Best basic vegan cookbook?
December 17, 2014 1:48 PM   Subscribe

A lovely friend of mine in London is keen to go vegan, but there are some requirements for the cookbook below.

My friend Ben, who is a delight and helluva knitter, has decided to try and go vegan. I am pleased, but after seeing his continual FB posts about being disappointed as to how to make decent vegan food--I think we've entered "oh god, is it lentils every single fucking time" territory--I wish to gift him a cookbook for Christmas.

I am a vegan cookbook queen, but my skillset in the kitchen seems to be higher, so I would like:

*something very easy

*something for a vegan on a budget as he doesn't have a lot of money

*UK-friendly, or at least has ingredients that one can buy in the UK

*something that I can somehow purchase through the magic of Amazon UK to be shipped there, instead of buying something here and mailing it

I thought about Vegan with a Vengeance as my go-to, but maybe there's something better for a newbie vegan? Thanks, Hive Mind!
posted by Kitteh to Food & Drink (25 answers total) 18 users marked this as a favorite
 


No recommendations for you, but I'll add another requirement for you, which I now have for any cookbook I buy - it MUST have a picture for every recipe. I have scads of cookbooks with no pictures and I never feel compelled to make anything from them!
posted by cecic at 2:08 PM on December 17, 2014 [2 favorites]


Best answer: I found Veganomicon a bit overwhelming when I first started out cooking vegan for myself. It seems geared towards multiple courses and fancy dinners which isn't my style.

I love Vegan Dad's blog. A lot of GREAT basic and more complex dishes as well as baking (recent posts are baking heavy but your friend should delve into the archives). He cooks vegan for his kids as well so it isn't all fancy Ottolenghiish stylings either. I still use it a lot even though I'm not vegan anymore. And his Dal recipe is the best best Dal ever, I will lay down my life. He is American, but not difficult to adjust to for a UK cook as long as he invests in a cup measure (as would be the case with VwaV or Vnomicon also). And to my joy he even started posting again after a hiatus!

Link here:
http://vegandad.blogspot.co.uk/
posted by mymbleth at 2:11 PM on December 17, 2014 [6 favorites]


Best answer: I bought VWAV as a baby vegan but never got any use out of it until I'd spent a bunch of time figuring out how to cook, so my vote is for the inimitable Isa Does It.

Everything about IDI is awesome: fantastic recipes, tons of weeknight dinners with some more complex stuff mixed in for variety, easy-to-find ingredients, a wide assortment of flavors and cuisines, tons of helpful instructions, unbelievably gorgeous food photography and beautiful hardcover binding. Appetite for Reduction is even more simple and weeknight-oriented, but not nearly as pretty or (imo) broadly appealing.

Considering thrift is so important, you could also send him a PDF copy of Leanne Brown's Good and Cheap as a lagniappe. It's a vegetarian cookbook meant for low-income people, specifically folks who are living off of SNAP funds (~4USD/day for food) but most of the non-baking recipes are vegan and/or very easily converted -- replace butter with oil, milk with soymilk, that kind of stuff. She has another PDF cookbook called From Scratch, "a vegetarian cookbook intended for people just becoming comfortable in their own kitchens," that might fit the bill as well.

I was a one-and-done cold-Tofurky overnight vegan myself, but I know a lot of folks find it easier to take more incremental steps, especially when they're first learning how to cook, so the one-two of an all-vegan cookbook with an accompanying vegetarian PDF might be a good place to start. This is such a sweet gift, I hope he loves it!
posted by divined by radio at 2:16 PM on December 17, 2014 [5 favorites]


I really liked Everyday Happy Herbivore.
posted by whistle pig at 2:17 PM on December 17, 2014 [1 favorite]


Best answer: Appetite for Reduction or Isa Does It.

I cook a lot more from AFR than IDI because the recipes are faster and easier in AFR, but IDI is more suitable as a gift since it's a pretty hardcover with pictures. I have no idea about UK conversions for either, but AFR recipes are pretty forgiving on quantities in my experience, and I'm sure the PPK can help with any lingering questions he has about either book.
posted by snaw at 2:17 PM on December 17, 2014 [1 favorite]


Best answer: I found Veganomicon overwhelming as well. Things took too long to prep and cook, so it wasn't useful day-to-day. The editing is not-so-great and there were multiple recipes that were missing steps or had ingredients listed that never got used.

Instead I'd suggest Appetite for Reduction, which is also by the amazing Isa Chandra Moskowitz. The recipes are a lot quicker, and I've found them to be VERY consistently amazing. The recipes skew toward bold flavors of all kinds, which would probably be a nice contrast to the "oh no, more lentils" experience you are describing. (Don't be put off by the low-calorie aspect, I swear. You'd never be able to tell based on the quality of the food.)

I'm cooking my way through Isa Does It right now. I'm enjoying it and the book is beautiful, but I think the bang for your buck, especially for a beginner, is better with Appetite for Reduction.
posted by soleiluna at 2:25 PM on December 17, 2014


Seconding the Happy Herbivore books.
posted by John Kennedy Toole Box at 2:31 PM on December 17, 2014


Best answer: I find Thug Kitchen to be hilarious as well as tasty, though I realize it might not be to everyone's taste.

COME ON THAT WAS FUNNY.
posted by lyssabee at 2:44 PM on December 17, 2014 [4 favorites]


Best answer: Another vote for Appetite for Reduction or Isa Does It. Nobody touches Isa Moskovitz when it comes to easy and accessible vegan food.
posted by something something at 2:50 PM on December 17, 2014 [1 favorite]


I was checking out Appetite for Reduction on the Amazon UK website and noticed how many of the reviews commented on US/UK language differences. (3 of the first 5 reviews - each with different words the reviewer felt needed translation) If you give an a mercian cookbook, you want to compile a little dictionary to help your friend navigate the recipes.
posted by metahawk at 3:22 PM on December 17, 2014


Best answer: I was going to suggest Thug Kitchen as well. I'm not vegan by any stretch of the imagination, but I have friends who are. They say the recipes are pretty good. You can check out their blog first.
posted by patheral at 3:30 PM on December 17, 2014 [1 favorite]


Best answer: How it All Vegan is very simple, reliable recipes, straightforward explanations, attainable ingredients, and consistantly tasty. Her other books, Garden of Vegan and La Dolce Vegan are similar.
posted by latkes at 3:30 PM on December 17, 2014 [1 favorite]


Best answer: I would highly recommend the small book Vegan a Go-Go! While it bills itself as a cookbook for vegans "on the road", it really isn't -- it's a set of extremely good, relatively easy to cook recipes that are generally made out of common ingredients. Since I don't like to mess around with complicated recipes, it's definitely one of my go-to books.

I live in the UK and have never had trouble with ingredients for the recipes in the book.
posted by kyrademon at 4:08 PM on December 17, 2014


Bryanna Clark Grogan's books are reliable and have recipes suitable for all parts of the skill spectrum. 20 Minutes To Dinner and Nonna's Italian Kitchen are especially good.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 4:19 PM on December 17, 2014


Oh please don't forget the Fat Free Vegan Kitchen! Her work is incredibly extensive, very tasty, and her toolbox of techniques is fairly simple and straightforward. Don't let the "fat free" fool you, the food is delicious (and gets a huge vote of love from this epidemiologist for being among the most healthful cookbook-blogs out there, considering the preponderance of Isa-type oil-'er-up vegan food (although I'll also second Appetite for Reduction, especially her Goddess Dressing)).

It's not a purchasable book, but the index of recipes is massive at this point. Sometimes I just flip through until I see a picture of something I want to make for dinner that night and let my eyes guide me.

Bonus: FFVK recipes are integrated with some of the currently popular fitness/calorie counting apps.
posted by late afternoon dreaming hotel at 4:36 PM on December 17, 2014


Best answer: Please prioritize getting him a UK-based book. Recipes in North America cite a lot of things by volume that UK recipes cite by weight, and a surprising number of things are different – names for vegetables, available products, stove settings. (Sorry, they call it a "cooker" not a stove.) Even the names of variations of basics like flour and sugar are different.
posted by zadcat at 4:54 PM on December 17, 2014


Response by poster: zadcat -- do you have a vegan UK cookbook suggestion? Sadly, I am unfamiliar with any vegan cookbook writers in the UK except for Ms. Cupcake (in Brixton!) but she's a Canadian transplant and mostly does sweets.

If anyone at all has a UK vegan cookbook/blog source, I would so love to hear about it!
posted by Kitteh at 6:14 PM on December 17, 2014


I really like the single vegan. I'm past my vegan trials, but I still make recipes out of it.
posted by pi at 6:20 PM on December 17, 2014 [1 favorite]


I really like the Veganomicon, or really anything by Isa Chandra Moskowitz. Some other good cookbooks, with a UK focus:
World Food Cafe
A Vegan Taste of North Africa

Another good one for folks new to vegan/vegetarian cooking:
This Can't Be Tofu!
posted by eviemath at 6:38 PM on December 17, 2014 [1 favorite]


I visited Café Paradiso in Cork (Ireland) this year, and the food was fantastic. There were cookbooks available for sale in the restaurant, and they are available on Amazon.co.uk. They seem to be well rated; based on a quick look I would probably recommend Seasons. Lots of pictures in all three.

Unfortunately, they are vegetarian, not vegan.
posted by Laura in Canada at 6:56 PM on December 17, 2014


@Kitteh I am in the UK and cook a lot from North American recipes, both from cookbooks and blogs, and both baking and cooking meals. It's not that hard to make conversions- if he has access to google, he should be fine! It is very useful to have a set of measures for US Cups, but these are widely available. Just saying this because there aren't really many UK vegan recipe books, for some reason. So don't worry if you can't find one!
posted by mymbleth at 11:59 PM on December 17, 2014 [2 favorites]


I agree with mymbleth. I'm in Europe, and I mostly use US cookbooks. It's fine. The volume/weight thing is something to get used to, and sometimes a bit annoying, but it's not a deal breaker. I practically never come across ingredients that are hard to find here in general vegan cookbooks like the ones that are suggested here. If he lives in a smaller town with no access to health food stores or middle eastern/asian stores it may be a bit more difficult, but the things that are mentioned as hard to find like liquid smoke can be ordered on amazon UK. If you think he doesn't have measuring cups yet, and you're going to order from Amazon UK anyway, it would be really nice if you added a set of inexpensive measuring cups to the gift.

The one UK cookbook I bought (Vegan with a Vengeance) I actually regret because it was just a conversion of the US version, and the conversion wasn't always well done (it's still a good book, I just would have bought the US version in hindsight).

I get the impression that in the past few years US books have gotten better with specifying measurements. Appetite for Reduction is not annoying with the volume measures, in my opinion. Some US cookbooks measure everything by weight (2 cups broccoli, 1/2 cup pepper etc.). This book has ingredients like 1 pound cabbage, cut into strips (about 4 cups, or 1/2 medium head of cabbage) or 1/2 pound zucchini. It also gives weight for things like "bunches", or gives the approximate weight when it mentions 1 zucchini which I really appreciate because sometimes my bunch of greens is twice as large as other times and as a beginner cook I have no idea how much to use when recipes simply specify bunch.

I don't see it as a diet book at all, and agree that it has great everyday recipes, but it does have weightloss info. If you want to give this as a gift, you may want to attach a note about the weightloss angle. I can imagine that a book like this might not be received well by everybody.
posted by blub at 3:12 AM on December 18, 2014 [2 favorites]


I'm not vegan but I really love Give Peas a Chance. There's a second book (more peas, please) but I haven't gotten to it yet.

and nevermind, apparently it's not completely vegan. Sorry!
posted by lemniskate at 4:25 AM on December 18, 2014


No question Isa is the gold standard. I owe my life to that woman!

But for your friend I would recommend
Students go vegan
This one's a slim volume and the recipes are simple ingredients geared towards students so very easy, tasty, and cheap. I think they are easily convertible--but it's not in UK measurements.

For UK, The Single Vegan might be your best bet.

It's fairly old, but meets your requirements. I've used it plenty of times. It's not a marvel of vegan cookery by any stretch but it's cheap and good!
posted by OlivesAndTurkishCoffee at 3:28 AM on December 19, 2014 [1 favorite]


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