Vegan on the Cheap [Paperback]

Robin Robertson (Author)

Book Description

Release date: April 19, 2010

You don't have to blow your budget to eat great meatless and dairy-free meals every day.

With Vegan on the Cheap, you can enjoy delicious vegan meals every day of the week. Veteran food writer and vegan authority Robin Robertson provides 150 mouth-watering, exciting recipes that cost just 50 cents to $2 per serving-hefty savings to go with hearty vegan meals.

This book presents great options for savory soups and stews, satisfying salads, hearty noodle dishes, first-class casseroles, favorites for the slow cooker, and meatless and dairy-free recipes for classics like pizza, burgers, and sandwiches. Plus, there's even a chapter for desserts to satisfy every sweet tooth. Throughout the book, smart tips and creative ideas help you save money by cooking in bulk, prepping meals in advance, and finding tasty ways to reuse leftovers.

Includes 150 money-saving recipes for delicious vegan meals like Walnut-Dusted Fettuccine with Caramelized Vegetables and Fresh Pear Galette

Written by renowned vegan and vegetarian expert and food writer Robin Robertson, author of 1,000 Vegan Recipes Features cost-per-serving icons that highlight the cost of each affordable dish

Packed with affordable recipes and money-saving tips, this is the ultimate resource for every vegan kitchen.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

The ultimate vegan budget cookbook—easy recipes for delicious food that costs no more than $2 per serving!

With the price of fresh vegetables, fruit, and meatless and dairy-free foods on the rise, it's tougher than ever to eat great-tasting vegan meals without blowing your budget. In Vegan on the Cheap, Robin Robertson gives you a big bang for your buck with 150 exciting, mouthwatering recipes—all for just 50 to $2 per serving.

You'll find great options for savory soups and stews, satisfying salads, hearty noodle dishes, first-class casseroles, slow-cooker favorites, quick-and-simple skillet dinners, plus vegan versions of classic foods like pizza, burgers, and sandwiches. Even if you cook every night, these recipes won't let you run out of ideas any time soon!

And, Vegan on the Cheap provides plenty of tips and strategies for everyday savings:

• Manage your food budget with handy cost-per-serving icons for each recipe
• Make your own meat alternatives like seitan at a fraction of the cost of packaged proteins
• Prepare and stockpile big batches of ingredients that will keep for weeks
• Cook it once but enjoy it twice with "Two-for-One Meals"

About the Author

Robin Robertson is a veteran restaurant chef, cooking teacher, and an acclaimed writer. She pens a regular column for VegNews Magazine and has written for Vegetarian Times, Health Naturally, Restaurant Business, National Culinary Review, American Culinary Federation Magazine, and Better Nutrition. She has written numerous cookbooks including the best-selling titles Vegan Planet, Vegan on the Cheap, and Quick-Fix Vegan. Robertson currently writes, promotes her books, and teaches classes on her innovative vegan cuisine from her home in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, where she lives with her husband and two cats. Her website is www.robinrobertson.com

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; 1 edition (April 19, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0470472243
• ISBN-13: 978-0470472248
• Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 0.7 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (129 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #14,202 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #99 in Books > Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Quick & Easy

More About the Author

A longtime vegan, Robin Robertson has more than twenty cookbooks, including Vegan on the Cheap, 1,000 Vegan Recipes, Vegan Planet, Vegan Fire and Spice, Quick-Fix Vegan, and Fresh from the Vegan Slow Cooker. For more information about her books and for sample recipes, visit her website at www.robinrobertson.com.

Before she began writing cookbooks, Robin was a restaurant chef and cooking teacher. When she left the restaurant business in the late 1980s, Robin became vegan for ethical reasons. Over the years, she has fine-tuned her vegan diet into an eclectic and healthful cooking style which she thinks of as a creative adventure with an emphasis on the vibrant flavors of global cuisines and fresh ingredients. In addition to writing cookbooks, Robin writes 'The Global Vegan' column for VegNews Magazine.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

314 of 317 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Great cookbook, with one caveat May 23, 2010

By Reader

Format:Paperback

The recipes in this book really are inexpensive to make. The book starts with about 28 pages of advice on ways to save money on food, and the rest of the book is devoted to recipes. I have tried the following so far, and thought they were great:

Cheezee sauce (excellent!)
Comfort loaf (Best vegan 'meatloaf' I've ever had)
Baked ziti (Delicious; I was amazed at how well the tofu worked in this dish)
Mexican rice and bean bake (Today's dinner - also outstanding)

The one caveat I have about the book is that some of the directions appear to be incomplete. This is okay for experienced cooks that can just figure out how to make it work. But someone with less experience and know-how could possibly end up wasting money by trying recipes that won't work.

For example, the Cheezee sauce recipe tells you to combine some ingredients in a saucepan. Then it says, "Turn the heat on medium and whisk in the soy milk. Cook, stirring, until the sauce thickens, about 1 minute." This makes it sound like you are supposed to just turn on the heat and have the pot on the stove for 1 minute. What you have to do is bring the mixture to boiling and then cook it for about 1 minute longer. So, the author forgot to mention the part about bringing the mixture to boiling. If you've never made a sauce this way before, you might throw it out if you follow the directions, because it's not useful in that watery state.

In the Mexican rice and bean bake, the recipe involves partially cooking some rice on the stovetop, and then putting it in the oven to cook the rest of the way. I think that there is something missing from the directions there as well, because I cooked and baked as directed, and had to double my baking time to cook the rice completely.... (And, no, there is nothing wrong with my oven.) I presume that it was supposed to be cooked a little longer on the stovetop first, but again, the directions just indicated that you were to return the stovetop mixture to boiling, and then dump it in the pan to go into the oven. I suspect you were supposed to boil it for a little while on the stovetop first.

The food tastes great. She really does a lot with inexpensive ingredients. (One of the things I liked about this cookbook was that she only asks you to have a few non-standard ingredients on hand, unlike most vegan cookbooks, which expect that you are secretly running an international grocery store in your kitchen.) But considering I tried 4 recipes so far, and 2 of them had inaccurate directions, I'm a little concerned about the rest of the book. I'll just have to remember to be more vigilant when making these recipes.

I think this is particularly important for this book, because I am sure that this book was geared, in part, to the 'starving students' and other new vegans who want to eat vegan on a budget. In general, younger people have less cooking experience and therefore will be less likely to know how to 'fix' these recipes. Also, I have a few of Robertson's other cookbooks, and haven't ever come across this problem so far. So, I'm disappointed for that reason, too.

But, man, that Mexican rice and bean bake is REALLY good. Read more ›

83 of 83 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, easy, healthy recipes that I can make for myself or dinner guests May 2, 2010

By A. Pennington

Format:Paperback

I love this book. I'm not great in the kitchen but this book helps me hide that fact from guests I have over for dinner. Not only are the recipes interesting and delicious (ex: Easy Peanut Sauce, how could I have presented Thai curry without this before?), but the book also has unique elements that I've never seen before. For example, each recipe comes with an estimated cost per serving. Wow.

There is a "Cheap Trick" section that explains how to have vegan versions of staples like Parmesan and bread crumbs, which can be pricey if you buy them prepackaged. The vegan Parmesan "cheese" recipe uses nuts and nutritional yeast that makes a rich topping that helps me turn my old vegan standards into restaurant-style dishes. The book also has a helpful section on where to find high quality ingredients at low cost. It also gives a suggested shopping list! this is really exciting to me as I'm hopeless with figuring out what I need to buy and end up just buying whatever catches my eye at the store. I also like the suggested menu for a week.

I highly recommend this excellent cookbook for people who are vegan or for omnivores who just want to eat more healthy, vegan food. It has a nice cover and the inside style is clean and sleek, so I'd also recommend giving it as a gift either to someone who is vegan or just trying have a healthier diet without sacrificing taste, time or money.

66 of 69 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Eat great for less! May 1, 2010

By Tamasin

Format:Paperback

I was a tester for this book and can't rave about it enough. As a rule, I'm not as budget conscious as I should be when cooking. But this books make it so easy and doesn't scrimp on the flavor. The recipes are very diverse and include dishes from several nationalities. Besides the American style dishes, some of the Asian and Mexican recipes were our favorites. The Tortilla Strata is one of the best I've ever had and doesn't take many ingredients. The Korean Cabbage Salad, Asian Noodle Soup, Quick Lo Mein,andCajun Spiced Seitan Po'Boys are just a few of our favorites. The recipe for Corned Seitan with Cabbage makes the best reubens!

Besides the wonderful recipes, the cookbook includes strategies for saving money and making your time in the kitchen more efficient. There's even a slow cooker chapter for make-ahead meals. Another cool thing about the book are the "Splurge a little" notes that offer suggestions to dress up a dish if you're so inclined.

With 150 recipes that cost 50 cents to $2 a serving, this book is money well spent.

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Incredibly Useful and Yummy July 22, 2010

By J. Dock

Format:Paperback

I don't say this often, but this cookbook is a must-have. Most cookbooks call for a lot of seitan, fake cheese, and vegan mayonnaise, and then have one lousy seitan recipe that takes forever. This cookbook teaches you to make absolutely everything that you would normally buy prepackaged at inflated prices - seitan pepperoni, cutlets, "meat"loaf, and sausage, vegan mayo, sour cream, feta, and cheeze sauce. And that's just the first section. The recipes that follow are, for the most part, simple and quick, with ingredients you either have on hand, or can get easily at any well stocked grocery store. I bought this book on a whim, and now I use it more than any other cookbook I own. Buy it.

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A cookbook you will love and use! May 10, 2010

By Happy Vegan

Format:Paperback

This is a book full of great recipes! Anyone who has thought that eating vegan costs too much needs to get this book. It shows that healthy, compassionate food choices can be very affordable and anything but dull! We love all the cookbooks from this prolific author, and this book shows that she continues to innovate. We are really enjoying making use of this cookbook. The recipes here are "keepers" that you will use regularly and will feel good about serving to family and friends. Here are some of our favorite recipes so far: Cheapamole (low-cost, healthier guacamole), Cheezee Sauce, Roasted Sweet Potato Salad with Cashews and Kidney Beans, Dan-Dan Style Linguine, Walnut-Crusted Tofu with Spinach and Orange, Deconstructed Enchilada Bake, Four Grain Polenta, and Gold Bar Cookies. Dependably good recipes without being fussy or overly complicated. You will really enjoy it!