel great.
-- Bart Potenza and Joy Pierson, Candle 79 and Candle Café, New York City ---- Bart Potenza and Joy Pierson, Candle 79 and Candle Café, New York City
The
Best of Vegan Cooking is a beautiful book that lives up to its name. Both its savoury dishes and desserts are creative, tasty and healthy.
Priscilla Feral's The Best of Vegan Cooking is a collection of 84 vegan recipes gathered from various sources, including many well-known chefs. The layout is colorful yet clean, which makes the book inviting and easy to read. Appetite-whetting color photos of many of the dishes are included as full-page inserts.
Contents
The book is definitely geared towards parties and entertaining, though most of the dishes are simple and quick enough to cook for weeknight dinner, often with just a few ingredients. The most notable exception is the incredibly fancy-looking vegetable carousel torte with pommes souffles filled with peas.
The book is focused on vegetables, fruit, berries, whole grains and legumes. Tofu is included in some recipes, but TVP, seitan and fake meats are all but absent. Only a few recipes require specialty ingredients. There are quite a few salads, most of them quite hearty. Some flavour combinations are fairly unusual, such as the watermelon and tomato salad.
Italian flare is prominent, with a number of pasta recipes (including sweet potato gnocchi) and as many as six risottos. Other ethnic dishes are a minority but they include an Asian miso tempeh nori soup, Mexican tortillas, succotash and an Irish stew.
No trendy vegan cupcakes are included, but the dessert chapter features several cakes, a cheesecake, parfaits, puddings and chocolate truffles. There is also a separate section for ice creams and sorbets, including things like cantaloupe sorbet and peanut butter coconut ice cream (one of the very few high-fat recipes, although it uses light coconut milk).
Recipe Testing Results
The tester's favorite recipe was the wonderfully burgundy-hued blueberry-pomegranate sorbet, which also features in the cover of the book. A highlight among the savory dishes was mashed potatoes with celery root - simple, but surprisingly delicious, even judged by someone who does not particularly care for celery!
The cauliflower "steaks" were enjoyable, though quite a lot of work if prepared according to the recipe. Another cauliflower dish, gobi matar (cauliflower and peas with Indian spices) was tasty, though could have used a little more spices and might have been better without the red onion.
Recommendation
The Best of Vegan Cooking shows that healthy, compassionate cooking can be flavourful and exquisite - often very simple too. If there is anything that would have made the book better, that would be having more great recipes, and perhaps more information (e.g. metric measurements, adaptations/variations and such).
The Best of Vegan Cooking can be heartily recommended for all vegans and vegetarians, especially those who don't want to rely on store-bought tofurkey and veggeroni. It would also be a great fit for omnivores who want to learn to cook wholesome meals that pack a punch of flavour, especially when entertaining guests.
Besides being omnivore-friendly, the book is also quite allergy-friendly. Obviously everything is free of dairy and eggs, and most recipes are gluten-free and soy-free (although not marked as so). Nuts are only used in a few dishes. --Suite101.com, Oct 19, 2010 by Maija Haavisto
