Showing posts with label American Vegan Kitchen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label American Vegan Kitchen. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

AMERICAN VEGAN KITCHEN OR WORLD VEGAN FEAST GIVEAWAY

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FROM MY PUBLISHER, VEGAN HERITAGE PRESS (the giveaway is on their page):
February is cold and dreary in most parts of the US, and many of us just want to stay inside with bowls of steaming hot soup or warm and comforting soup. To help you stay warm and cozy, we're having a comfort food cookbook giveway! Chose from either American Vegan Kitchen by Tamasin Noyes or World Vegan Feast by Bryanna Clark Grogan.

American Vegan Kitchen is full of recipes to make vegan versions of favorite comfort food dishes found in diners, delis, and cafes across the US. Spaghetti Pie with Arrabbiata Sauce, Southern Fried Seitan and Beer-Simmered Seitan Stroganoff with Cracked Pepper are just a few of the many warm and hearty dishes in this book.

World Vegan Feast includes authentic dishes from around the world that you won’t find in other vegan cookbooks. Ugandan-Style Peanut Butter Stew, Seitan Wellington and Curried Vegan Meatloaf are some of the comforting recipes you'll find within the pages of this book. 

To enter, leave a comment at the Vegan Heritage Press blog page listing which of these two cookbooks you’d like to win.  To increase your chances of winning, in addition to leaving your initial comment, you can do any or all of the following, and leave a separate comment here for each that you do:


  1. “Like” Vegan Heritage Press on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Vegan-Heritage-Press/120897831319698
  2. Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/VeganPress
  3. Subscribe to Vegan Heritage Press Blog
  4. Link to this giveaway on Twitter
  5. Link to this giveaway on Facebook
  6. Link to this giveaway on your blog

Winners will be chosen at random for each book. Contest ends on Tuesday, February 12th, 2013 at 11:59pm, EST. US residents only please. One winner will be chosen at random for each book.

Friday, December 10, 2010

RECIPES I MADE FROM 2 COOKBOOKS I RECOMMEND, AND A NEW TOOL

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Last night we had dinner at our good friends Yoshi and Susan-Marie's house. Our hosts provided the bulk of the meal, our friends David and Carmen brought a lovely green salad, and I brought a bean dish and a simple dessert. The dinner wasn't Japanese, but was served somewhat in the Japanese style, with a number of small vegetable dishes to complement the rice. Yoshi made a delicious rice dish with yuba (beancurd skin) and mushrooms, and Susan-Marie served it with; a sweet and sour tomato soup with potatoes, steamed winter squash, marinated leeks and crostini. Most of the produce she used was grown in their own garden. The leeks tasted almost like marinated artichokes... so good!


I brought a dish I blogged about before-- Madhur Jaffrey's Black-Eyed Peas with Corn and Dill from her book "World Vegetarian". I've been reading (and owning) Ms. Jaffrey's books for years, but "World Vegetarian" is my favorite. It's not confined to Indian cuisine, with over 600 recipes from five continents with endless flavor combinations for beans, vegetables and grains (and dairy, too-- but you can ignore that chapter or use vegan subs). This encyclopedic volume it is arranged so that you can look up the chapter, say, on "Dried Beans, Dried Peas, Lentils and Nuts" and check for, in my case this time, recipes featuring black-eyed peas, and you will find a few recipes utilizing whatever is the particular item you have in mind and in your pantry. You always find a new surprise because you are always looking at it in a different frame of mind from the last time!

The recipe I made (on p. 19) is one of my favorites. It's made with items that I always have in my cupboard and freezer (corn, dill, chiles, onions, etc.),and it's full of flavor and texture, but very easy to make. Diners are always surprised by the goodness of this homey but spicy dish.


For dessert I brought the pineapple upside-down cake from Tamasin Noyes' recent and very popular book, "American Vegan Kitchen". It was easy to make and turned out beautifully-- as you can see from the photo! The only changes I made were to use half wholewheat pastry flour in the batter, and substitute dried cranberries for the cherries in the topping. Our hostess asked me for the recipe because she, though not a vegan, would prefer to make this without the eggs and so much fat as her normal recipe. We ate the whole thing!

Tamasin's book is well-written, with clear instructions, lots of homemade basics (so you don't have to go buy all your components!), and the kind of recipes most us in North America remember with nostalgia!


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Here's a photo of my homemade Almond Creme whipped topping on top of a trifle (UPDATE: recipe from my book "World Vegan Feast", and shared here:

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NEW KITCHEN TOOL (GOT MY CHRISTMAS PRESENT EARLY!):

My new Cinnamon Red KitchenAid Wide-Mouth 12-cup food processor!

A few months ago my food processor died and I had to decide on a new one. The KitchenAid got rave reviews, but I couldn't afford the 12-cup one (over $300 in Canada!), so I got the 7-cup one with a small extra bowl for chopping small amounts. It's a great machine, but I missed having more room to do large batches, and my stepson said he'd buy my smaller one. Cook's Illustrated magazine reviewed food processors and gave the 12-cupper a rave review-- even better than the largest Cuisinart! Now they have one with "the largest feed-tube in the business!", called a "wide mouth"-- you can practically put 1/2 a small cabbage in there! I searched and searched for the best prices, locally and online, debating whether to go for the older 12-cupper, or the new wide-mouth. Price WAS an issue, even though I expect to get alot of years out of it.

Well, long story short, I found the wide-mouth (in Cinnamon Red-- not a popular color, I guess!) on eBay, IN CANADA (wonder of wonders), brand-new, in the box, for $179 (which included shipping!). That included all the 3 slicing and shredding discs, an egg whip (have to try it with egg replacer!), and a citrus press.  (You can get this same one in white in the States from amazon.com for $199 in the States; or in Candy Apple red, with 4 discs for $228. But it was $273.75 Cnd. from amazon.ca and $379 in alot of places in Canada!. So, I'm happy, and my stepson is happy!

It should get a work-out during the holiday season, and looks very Christmasy, too!

Cheers!