Main Street Vegan by Victoria Moran

I saw Victoria Moran speak at Farm Sanctuary’s Annual Thanksgiving celebration for the Turkeys last year.  As I enjoyed my tasty vegan Thanksgiving dinner, she talked about her years of vegan experience and of helping others go vegan.  She is an amazing and positive person that one can’t help but immediately take a liking to and gravitate toward.  She explained that before going vegan she was overweight and miserable.  You’d never know it from seeing her now.  She is vibrant, fit, and radiating happiness.  She talked a little about her book and I made a mental note to order it the next day at work.  My boyfriend was also impressed by her and said he would like to read the book when I was done with it.   

After the first few chapters, which were the basic how-tos, I found myself getting sucked deeper and deeper into the book.  Moran offers new insights to long-time vegans as well as great advice for beginners.  There’s great information about nutrition, explaining the best ways to get all of the important nutrients we all need (yes, she explains where to get protein, please don’t ask that question ever again).  She even inspired me to take up homemade smoothies for breakfast, which have instantly become a huge hit (hello endless energy in the morning!).

Each chapter includes fantastic recipes at the end, usually related to the topic of the chapter.  There’s some comfort food in there, as well as some interesting new tastes to try.  I’ve made several of the recipes from that book, most of them are simple, but still amazing.  For a fast and easy treat I highly recommend Gena Hamshaw’s Collard Wraps (I used Swiss chard instead of collards because I like it better).  When I make them for dinner we can never get enough.  I’m going to refrain from listing all of the yummy recipes I tried from this book and just assure you that they’re delightful and easy to throw together at the end of a busy day.

Which brings me to my next point: this book is written for average people.  Veganism isn’t just for people with private chefs (as Oprah may have us believing), or people who can drop $500 on the weekly trip to the grocery store.  Veganism is for average people (like me!).  It helps if you have some knowledge of how to operate your kitchen, which Moran does point out.  On the bright side, cooking most of your meals from scratch won’t take as long as you think and will save you buckets of money, which is great for those of us on a budget.  She also includes great shopping resources for non-food items and explains why it’s important to take your shoes, as well your dinner, into account when making the switch to veganism.

Moran lays out the transition to veganism as an easy and gradual path.  She includes the usual information about why the meat and dairy industry are the most horrible things on the planet, but she also understands that most people can’t just drop all of their vices at once.  She explains that doing less harm, on your path to doing no harm, is perfectly acceptable and understandable.  For some people this transition may take a while, but that’s ok.  I dabbled in veganism for years before actually doing it.  However, once I jumped in, I stayed in.  I’ve never been happier.  And neither has Victoria Moran.

Buy it indie!

One Hit Cookbook Wonders

Every now and again, while at work, I'll come across a customer sitting in the cookbook section copying down a recipe from one of our books. Some may take issue with that, but I've never really seen the harm in it. Who wants to buy a cookbook for just one recipe anyway? Oh wait, I would.

I've got tons of cookbooks and I'm constantly talking myself out of buying more. I don't even use cookbooks for 95% of my cooking, but I love the inspiration. I'd be lost without baking books, because although I can make a yummy dinner from a seemingly empty fridge, I can't bake to save my life. The thing about having the whole book, is that if you know one recipe is good, chances are, you'll like most of the others as well.

I've got several cookbooks that I bought, mostly because I love one specific recipe. Vegan Brunch is the biggest offender; I use the Perfect Pancake recipe every week for Pancake Saturdays, a weekly tradition in my home. After purchasing it, I discovered other fantastic recipes in there like English muffins, cocoa raspberry muffins, and Tofu Omelets (trust me) , but oh, man those pancakes turn out perfectly every time. You don't even need any fancy vegan things. I often substitute water for non-dairy milk and you'd never know the difference.

Vegan Soul Kitchen is another one. Well, actually, I use two recipes from that one with regularity. The coconut oil pie crust will come out perfectly no matter what and without tears. My co-workers don't believe me, but I copied down the recipe for some of them, so someday maybe they'll get over the fear of "strange vegan ingredients" and try it out. Truth be told, there are no "strange vegan ingredients" in anything I cook, but I guess even coconut oil is not a regular occurrence in non-vegan pantries. The other favorite from this book is the red rice. Bryant Terry does the most amazing and tasty things with rice, that I would never have thought of on my own. His book can be loved by vegans and non-vegans alike for his whole-food ingredients and his talent for re-thinking the mundane (like rice).

Jo Stepanik's The Uncheese Cookbook is a staple in my kitchen. I originally bought it years ago to help a non-vegan boyfriend come to terms with the loss of cheese whenever I cooked. I don't usually use vegan substitutes for animal products, because they're weird and icky. These are homemade sauces, dips, and blocks that are 100% all natural, because they are home made. You won't find any wacky, hard-to-pronounce ingredients in this book. Best of all, everything in the book can be ready to eat in a pinch. My favorite is the Gooey Grilled Cheese Sandwich or the Macaroni and Cheese Sauce. But the recipe I use most often is actually not a cheese alternative at all, since I still tend to make those only by request of dinner guests, but a pizza dough recipe. The book naturally falls open to that page when I pull it out monthly to make a yummy vegetable pizza.

I'm guilty of writing down recipes from a book I didn't think I'd want later, but my shelves then become cluttered with bits and scraps of paper, and I know I'll never find that awesome recipe for Mexican Chocolate Cupcakes again because I think my cat probably chewed it up while trying to get my attention. And if I can find the recipe again, I won't know what book it came from and which author to trust with my cupcake needs, because I wasn't smart enough to write that information down. I better stop now, because I've made myself hungry. So if you're in the market for a new cookbook, or a new recipe, you could get out a pen and paper in your local bookstore, but you might be missing out on so many other fantastic recipes that you might have found if you brought the book home.