Vegan Unplugged: A Pantry Cuisine Cookbook and Survival Guide [Paperback]

Jon Robertson (Author), Recipes by Robin Robertson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 20, 2010

No fridge? No stove? No time? No problem.

Vegan Unplugged lets you make the most of it, when you have to make the best of it.

Vegan Unplugged is your go-to pantry cookbook for a variety of real-life scenarios. Eat well when you don't feel like cooking or don't have time to cook. Make tasty meals whenever you're on the road, visiting non-vegans, camping, or any time the power goes out.

Let Vegan Unplugged show you how to prepare gourmet quality meals with pantry ingredients in fifteen minutes or less. Use the Five-Day Meal Box to feed up to four people for five days, and personalize your home pantry for any emergency.

The instructions are simple and the meals easy. Make great Pantry Cuisine dishes such as Almost-Instant Black Bean Chili, Pantry Pasta Salad, Fire-Roasted Blueberry Cobbler, and many more, specially developed by chef and author Robin Robertson.

This book is a must have for all vegans, and anyone else who wants to discover the ease and practicality of great-tasting, nutritious Pantry Cuisine. It also features a concise emergency preparedness section for you, your family, and your companion animals. Vegan Unplugged is a 100% vegan, comprehensive revision of Jon and Robin's 2005 book Apocalypse Chow, containing new recipes and important new content.

Vegan Unplugged...because we all need a back-up plan...with recipes.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Vegan Unplugged is an insurance policy every family should purchase. It can turn a disaster into an adventure.

--Howard F. Lyman, author of Mad Cowboy

Prepare to meet the new, gourmet style of Pantry Cuisine. Vegan Unplugged dishes up flavor and variety with dozens of delicious recipes that can be prepared in minutes, even when the refrigerator is bare. A must-have for any day when your resources are limited or your motivation to cook is waning.

--Alisa Fleming, author of Go Dairy Free

Vegan Unplugged provides a unique and important combination: healthful recipes and strategies for surviving an emergency or natural disaster. And there's no going hungry with the Five-Day Meal Box. It will not only help you avert personal health disasters, it will give you all the tools you need to handle any situation that comes your way.
--Neal Barnard, M.D., President, Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine

Whether it s a hurricane, earthquake, or just a simple power outage, Vegan Unplugged can save the day--it's a survival guide with gourmet sensibilities.
--Erik Marcus, publisher of Vegan.com and author of The Ultimate Vegan Guide

From weather-related power disruptions to any need to quickly cobble up a tasty meal, Jon Robertson has a plan that covers these and many other situations when being prepared is the key. By enlisting his wife, well known chef and cookbook author Robin Robertson, the author ensures that regardless of circumstances, delicious dining can still be an option. With Jon's scope of vision and attention to details, his guide calls you to adventure instead of being stuck in a hapless situation.
--Chef Ken Bergeron, author of The Professional Vegetarian Chef

In the years to come, it s going to be increasingly important to be able to prepare healthy meals when the power is out and when fresh food is unavailable. Vegan Unplugged is a marvelous resource to help you prepare healthy and inexpensive meals using nonperishable ingredients. Highly recommended for those prudent enough to recognize we could be in for a bumpy ride.

--John Robbins, author of The New Good Life, The Food Revolution, and Diet For a New America

Prepare to meet the new, gourmet style of Pantry Cuisine. Vegan Unplugged dishes up flavor and variety with dozens of delicious recipes that can be prepared in minutes, even when the refrigerator is bare. A must-have for any day when your resources are limited or your motivation to cook is waning.

--Alisa Fleming, author of Go Dairy Free

Vegan Unplugged provides a unique and important combination: healthful recipes and strategies for surviving an emergency or natural disaster. And there's no going hungry with the Five-Day Meal Box. It will not only help you avert personal health disasters, it will give you all the tools you need to handle any situation that comes your way.
--Neal Barnard, M.D., President, Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine

Whether it s a hurricane, earthquake, or just a simple power outage, Vegan Unplugged can save the day--it's a survival guide with gourmet sensibilities.
--Erik Marcus, publisher of Vegan.com and author of The Ultimate Vegan Guide

From weather-related power disruptions to any need to quickly cobble up a tasty meal, Jon Robertson has a plan that covers these and many other situations when being prepared is the key. By enlisting his wife, well known chef and cookbook author Robin Robertson, the author ensures that regardless of circumstances, delicious dining can still be an option. With Jon's scope of vision and attention to details, his guide calls you to adventure instead of being stuck in a hapless situation.
--Chef Ken Bergeron, author of The Professional Vegetarian Chef

In the years to come, it s going to be increasingly important to be able to prepare healthy meals when the power is out and when fresh food is unavailable. Vegan Unplugged is a marvelous resource to help you prepare healthy and inexpensive meals using nonperishable ingredients. Highly recommended for those prudent enough to recognize we could be in for a bumpy ride.

--John Robbins, author of The New Good Life, The Food Revolution, and Diet For a New America

About the Author

Jon Robertson is an author and has been a publishing professional for more than twenty-five years. He is the publisher and editor of Vegan Heritage Press. Robin Robertson is the author of twenty cookbooks, including Vegan Planet, Vegan Fire & Spice, 1,000 Vegan RecipesVegan on the Cheap. She writes regularly for VegNews magazine.

Product Details

• Paperback: 216 pages
• Publisher: Vegan Heritage Press (August 20, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0980013127
• ISBN-13: 978-0980013122
• Product Dimensions: 7.4 x 7.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #400,409 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #57 in Books > Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Special Diet > Low Cholesterol

More About the Author

Jon Robertson is a publisher, editor, and author with twenty-five years experience in various aspects of the trade. In 2007, he founded Vegan Heritage Press, an independent, Virginia-based book publishing company dedicated to bringing excellent vegan cookbooks to the marketplace.

Jon is the author of several books and has worked as a newspaper stringer and magazine feature writer. Jon's article, "Writing from the Ground Up," appeared in the February 2008 issue of Writer's Digest. Two of his plays have been produced and one published. He has also worked with several opera composers as a librettist.

Jon is a native of Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania, attended The Pennsylvania State University, and received his B.A. in English with a minor in philosophy from King's College, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. He lives and works with his wife, author Robin Robertson, in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley.

See his company website at www.veganheritagepress.com and his Vegan Unplugged blog at http://veganunplugged.blogspot.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Emergency Kitchen Supply Staple, October 20, 2010

By 

Alisa Marie Fleming "GoDairyFree.org" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Vegan Unplugged: A Pantry Cuisine Cookbook and Survival Guide (Paperback)

These days there are oodles of vegan cookbooks on the market, yet I am amazed when ones such as this one still manage to carve a new niche. Vegan Unplugged is in fact so useful that I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to my non-vegan comrades too. It covers ...

Preparing for Emergencies (earthquakes, hurricanes, power outages)
Road Trips
Hotel Stays (on a budget or a special diet with limited kitchen supplies)
Camping Cuisine
College and Dorm Room Cooking
Uncooks (you know who you are)
Being Resourceful with an Out of Commission Kitchen (Boy could my aunt and uncle have used this when they were living out of their basement and eating out every single night as their entire house was remodeled!)
An Empty Fridge and No Desire to Go Grocery Shopping (oh this happens all too often, doesn't it?)
These are the obvious uses, but I found one more use ...

... taking care of an overstocked pantry. Normally, this wouldn't be a problem, but, we are moving, a fair distance, and the last thing I want to do is pack up boxes full of pantry food. Noodles, nut butters, various types of rice, lentils, split peas, flours ... we are talking loads of heavy stuff here, and I want it gone within two months! My goal may be unrealistic, but with Vegan Unplugged, I am at least making a serious dent ...

Thus far I have made and we have enjoyed the Unplugged Peanut Noodles (a combination of the recipes for Rice Noodles with Spicy Peanut Sauce and Asian Noodle Salad with Peanut Dressing); Old Bay Chickpea Cakes; Sweet Treat Chocolate Truffles; and the Kitchen-Sink Cappelini (good base recipe to play around with.

Other recipes I am hoping to make from this book in the next month include the:

Jazzed-Up Jasmine Rice
Pantry Bulgur Pilaf
Suddenly Sushi
Hot and Sour Soup
Artichoke Dip
Red Pepper Walnut Spread
Tropical Energy Balls
Skillet Peach Crumble (for my freezer overflowing with peaches!)

The recipes were created by Robin Robertson, a true master of simple pantry recipes, as evidenced by several of her other titles (yeah, when you hit close to 20 vegan cookbooks, you could be considered an expert). But I have discussed the recipes enough. The backbone of Vegan Unplugged is written by the primary author, Jon Robertson (you guessed it, Robin's husband). Jon offers pages and pages of tips and checklists to help you prepare for unexpected events and even how to react to them when they occur. Once you are done with this book, you will likely have a full emergency kit and a perfectly stocked pantry. Unless you are like me of course, and trying to eat yourself out of house and home ... quite literally.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book is such a great idea!, September 8, 2010

By 

S. Ragan (Philadelphia, PA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Vegan Unplugged: A Pantry Cuisine Cookbook and Survival Guide (Paperback)

I had the good fortune to spot this new title as I was buying another cookbook, and bought it as well to have on hand in case of power outages. But I was curious about the recipes, so even with the power on, I've been having some fun trying them out.

The recipe titles are clever and intriguing, but the main thing is that they're simple and quick to make. While lining up the ingredients, it was fun to realize that I already had most of them in the pantry.

Last night, I made the Technicolor Dream Salad. This salad is ingenious and addictive and easy to make, although it does taste best served chilled, so refrigerate it if you have power (or put it in the ice chest for awhile if you don't). I also tried the Curry in a Hurry and the White Bean-Spinach Fritters with the same delicious results.

I'd definitely recommend this book to have on hand for emergencies, but it's also fantastic just to cook everyday meals from even when the power's on. The book's so inexpensive, I bought extra copies to give as gifts to friends.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of my most useful cookbooks!, September 11, 2010

By 

John P. Plummer (Nashville, TN United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Vegan Unplugged: A Pantry Cuisine Cookbook and Survival Guide (Paperback)

Some time back, I found a copy of Apocalypse Chow by Jon & Robin Robertson in a used bookstore. It is a wonderful little book, with lots of practical suggestions for emergency preparedness, and recipes designed for use when one needs to eat from the pantry, or with minimal/no power. I have found the recipes very useful also for nights when I want to make something delicious with very little time or work or grocery shopping. It's really the perfect book for the budget conscious student or the busy office worker, even apart from the emergency planning aspect. Somehow, it never got the attention it deserved and went out of print. Thankfully, it has been re-issued in a new, updated, retitled edition. As this year has brought encounters with ice, fire, and flooding, the need to be prepared is high in my consciousness. Last night, we made Puttanesca in a Pinch - wonderful flavor, cheap, ingredients right out of the pantry, and ready in about 15 minutes. Vegan or not, don't miss this one.