Cookbook Challenge Week 35 - Hot Damn & Hell Yeah

This week I have been cooking from Hot Damn & Hell Yeah (there is also a second book included as part of this one called The Dirty South cookbook which I have not used yet).
I have made nothing from this book before so approached it with an open mind, the results were actually really good:

Biscuits & Gravy - This was a slight disappointment (my own fault) because I accidentally left the biscuits out over night and they were not great the next day, I ended up having the gravy part with mash instead. It was brilliant, tasty homemade comfort food:

Vegetable Minestrone - This was my first ever attempt at minestrone and it was really good, far better than anything out of a can:

 

Lentil Burger - This was a bit soggy (I might use a few more breadcrumbs instead), but still full of flavour and very filling:

Chili Non-Carne - This was by far my favourite recipe, what I really liked was that it wasn't very spicy, there was some spice/heat, but a nice amount which means you can still taste the rest of the flavours:

Overall this was a great book, it would be better if it had photo's and maybe some more specific instructions for the recipes, but you can't have everything can you?

Cookbook Challenge Week 33 & 34 - In Search of The Lost Taste & Alternative Vegan

The first book that I cooked from this week was In Search of The Lost Taste by Joshua Ploeg. I have had this book a few years but some of the recipes are quite unusual so I've only used it once, this week I made 3 recipes from it:

Tomato Boats Stuffed with Curried "Chiken"-This is the one recipe that I have made before and I chose to make it again because it really is good, the fake chicken is spicy but not too hot and full of flavour. The only thing that I didn't like was it being served in tomatoes, even after being dried out they still felt a bit soggy. I think this would be better in bell peppers or as a sandwich filling:

Peanut Breaded & Fried Marinated Tempeh - this was a delicious recipe, I usually just steam Tempeh and eat it as is or make fake bacon with it, but this dish was excellent. The Tempeh was spicy again without being too hot and it also had a slightly nutty flavour from the peanuts. I will certainly be making it again, I served it with:

Whole Fava Beans in Spicy Tomato Sauce - finally this was another great recipe, it was tasty & easy to make, full of flavour and very filling:

Overall I was really impressed with this book, it was a bit fly by the seat of your pants (the Tempeh recipe didn't specify amounts for the marinade just which ingredients to use) but I quite liked that as it leaves plenty of room for adapting recipes & using substitutes.

 

The second book that I have been using is Alternative Vegan by Dino Sarma. I first heard of the book a few years ago when I was a member of the Vegan Freaks forum where Dino was another member, this week I have used it to make 4 recipes:

Lentils & Chickpeas - this was an excellent recipe - nuts, chickpeas, lentils & spices all cooked together. It was just delicious and made a great filling for wraps:

Quick Garbanzo Soup - this was quite enjoyable, full of flavour but I found it a bit thin. Next time I am going to try blending some of the soup to make it thicker:

Rasam - this was my second favourite recipe - split peas in a spicy tamarind/lime sauce. When served over or mixed into rice it was a delicious and filling meal:

Banana Bread - this was my favourite recipe - banana bread with chopped nuts and peanut butter in it. It was divine and especially good warmed up and spread with coconut oil:

Overall I really liked this book, one of the best things about it was that non of the recipes contained soya/tofu/fake milks etc just healthy basic ingredients put to great use, although I do have a great liking for tofu etc its great that there are books out there that don't rely so heavily on them.

Cookbook Challenge Week 32 - Vegan Diner

This week I have been cooking from Vegan Diner by Julie Hasson. I have cooked a few things from this before that have all worked out well so I was quite excited to try some more recipes, fortunately every single one was fantastic and I have had a week of gorgeous food.

Old-Fashioned Tomato Soup - this soup was rich, full of flavour and creamy from using blended cashews.

Grillled Cheezy Sandwich - This fantastic sandwich was made using the Great Smoky Mountain Cheese from the book and was brilliant - a toasted sandwich filled with smoky cheese, onion & tomato:

Sloppy Joes - I have tried a few recipes for Sloppy Joes this year and whilst none stand up to Vegan Junk Food's, this was a really good version - full of flavour and very filling:

Jambalaya - This is another of those dishes that I have never tried before so have nothing to compare it to, however what I got was a spicy/tomatoey dish filled with rice and seitan. And it was great:

Pastrami Style Seitan Roast - I have tried the smoky seitan from this book before which turned out well, as did the pastrami version - it has a great flavour and texture (I may have slightly overcooked mine but it still tasted great):

Quick and Hearty Chilli - I have made this about 5 times now, it is one of my favourite chili recipes. Its indeed quick to made but very very tasty:

And now for the three best -

Great Smoky Mountain Cheese - my forays into vegan cheese making have not been a great sucess until now. This recipe is again quite simple using silken tofu as the main ingredient and although it did have a slightly rubbery texture, from a taste point of view it cannot be faulted. I will be making this again (I may try leaving out the Agar Agar to make a soft cheese instead) and using the base recipe again as well  to experiment with:

Served with hash browns, sausages and scrambled tofu:

Barbecued Ribz - this recipe was outstanding, I have not had a Vegan rib before but these were brilliant. Made with seitan and smothered in BBQ sauce they were one of the best thing I have eaten in months, I will be making them again over the weekend using a Chinese style sauce instead:

Ooey-Gooey Brownies - I made a mistake with the recipe for these and ended up using about half as much sugar as I should, so I expected these to be awful. However even my terrible cooking failed to ruin them. The brownies are full of chocolate chips and covered in a chocolate ganachey icing, and even with the missing sugar were still gorgeous. They were still sweet but not too sweet (being diabetic I'm used to not having too much sugar in things) and had a delightful bitterness to them (reminiscent of a good dark chocolate) which also came from the coffee used in the recipe.
I will certainly be making them again (maybe using the right amount of sugar in future) and they even passed the omnivore tested (all my family loved them):

Overall how did I find this book? Faultless.

Buy it, use it, its wonderful.

Cookbook Challenge Week 31 - The Vegan Slow Cooker

This week I have been cooking from The Vegan Slow Cooker by Kathy  Hester, I have been looking forward to using this book as it means I can be lazy. Throw things in the slow cooker and job done. Most of the recipes turned out well but there were a few failures....

Wholewheat Pumpkin Gingerbread - this was almost a complete failure. The flavour was wonderful, but my slow cooker seems to cook too fast and unevenly. After 30 minutes the bread was burnt on the outside and raw in the middle. It tasted good. But was still a failure:

 

Weekend Tofu and Hash Brown Breakfast Casserole:

I didn't have time to make this in the slow cooker, so I used the microwave instead. Bit of a mistake that one. This I think would have been good if I had used the slow cooker but it just tasted like sloppy salty tofu:

And now for the good-

Cheesey Broccoli Rice - this was excellent - rice, nooch, vegan cheese and broccoli. Just  delicious, it was really good cold the next day for lunch:

Chili Relleno Casserole - this was supposed to be like a soufflé made from silken tofu & corn. It turned out really well, it was a bit like a spicy cheesey bread. I will be making this again:

Chikn and Dumplings - this was a really tasty dish, a bit thin and the dumplings were very hard but it still tasted good:

Hot and Sour Soup - I have never made hot & sour soup before but this turned out well, it was full of mushrooms & tofu and tasted great, I served it over rice noodles:

Soy Chorizo & Black Bean Stew - this was excellent, full of flavour and protein, it worked well warm for dinner and cold the next day for lunch:

Easy Very Chickpea Biryani - this was another good recipe, again a bit thin but still full of flavour and a lovely dish to come home to at night:

Be-My-Valentine Chocolate Oatmeal - this recipe used far more water than vegan milk and I found it a bit tasteless, however it was a simple way of making oatmeal that I will be trying again (using less water and more milk in future):

Overall this was a good book, I had to adjust the cooking times quite a lot as most of the recipes make 4-6 servings and I halved them, I also had to take into account a slow cooker that isn't that slow so most of these ended up taking far less time than they should (no more than 3 hours at most) but most of the recipes came out really well and I will definitely be using this book again, especially in winter when I want to come home to a nice warming soup or stew.

Cookbook Challenge Week 30 - Authentic Chinese Cuisine

This week I have been cooking from Authentic Chinese Cuisine (all Vegan recipes) by Bryanna Clark Grogan, I bought this book from Viva several years ago and have been looking forward to using it since. But haven't. Mostly due to my inexperience in the kitchen, but over the last year or two that has changed so I decided to try this book out. I made 7 of the recipes with mixed results:

Shao Bing (Northern Chinese Sesame Buns) - I was really looking forward to these and the taste was great, the texture however was awful. Just like old cardboard (I know my father works in a cardboard factory). I threw most of these away:

Chinese Style Beef Seitan - again this was another disappointing recipe, the taste was good but the texture was awful - like chewing Chinese flavour glue. I would definitely add some soya or chickpea flour in future to soften this:  

 

Scramble or Authentic Foo Yung - I have had Foo Yung several times before I was Vegan but I've only had homemade since, usually containing more "egg" than other ingredients which is how it was when I went to Chinese takeaways, this however was the other way around, less "egg" and more filling and it was just lovely. Full of flavour and very enjoyable, served with Tilda rice (very lazy but there you go): 

Basic Fried Rice - Again this is something that I had quite a lot of before turning Vegan and haven't really had it since. This recipe was really good, tofu in place of egg and soya chiken instead of actual chicken. I really enjoyed this and served it with Uncle Bens Brown Rice (again lazy but again there you go):

Chow Mein - I have never had this before so I didn't know what to expect. What I got was plateful of tofu with a lovely spicy (but not too spicy sauce), I served mine with rice noodles:

Oyster sauce - I don't have any pictures of this as it was a base ingredient in 2 recipes (chow mein & beef in oyster sauce) but it was great, I have never had real oyster sauce but this was full of flavour so is just as good.

Beef & Broccoli in Oyster Sauce - This recipe used both the sauce from above and the Chinese beef seitan (which worked well in this recipe when cut up small) and it made a delicious dinner which left my plate rather quickly, I served mine with rice noodles:

Overall I did like this book, some of the recipes are a bit hit & miss but what I really liked was that the recipes felt more authentic than the premade shite that you buy in supermarkets. Some of the recipes I will certainly be making again and I will be testing some of the others as well.

Cookbook Challenge Week 29 - Vegan Brunch

This week I have been cooking from Vegan Brunch  by Isa Chandra Moskowitz, this book has always had a special place in my heart as the first time I made seitan I used a recipe from this book (Italian Feast Sausages) and they were wonderful so I had high expectations for the rest of the recipes that I tried....


Red Hash Flannel Hash, Italian Feast Sausages & Tofu Scramble - I made and ate these 3 together, the hash was my least favourite of the recipes, it was nice but I'm just not a huge fan of beets and found this a bit lacklustre, however the tofu scramble was delicious.
I have never been a big fan of tofu scramble but Isa's recipe is really good, it doesn't call for pressing the tofu to get the water out, that happens during the cooking with the flavourings being added in the last few minutes. It was full of flavour and I will definitely be using this recipe again, along with the Italian Feast recipe - the sausages turned out spicy (but not too spicy) and full of flavour with a firm but not chewy texture:

Tomato Rosemary Scones - I though I did something wrong with these as they were rather more pale than those in the book, however they taste delicious and I have been eating them every day this week:

Banana Rabanada (Brazillian French Toast) - this was basically French toast with banana blended into the mix, was it good?  Damn right it was, crispy on the outside and gooey in the middle it was a lovely sweet Sunday brunch treat:

East Coast Coffee Cake - this is the one recipe that I have been wanting to make for years but have just got round to and I am so glad that I did, it was bloody gorgeous - a white cake base with blueberry jam swirls topped with a spiced crumble topping. What more could you want from a cake?

Overall I think this book is brilliant, almost all the recipes have turned out wonderfully and it remains one of my favourite cookbooks.

Cookbook Challenge Week 28 - The Vegan Boulangerie

This week I have been cooking from The Vegan Boulangerie by Marianne & Jean-Michel.
I have been wanting to cook from this book for ages (I once made the profiteroles which were excellent), but I have to admit that I was a bit disappointed in some of the recipes that I tried:

Tomato & Herb Roule -
I was exited to try this recipe as I love tomato breads but I was disappointed, the herbs were too powerful and the texture was very doughy:

Sandwich Jardinier - this was actually quite nice, it was carrot, mushrooms, tomato, sunflower seeds, celery, soy sauce, mustard & chives.  It wasn't the best or tastiest sandwich in the world, but it filled a hole.

Sandwich Parisien - Gherkins, vegan ham, lettuce, marg & salt. Bit of a disappointment really, I expected something a bit better and found this very lacklustre:

Quiche Lorraine  - I was really looking forward to this and again was disappointed. It tasted overwhelmingly of French Mustard & nutmeg. However it didn't look much like the black and white photo in the book so I decided to try it again the next day. The recipe states you should layer the onions & fake bacon in the case, then put the quiche filling on top and bake, which led to the quiche having a big layer of egg style filling with a base of onion & facon. When I made it a second time, I mixed the onion & facon into the filling, placed it in the case, baked it and let it cool first. The result was far far better. Much more like quiche Lorraine.

Onion Tart - this was one of the recipes that I did like, it was a layer of pastry covered with a creamy tomato sauce, topped with fried onions and baked. It was delicious, very plain and simple but sometimes the best things are:

Croque Monsieur - this was my favourite recipe, I have made this sandwich before using my own recipe which I prefer, but this was still really good - fake ham, vegan cheese & pasta sauce between layers of "buttered" bread toasted:

Overall as I said before I found most of the recipes a bit disappointing, maybe thats because I had such high expectations for the book?  I won't be making any of these recipes again (with the possible exception of the last one) but I will be trying some of the other recipes  - some of the cakes look and sound divine, fingers crossed they turn out better.