Friday, February 5, 2010

Nom nom nom nom

Snatched up a copy of Vegan Planet in the Used Book Cellar. The spine is severely bent in one place and there's a little splattering on those pages (that is part of the charm I THINK.) I am doing some amateur forensics, trying to determine which recipe it is. Little orangey... so surveying the ingredients, I believe it's the Butternut Squash & Wild Mushroom Lasagna. All those hours watching CSI paid off at last.

And many pages are dog-eared. That's another cool thing about used books - these marks might lead you to the best parts of the book right away. Or not. One of the dog-eared recipes is cilantro heavy and I am one of those people that thinks cilantro tastes like soap. So maybe I will avoid those dog-eared pages. Or you can pass judgment on the previous owner which is fulfilling for about a minute.

Speaking of cookbooks, here are some shoddy pictures of the best and most perfect chocolate chip cookies from The Joy of Vegan Baking (1 of my 2 current staff recs).


Don't ya just feel the diabetes settling in?


Underbake them by a minute or two and throw them in the freezer and, bam, you in vegan valhalla. I also recently made the Blueberry Orange Bundt cake and my boyfriend and I ate it in under two hours. I am not sure if that's a testament to how indulgent we are or how tasty the recipe is. The texture was great - so fluffy and moist - something I've missed when I've attempted baking before.

You might be like, but how do you do that with no eggs? Oh, but did you know that when food was rationed during WWII that bakers had to get creative with binders, so a lot of subs are not just blindly chosen by some tasteless hippie wizard? That is a great fact you will find in The Joy of Vegan Baking.

Plus, Colleen Patrick-Goudreau also clears up the best applications of non-animal-based moisture-givers and binders. Which is useful when you are way more of an, uh, artistic cook. Baking requires so much precision that I had been bad at. Now I think I get it.

Hooray cookbooks!

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