the cookbook post!

i will try to keep this one up to date and linked somewhere, but i've been asked about my favorite cookbooks. i feel like if i tell you all my secrets you will never read my blog! but information should be free and all that open source crap, so here you go:

i apologize for the amazon links... i don't totally endorse amazon, but it's the best way i could find to link you to an image, so when you support your locally owned bookstores, you'll know what you're looking for.

The Joy of Vegan Baking, by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau. i love to bake. i LOVE to bake. i can't say it enough and i'm always interested in vegan recipes for baking (it means less work for me if I don't have to veganize it). i haven't made a single thing i haven't enjoyed out of this cookbook. not only are there plenty of delicious and delectable treats here, but there's a huge variety of them, from healthy bran muffins to very sugary and guaranteed to satisfy cravings for chocolate and peanut butter bars. the drop biscuit recipe is the best i've ever found, and it's great that something so simple can be so wonderful. i admit, i like my waffle recipes a bit better than those here, but the ones here are healthier! every time i page through this book, i find something new and interesting and delicious.

Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, by Isa Chandra Moskiwitz. This was actually the first vegan cookbook I bought. I've technically bought others, but the recipes were weird and foreign and disgusting-sounding so I gave up on vegan cookbooks for years. However, I love cupcakes. There's a reason this is the chubby vegan blog. So I bought this to get a feel for what a vegan treat could be (and not the weird and creepy dairy-free/egg-free/flavor-free overpriced stuff I knew so well at natural foods stores)... and I think I made three batches of cupcakes in three days. I was bringing them over to where I now live, making everyone eat them. I was packing the cookbook in my duffel bag when I visited for the weekends, so I could make more. Seriously... these cupcakes were my crack.

So between the cupcake crack and the great writing style of the authors (Isa writes with Terry Hope Romero), I invested in their first cookbook...

Vegan With A Vengeance, by Isa Chandra Moskiwitz. There's a lot of good stuff in here. And a lot of stuff I haven't even tried yet, but it looks delicious. It's also a great starting point for making my own versions of things I only knew in non-vegan ways. Like waffles and muffins and pancakes. I do own a container of Ener-G egg replacer, but there's a LOT to be said for being able to cook with "normal" ingredients that don't require a trip to some specialty store 2 hours away when you don't live near specialty stores or major metropolitan areas. One of my first recipes out of there is still one of my favorites: black-eyed pea and quinoa croquettes with mushroom sauce. I absolutely love croquettes. And the mushroom sauce has evolved into my mushroom gravy that I can't get enough of. It's delicious! Also good is the BBQ pomegranate tofu, chickpea broccoli casserole, carrot cake, pizza dough, tofu basil ricotta, tofu scramble, and pumpkin waffles. Pure love, I'm telling you.

Veganomicon, by Isa Chandra Moskiwitz. This one's new and hasn't grown on me yet, but the sheer magnitude of recipes in this book make it worthy of mentioning. There's a good recipe for hummus (honestly, you can find hummus recipes anywhere online, so don't buy the book for that), including a lower fat/lower carb cauliflower hummus version. seitan cutlets are tasty and quicker than making seitan, but I still prefer seitan. There are a LOT of helpful tips and tricks and how-to's in there that other cookbooks are lacking. It's a great book, but it's too new for me to really be attached to it yet.

Oh, and for what it's worth, you oughtta also know the site that started all the above trends and awesomeness, the Post Punk Kitchen!

The Fat-free Vegan Kitchen blog is one of my favorite resources for recipes. I usually know something found here is going to be really tasty. Truth be told, though, I usually prefer the deviations that have some fat in them. ;)

The Vegan Cooking Community on livejournal.com is a great resource for recipes, tips and tricks, and reviews of products and recipes.

Vegan Yum Yum blog has some really amazing recipes and foodporn. Delicious stuff!