Cookbook Challenge Week 43 - Vegan Slow Cooking For Two Or Just For You

This week I have been cooking from Vegan Slow Cooking For Two Or Just For You by Kathy Hester:

I have reviewed Kathy's other slow cooker book a few weeks ago and was impressed with the recipes, however this book hit the mark with me much more, partially due to the fact that the recipes are for small slow cookers and partially because the recipes are just really really good.

Vanilla Hazelnut Creamer - this was my only failure from the book, the recipe itself was really good and tasted fantastic, but my blender isn't great and left the creamy very grainy. I would make this again but only if I had a much better blender:

 Carrot Cake Rice Pudding - I had this for breakfast Sunday morning and it was delightful, packed with flavour but not too heavy:

Italian Seitan Coins - These were made for use in other recipes, they cooked really well, had a great texture and tasted great, the only problem I had was that the recipe made so much that when they were cooking they lifted the lid of the slow cooker!

Italian Seitan Coins with Mashed Cauliflower & Gravy - This recipe is a complete meal made in the slow cooker and was delicious, the seitan in gravy was gorgeous and the veg complimented it perfectly:

Leftovers for lunch the next day:

Italian Seitan & Pepper Stew - This recipe was really simple but packed with flavour, low calorie & easy to make. What else could you ask for?

Tomatillo & White Bean Chili - I had to use standard tomatoes for this as I could not get tomatillos, I don't think it made much of a difference though as the recipe was great. It doesn't state that any water/broth should be used in the recipe, and I made the stupid mistake of throwing some in anyway (partially because my slow cooker gets so hot it could be compared to the surface of the sun) which made the recipe very thin. I ended up throwing it in a pan and simmering it for 30 minutes to get rid of the excess liquid, however once that was done it was great:

Indian Mashed Veggie Sandwich - I really enjoyed this, I served it with a tortilla wrap and it was like a curry burrito, the leftover I will be serving with rice as an alternative to curry tomorrow:

Cheezy Butternut Squash Macaroni - This was probably my favourite recipe from the book, I don't usually like butternut squash, but this was excellent. The butternut gave the texture of cheese, the nutritional yeast replaced the flavour and it made an excellent, tasty & filling dinner:

Overall I loved this book, all of the recipes worked really well (or would have without my meddling) and tasted fantastic. I came home every night this week to a delicious smelling house with a meal almost ready for me. 

Personally I loved the recipes in Kathy's first book but I think this book is probably best for houses where there is a lone vegan as the recipes make enough for dinner, with leftovers for lunch the next day but without the hassle of halving/quartering recipes which is what I did with the first book.

This will definitely be making it into my 10 favourite cookbooks 

Cookbook Challenge Week 42 - Chloe's Kitchen

This week I have been cooking from Chloe's Kitchen by Chloe Coscarelli:

I got this book a few months ago on the recommendation of a few friends and all I can say is I'm glad I did:

Thyme for creamy scalloped potatoes - This was my least favourite dish, not because there was anything wrong with the recipe but it didn't taste brilliant because of a 45 minute delay getting home thanks to a certain train company so it was a bit over done. It was potatoes layered with a cashew garlic & thyme cream sauce, it was still tasty despite the condition but I would like to make it again and cook it for the appropriate time. On a plus note it was wheat and soya free:

Best ever baked macaroni & cheese  - This is where things started picking up, the recipe for this is really simple but has a few ingredients in that I haven't put in mac & cheese before that really added something extra (such as tomato paste). It was full of flavour and very filling:

Easy Peasy Pasta Salad - This recipe was excellent, a homemade tomato sauce made using potato (it adds a great texture), flavouring and oil (I used carrot oil to add extra red). I made the sauce on Sunday, refrigerated it, made some pasta on Monday and chilled that for when I got home late on Tuesday. The sauce lasted well and the whole dish was great. I served it with salad & some chicken style seitan:

 

Barley Bliss Casserole - I put this together the night before & got a family member to shove it in the oven as I was on my way home, when I first tasted it I though it was a bit tasteless. However I went to check my emails, came back and after it had cooled a little it was delicious. It reminded me of the mushroom barley from Happy Herbivore Abroad but was not quite as nice, still a great winter casserole for cold nights though:

Pancakes for dinner - This recipe is divine. It has surpassed Happy Herbivores pancake recipe, it even contains no oil and is sweetened with maple syrup. Just brilliant:

Cheesey Broccoli Soup - Fantastic recipe! I left out the sour dough bowls its supposed to be served it, preferring a standard bowl. The soup itself was full of flavour, very cheesey (mostly from the nooch) and very filling. Definitely one to make again:

Sea salt toffee bars - I made these as a last ditch attempt at making a dessert after screwing up 2 other recipes (Brownies and blondies from different cookbooks), I didn't think the recipe was going to work but it came together well (and rather quickly) and made a delicious bar thats a bit like a salty millionaires shortbread. The only change I would make is to remove the cinnamon from the base, I think it detracts from the flavour. Whats also great about this recipe is that they freeze really well:

Overall this is a great book, some of the recipes are really innovative, I enjoyed all the dishes I made and I have a long list of others that I want to try (there is a burger recipe thats crying out to be tried).

Cookbook Challenge Week 41 - Vegan Rustic Cooking

This week I have been cooking from Vegan Rustic Cooking by Diana White:

Chocolate & Orange Marmalade Buns - I really looked forward to these, they have no added sugar (except the Marmalade & Apple Juice used in the recipe) which is great for a diabetic, however they were not great. Bland and really a let down, the texture was great but if I make these again a good splodge of sugar/agave/coconut sugar might be called for:

Onion & Mushroom Tart - this was good - full of mushrooms, onions & the hazelnuts really gave it a special touch, I used quite a strong flavoured soya milk when making this so I will use something more flavourless in future, other than that I can't fault it:

Chestnut Crumble - This was quite a sweet dish (there is both chestnuts & apple in it) and was really good, I think its one of those dishes that would taste better on a really cold night curled up next to the fire:

Moussaka Vegan Style - I have never tried moussaka before so have nothing to compare this too, but it was very very tasty. Its a layer of roasted veg, a layer of aubergine, a layer of tomato & lentils with a final layer of soy yoghurt sprinkled with ground almonds. It was full of flavour, the only issue I had was the consistency, after being baked the lentil/tomato sauce layer was quite think with liquid collecting every time I took a spoonful out. I think a bit of cornflour wouldn't go amiss with the sauce, but other than that its a great and very filling recipe:

Cream of Pea Soup - I had to try this recipe  - it looked so simple and interesting being made with tinned processed peas and I have to admit its my second favourite recipe in the book. It was full of flavour and I will definitely be making this again:

Irish Stew with Dumplings  - this was my favourite recipe, it is the first stew recipe that tastes like the non-vegan stew my mum makes, I was a little dubious about the dumplings at first (they are made with marg, then baked before being cooked in the stew) and I was secondly dubious when I used M&S reduced fat margarine which shouldn't be used for cooking as they came out of the over like bullets. However after cooking in the stew for 5-10 minutes they were wonderful. I will be making this recipe again very soon:

Overall I really did like this book, the recipes fall into categories like "Spring-Summer" or "Autumn" or "Autumn-Winter" using ingredients in season which is a great help in keeping food costs down, but more importantly the recipes I tried were tasty, filling and pretty healthy. A good book for any Vegans cookbook collection 

Cookbook Challenge Week 40 - The Vegg Cookbook

This week I have been cooking from the Vegg Cookbook by Rocky Shepherd/Sandy Defino, and I am completely divided over this book.
The recipes are not written by one specific person, but are a collection of recipes from different cookery writers/bloggers or chefs using the Vegg. The are a couple of advantages to this, the first being that there are several recipes in the book for similar meals (3 Omelets, 2 scrambled tofu/vegg recipes, a couple quiches) so if you don’t like one you can always use another, the second advantage being that if there is a recipe that you don’t like it won’t mar the book for you as the rest of the recipes are from other people.
However there is also the disadvantage that there can be a lack of consistency (different contributors may be using US cups/UK cups/Australian Cups and some of the recipes use grams and ounces as well).

I was going to make 10 recipes but didn’t want to run out of Vegg so cut it down to 8, 2 of which were a failure with the other 6 being wonderful:

The Bad:

Vegg Omelet - page 15:
This was awful, a combination of firm tofu (recipe didn’t state to use silken so I didn’t), Vegg, soy milk  and oil. It didn’t cook very well and was basically a tasteless lump of blended tofu:

Spaetzle German Vegg Noodles:
This was one of the recipes that I was really looking forward to and disappointed me the most.
The batter looked ok but as soon as it got through the ricer into the hot water it turned it to a weird lump which tasted awful:

The good

Tofu Vegg Omelet - page 23:
This was a really good recipe using Silken Tofu, it was full of flavour and had the consistency of a egg omelette without the chicken periods, the only omelette that I have made which surpassed this was the Denver Bitchette from Skinny Bitch:

 
Broccoli Quiche:
I have mad loads of recipes for quiche in the past and this was a really good one. It had a strong egg taste that I’m not used to so I may try and water it down next time (maybe add some extra tofu in), but other than that it was a definite winner, although the Real men eat quiche Lorraine from Hearty Vegan Meals is still my fave:

Scrambled tofu:
This recipe is perfect for those vegans who really miss eggs, its probably the closest thing to scrambled eggs that I have tried since turning vegan and was quick and simple to make using only a handful of ingredients, sometimes I prefer scrambled tofu not to taste like egg (but rather just a savoury scramble) but for those times when you really do want something eggy its perfect.
Just the thing for a lazy Sunday morning:

Pots O' Chocolate
This was a really excellent recipe, it could have done with a bit more time in the fridge as it was a bit sloppy, other than that I really can’t complain. It’s a really decadent dessert without being stodgy or too filling:

Summer Veggie Casserole
This was unexpectedly good, its basically a load of veg mixed with vegg and breadcrumbs (recipe stated Panko but I could not get them so used Tesco golden) and it was great and really easy to make (most of my prep was carried out the night before). I don’t know what I really expected from it but it tasted fantastic, kind of a cross between a pie and a casserole (tasted like pie with a thick eggy casserole consistency):

Lemon Curd:
So I have saved the best for last, I have not had lemon curd in the 6 years since turning vegan and even though its not something that I have really missed it has always bugged me that I couldn’t buy a vegan version.
This recipe is outstanding, it had quite a strong lemon flavour  - I’m not complaining about this (this was probably due to my juicer which is extremely effective at juicing lemons so I may have used a bit more juice than was called for) so I might add some extra water and extra cornflour next time to make it go further, but I will definitely be making this again. Its the best recipe I have tried in weeks, delicious, easy to make, lower in calories than normal jam and completely brilliant:

Overall I really liked the book, its a bit like a treasure hunt – you have to keep trying recipes until you find the hidden gems (like the angelic lemon curd or the scrambled Vegg) so I will be getting some more Vegg next time I get paid and will be trying more of the recipes to see if I can find more treasure!

Cookbook Challenge Week 39 - Love Bites

This week I have been cooking from Heather Mills cookbook Love Bites, I won this several years ago and have not cooked from it, primarily due to the fact that most of the recipes try to get you to buy a Redwoods/Vbites product, to be fair the recipes do state things like "Vegan Chicken preferably Vbites or Redwood", so you don't have to use their products but it is quite annoying to read it in almost every recipe.
I cooked 4 things from this book and purposely picked recipes where I could avoid using Redwood products:

Crispy Tofu & Tomato Soup - I really liked this recipe, I have never had tofu chunks in soup before but it worked well and the soup was very very tasty:

Hot Cheesy Tomato Soup - Again I really liked this, it was hot and spicy with a slight sour note from lime juice, instead of using the recommended Redwood cheezly I used Violife pizza flavoured cheese:

Beef Style Ragout - This was full of flavour and was a really filling mid-week meal, its the only recipe where I used a Redwood product (meatless balls) because I already had some in the freezer:

One Pot Chinese Style Aubergine Rice - this was awful. Overly spiced with no flavour, very boring and I will never make this again:

Overall I am undecided on this book, I wanted to give it a fair chance but found a lot of the recipes to be veganised versions of non vegan recipes (as opposed to more original recipes like the Peanut Stew from Nut Butter Universe), some look delicious but others are just not appetising. I probably won't be using this book again in the near future 

Cookbook Challenge Week 38 - Vegan Sandwiches Save The Day

This week I have been cooking from Vegan Sandwiches Save The Day. A whole book dedicated to just vegan sandwiches, I have tried 4 recipes and they were all great....

Chickpea Shawarma  - This was a lovely sandwich (curried chickpeas with a tahini yoghurt dressing) but compared to the others was my least favourite:

Crispy Leek-Mushroom Mania Sandwiches - This was surprisingly tasty - fried mushrooms & crispy leeks with a creamy dressing, it really hit the mark on a rainy Monday lunchtime:

Country Sausage Sandwiches - Marinated Tempeh, Hash Browns & a creamy spicy dressing. This sandwich was fantastic:

Devilled (Not) Egg Salad Sandwiches - I have never tried devilled eggs so have nothing to compare this to, that really doesn't matter as it was faultless. I ate this whilst shopping in Manchester and kept expecting it to be a fake fish style sandwich (mostly cos it was made with Chickpeas) but what I got was a creamy, warm and spicy sandwich that I will be making again regularly in future. If you make one sandwich from this book make sure its this:

Overall I loved this book. Lots. All the recipes I tried were delicious and there is a long list of more that I want to try, the only (and this is a very very small fault) issue that I had was prep. Some of the sandwiches need starting several hours (or the day) before, which tripped me up a few times this week. Other than that this book is brilliant.

Cookbook Challenge Week 37 - The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook

This week I have been cooking from The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook from Joanne Stepaniak. I wanted to buy this book for a while but it was always quite expensive (£18 range), however I decided to splash out a few weeks ago and unfortunately I have to say that although the recipes look brilliant, some I found disappointing.

The Uncheeses -

Muenster - I have never had Muenster before I became Vegan so I don't have anything to compare this with, I found it a little bland and uninspiring.

Swizz - I was going to make the Monterey Jack but the recipe was almost identical to the Muenster so I opted for the Swizz instead and I'm glad I did. I had a lot more taste and was far better than the Muenster.

Colby - This was my favourite of the 4 I made, flavoured with pepper and garlic it tasted really lovely and I will be trying it again although possibly with more red pepper. The only fault I found with it (I also found it with the Gee Whiz Spread which I made on the same day) was that it tasted too much of lemon. I used to specified amount in the recipe but it was a little too sharp and lemony, I will definitely use less next time.

Gee Whiz Spread - This was a nice spreadable cheez with a good taste, it worked really well spread on sandwiches or on toast and got better the longer it was left in the fridge, a reviewer on Amazon recommended making this with chickpeas instead of the white beans which I might try as I think they would be an improvement.

Overall I liked the cheeses, the only thing I didn't like was the texture. They didn't contain as much agar as other vegan cheese recipes so I found these a little crumbly/watery. This might be down to my agar or it could be intentional by the author to help the cheeses melt but if I use these recipes again I will throw a bit more in to firm them up:

Above is Muenster (Bottom right with the red tinge to the top) and Swiz Cheese (Top Right)

Above is Gee Whiz Spread (Small tub on the left) and Colby (Big chunks in the centre)

Gooey Grilled Cheese - I was really looking forward to this, I followed the recipe to the letter and ended up with a very lemony tasting grilled cheese (maybe my lemons are just a bit too strong?). Very disappointing.

Classic Quiche - The texture of this was really good (chickpea flour helped with that) but I found the taste disappointing. There was was bit of nutritional yeast and nutmeg in this for flavouring, but other than that it was missing out on a lot of taste. I put some mushrooms and vegan ham in but they didn't add much flavour either, it really could have been improved with some onion & garlic powder and maybe some soya sauce/tamari/liquid aminos:

Traditional Macaroni & Cheese - I was really looking forward to this but it really was as fantastic as I expected. It certainly wasn't bad, but I have had far better vegan versions in the last few years (I topped mine with some vegan parmesan for extra taste):

Cheezy Rice and Broccoli Casserole - this was quite good, the texture was nice and it was quick and easy to make, the only improvement I would make would be the addition of some onion powder, maybe some soya cheese and a bit more nutritional yeast: 

Philly Potato Chowder - This was really good, a thick and cheesey soup topped with fake bacon bits. Lovely and definitely one to make again:

Cheez-A-Roni - The best recipe that I tried, it was a combination of tomatoes, Gee Whiz Spread, nutritional yeast and pasta. It was a very tasty, quick and easy to make comfort food which I will definitely be making again:

Overall I did like this book, some of the recipes weren't great but they were really quick to make and it gave me some great ideas for making Vegan cheeses that are a lot faster to make than those in Artisan Vegan Cheese, with a few tweaks I think they could be really great (that notwithstanding my favourite is still the Smokey Mountain Cheese from Vegan Diner). I also now have a few new items in my "to cook regularly" list from this book so thats always a plus and there are some other recipes that I really want to try from it (peanut butter fudge pie anyone?).