Cookbooks

Today’s prompt is “show us your favourite cookbooks”. As no doubt many of you can relate, I have a LOT of cookbooks. Looking through them is a hobby of mine. For this reason, I like lots of photos. When I first went vegan about 8-10 years ago, veganism didn’t seem to have the popularity or momentum as it does now. A lot of the cookbooks I could get my hands on had very few colour photos – often just a centre spread. Now there are vegan cookbooks left right and centre, many with full colour photos for every recipe. What a time to be alive!

Here is a photo of most, but not all, of my cookbooks. No, they aren’t usually organised by colour, but I felt like jazzing the photo up a bit. Looks cool right?

Some older, some newer. A couple are my housemate’s, as she is also vegan. I’m lucky in that I live in a household of 6, where 2 are vegan and the other 4 are vegetarian. Wahoooo!

Vegan with a Vengeance has to be on the faves list. As I’m sure for many others, it was the first vegan cookbook I bought, and I recall having to work quite hard to get it – not a lot of book stores were stocking much in the way of vegan cookbooks at the time, and either it wasn’t that easy to order them online or I wasn’t that savvy. Through this well-loved book (seriously, look at the edges!), Isa taught me how to scramble tofu, marinate tofu and bake without eggs.

Some of my faves have been scrambled tofu, “fronch” toast, spanakopita, pizza dough and basil-tofu ricotta, fettucine alfreda, marinated tofu and the ginger macadamia coconut carrot cake (which is ALWAYS a winner). There are still recipes that I haven’t had a crack at, so I should really make an effort to get to some of them. I made the raspberry blackout cake with ganache-y frosting this year for my bro’s birthday for the first time, and it was a massive hit. I owe a lot to Isa and her recipes!

While we’re talking about Isa, let me mention Isa Does It – another household favourite. Every single thing I’ve made from this book, the Bear and I love. So many delicious recipes that are not time consuming. And lots of photos!

Some of our faves here have been the harira with eggplant and chickpeas, quinoa caesar salad, ranch salad with red potatoes and smoky chickpeas, pesto risotto with roasted zucchini, coconut chana saag, chikcpeas and escarole in white wine broth, roasty soba bowl with miso-tahini dressing, chandra malai kofta, rosemary choc chip cookies and norah’s lemon-lemon cookies. YUM.

I’m cheating a little with the next two books that I’m sharing, as I’ve only recently acquired them and have not cooked from them yet. However, I have a good feeling about both of them. I already know that I love Miyoko – she has changed my world be teaching me how to culture cheese with her previous book Artisan Vegan Cheese, as well as make beautiful thick creamy yoghurt. Seriously, I owe it to her – prior to that my yoghurts were a mess of trying to thicken with agar agar and arrowroot and all kinds of stuff. Now I get awesome yoghurt with just three ingredients. It rocks.

I had had my eye on the Homemade Vegan Pantry for quite some time, and it finally came time when I could justify treating myself to ANOTHER cookbook. While I haven’t tried anything just yet, I’ve got plans for mayonnaise, mustard, worcestershire sauce, jams, stocks, pasta and more. Bring it on!

And last, but certainly not least, I recently got the Smith & Daughters cookbook. Again, no chance to cook from it yet but oh boy do I have plans. I have never shared my eats from S&D here – I think because I am usually too quick to dive into the food to take snaps. The Bear and I went there just last weekend for our 7 year anniversary, and after eating the cheesy jalapeno dip we are dying to make it again at home. This book, like Shannon and Mo and their whole operation in general is so damn cool. The edges of the pages areeven all black. How cool is that?!

On the list to make first are the pan con tomate (catalan tomato bread), hot cheddar and pickled jalapeno dip, white truffle forest mushroom pate, jalapeno and corn fritters, chargrilled asparagus with romesco sauce and aioli, tacos, spicy ground chorizo, pasteles de cangrejo (crab cakes), paella, kale and leek bake, artichoke and chickpea salad, pan con chocolate (CHOCOLATE PATE!!!!) and the awesome cocktails at the back. I have no doubt that this will all be delicious.

As I said, my faves change from time to time and there are many other books that I love and could go on and on about all day, but I don’t want to bore you so I’ll just finish up right here. Peace out!