Cookbook Project: Vegan edition

I got a handful of new cookbooks for my birthday last month - mostly from my husband who is really benefitting from this entire project since he gets to taste-test everything with me! Since I’ve been eating a lot more vegan food lately, that’s what most of them focus on.

#1. Southern Vegan

There are so many recipes in this book that I want to cook, but the sweet-and-spicy cornbread looked too good to not start with that one!

Foolishly, I didn’t actually check to see if I had enough cornmeal to make this until I had already begun the recipe. I ended up only having about half of what I needed and used a blend of other flours to make up the difference.

There’s a healthy amount of spice in this recipe (as well as corn kernels) that I figured the missing cornmeal wouldn’t be the end of the world.

I didn’t really think about how the different flours would affect the texture so that was a bit off in the end. However, the spices were so good that I am planning on making this again once I pick up more cornmeal!

#2. The Homemade Vegan Pantry

This book is beautiful and full of pantry staples that I never really considered making, like vegan butter and tofu! Some of the recipes are so far out of my comfort zone that they’re a little intimidating, but the crackers recipe seemed like a good one to start with.

The recipe has you divide the dough in half so I made one half into salt and pepper crackers and the other into turmeric spiced crackers. I didn’t roll the dough out nearly as thinly as I should have, so these ended up tasty, but more doughy than you would expect crackers to be.

#3. Flavor

Another Ottolenghi cookbook, another stellar recipe!

I make no secret of how much I love Ottolenghi recipes and these roasted potatoes with harissa, tahini, and soy are easily one of my favorites. My only regret about this recipe is that I didn’t double the tahini soy dressing so that I could put it on everything I eat.

This recipe comes together very easily - another bonus!

I ate these potatoes with three straight meals and I 100% would have continued that streak if we had any more leftovers.

#4. Forks Over Knives: The Cookbook

I’ve never actually seen Forks Over Knives but I can say that the accompanying cookbook covers a lot of ground when it comes to vegan food!

I chose to make green chile rices and beans first. Mostly because - and I can think of at least three people in my life who will roll their eyes when they read this - I didn’t realize you made green chile rice by …cooking green chiles and rice together.

Definitely a technique I feel like I could have pieced together a long time ago, but here we are!

My only issue with this recipe is that the book really presents this dish as a full meal! I think it’s a great thing to add to a burrito with veggies and some vegan cheese, but I don’t think I’d be content with this alone.