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Priscilla Feral's The Best of Vegan Cooking (Nectar Bat Press, 2009, ISBN 978-0976915928) 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 soufflés 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.
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