The Year of the Vegan Cookbook: 5 Great New Animal-Free Titles
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| Harvard Common Press |
| Fresh From fhe Vegan Slow Cooker |
Maybe we've just seen one too many pot roasts on the cover of vintage slow-cooker books over the years, but the idea of a vegan slow-cooker book caught us by surprise. It turned out to be a good surprise, as in Fresh From the Vegan Slow Cooker, longtime cookbook author Robin Robertson brings us 200 plant-based recipes inspired by global cuisine. Dishes like wild mushroom-barley soup, "jerk tempeh" with sweet potatoes and onions, Italian-style tomatoes and zucchini, seitan pot-au-feau, hoisin and miso-braised tofu. Now this is a slow-cooker book we can get into at 7 a.m. on a Monday morning.
There's even a "Condiments From the Crock" chapter (think Granny Smith apple-green tomato chutney, homemade ketchup, pear confit), a dessert chapter (spiced pumpkin cake, apricot-tapioca pudding, chocolate truffle cake, granola-stuffed apples), and another on crock-pot beverages made with rum punch, Mexican hot chocolate and a vanilla-spiced Chai tea for your weekday slow-cooker inspiration (the drinks tend to be cooked briefly, only for an hour or two).
Among the most intriguing recipes: an "upcountry pâté," a vegan country-style pâté made from ground nuts, potatoes, lentils, whole-grain flour, nutritional yeast and a myriad of spices. You place the mixture in a loaf pan, add a rack or crumpled piece of aluminum foil to the bottom of your slow cooker along with water, and steam it for four hours. Not exactly your grandmother's crock-pot chicken.
1. Pure Vegan:
Chronicle Books Pure Vegan
Institute of Domestic Technology founder Joseph Shuldiner isn't merely a cottage-food industry herald, he also happens to be a fantastic graphic designer (Shuldiner designed the EAT: Los Angeles guidebooks, among others).
No surprise that his new book, Pure Vegan, to borrow from the subtitle, is beautiful -- and filled with enticing recipes. Those "70 Recipes for Beautiful Meals and Clean Living" include French toast with cardamom pear compote, a celery root and fennel chowder and his all-veggie take on eggplant Parmesan with cashew cream sauce. There are also plenty of late-night refueling options, like Shiso martinis and pistachio olive oil cake, depending on your energy fix preference.
Tip: Take your copy to the new Wednesday afternoon Altadena Farmers' Market, which Shuldiner was instrumental in organizing, and you'll likely be able to swing a pop-up book autograph. And if you miss him, consider it an excuse to stock up on ingredients for that great "ceviche de vegan."
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