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Veganomicon Recipes

OK, I bought my copy of Veganomicon (cookbook from the same authors as Vegan with a Vengeance and Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World) last week at Barnes & Noble.  Over the weekend, I made my first recipes from the book.  I made the Chickpea Cutlets with the Mustard Gravy.  I also made the Tomato-Rice Soup with Roasted Garlic and Navy Beans.  For sweets, I made the Chocolate-Chocolate Chip-Walnut Cookies.  Everything was really good.  I've been having a difficult time staying away from the cookies, they're so good (very thin, crispy, chewy!).  Has anyone else here purchased this cookbook yet and made any recipes?   I'd love to hear what people are making and enjoying from this cookbook.  I really enjoy Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero's other cookbooks, and I'm looking forward to exploring more in this new book.

I made the Coconut-Lemon Bundt Cake yesterday.  It is super delicious!  To be honest, this was my first attempt at bundt cake, and if I do say so myself, it turned out fabulously!  This cake is really moist and coconutty, with a brightness from the lemon juice/zest.  It reminds me of the Vanilla-Yogurt Pound Cake, which is also marvelous, but this recipe has the addition of the coconut.  Also, the color of the cake is a perfect lemony, sunshiney, yellow.  Thankfully, I had no issues with sticking.  I simply sprayed the inside of my pan with some canola oil, waited around 15 minutes after baking for the cake to cool a bit in the pan, and then placed a cutting board on top of the pan, flipped it over, and popped it out easily!  I did bake mine for 5 minutes less than the recommended 1 hour time, and I probably could have even knocked another 5 minutes off (Of course, I'm baking in a small toaster/convection oven; you may need the full hour in a full-size oven.). I served my cake with the simple Strawberry Sauce and Macadamia Creme from the Strawberry Shortcakes recipe in VWAV, both great additions.  Oh, and the flavor of the cake developed nicely overnight, making it even tastier today for breakfast!

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Tofu on a George Foreman Grill? Well, I never....

My roommate has one of these and she totally cooks tofu on it! She's not even veg*n!!!!

i cook it on mine all the time too. super yum

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Well, lisaanddini, how was dinner?  Don't make us wait until Monday for your review!

hehe sorry! I didn't make it until last night anyway! The chickpea cutlets & potatoes were both really good. I didn't like the red wine roux as much as I thought I would. It didn't have much flavor to me. I'm thinking I may make it again, but use more wine than water & increase the garlic, shallots, & herbs. My greens were pretty bitter too, but its probably because I used dandelion & kale. I added some vinegar to them and it made than better. Looking forward to the leftovers for lunch!

Dinner tonight is going to be a scaled down and modified version of the eggplant tomato stew because I have half an eggplant & some chickpeas I need to use up.

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On the stovetop is the Gazborscht recipe. Done chopping everything, just waiting for the beets to finish boiling! Then I puree it all and chill it. Can't wait!

Also, I may be making the Rustic White Beans & Mushrooms recipe. I started soaking the beans this morning and if there's time, I'll make them tonight to eat throughout the week.

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The Gazborscht is delicious. It will make a nice, refreshing lunch on this hot summer day. I ended up not making the rustic white beans, but I think I might do that today.

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i bought this book for my parents and they love it!  yay!

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I made the White Beans & Mushrooms for dinner last night and it was very, very good. Great comfort food, very hearty tasting. I did eff it up a little bit by forgetting about it and boiled it a little too long on high heat so there wasn't enough cooking liquid in the end and I had to add more.. twice! The end result was a few beans here and there that weren't quite cooked all the way through. Completely my fault though.

I need to get more into cooking with dried beans because it seems that my favorite recipes out of this book lately have been the ones using dried beans :)

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I made the White Bean and Garlic Aioli and the Sweet Basil Pesto Tapenade for a Tapas and Sangria party I am having tomorrow. I thought they were both good, though I may cut down on the garlic in the Aioli next time. I used the recommended 6 cloves, and I thought it had a tad too much garlic (and I LOVE garlic in everything). Maybe I had honkin' garlic cloves though. The basil pesto ROCKS. It is sweeter than your average pesto, but I just had some on a hunk of homemade Rosemary-Chive bread and it was wonderful.

I'm trying to decide if I should just put it out with bread or make some sort of tiny pizza with it.

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Yesterday I made my first recipe out of this even though I've had it for months.  I made the Mac Daddy macaroni and cheese recipe and added peas as suggested in one of the variations.  I have to say I wasn't that big a fan of it.  I couldn't get the cheese sauce to thicken and the taste was a bit weird with the mustard in it.  I'm going to finish it since I don't want to waste all the ingredients but it won't be anything I'll ever make again.

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I made the Mexican Millet & Black Beans with Adobe sauce the other night & really liked both of them. I do have to add though, that I I didn't really measure anything and I think I added a bunch of spices that weren't included in the recipe. I was feeling creative. 

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Yesterday I made my first recipe out of this even though I've had it for months.  I made the Mac Daddy macaroni and cheese recipe and added peas as suggested in one of the variations.  I have to say I wasn't that big a fan of it.  I couldn't get the cheese sauce to thicken and the taste was a bit weird with the mustard in it.  I'm going to finish it since I don't want to waste all the ingredients but it won't be anything I'll ever make again.

I agree. I was very disappointed by this dish, too, especially because I've tried some AMAZING vegan mac & cheese recipes. It wasn't terrible by any means, but I was underwhelmed & won't try it again.

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I made the Coconut-Lemon Bundt Cake yesterday.  It is super delicious!  To be honest, this was my first attempt at bundt cake, and if I do say so myself, it turned out fabulously!  This cake is really moist and coconutty, with a brightness from the lemon juice/zest.  It reminds me of the Vanilla-Yogurt Pound Cake, which is also marvelous, but this recipe has the addition of the coconut.  Also, the color of the cake is a perfect lemony, sunshiney, yellow.  Thankfully, I had no issues with sticking.  I simply sprayed the inside of my pan with some canola oil, waited around 15 minutes after baking for the cake to cool a bit in the pan, and then placed a cutting board on top of the pan, flipped it over, and popped it out easily!  I did bake mine for 5 minutes less than the recommended 1 hour time, and I probably could have even knocked another 5 minutes off (Of course, I'm baking in a small toaster/convection oven; you may need the full hour in a full-size oven.). I served my cake with the simple Strawberry Sauce and Macadamia Creme from the Strawberry Shortcakes recipe in VWAV, both great additions.  Oh, and the flavor of the cake developed nicely overnight, making it even tastier today for breakfast!

OK, today's the 25th, and this Coconut-Lemon Bundt Cake is still incredibly moist and delicious.  I'm so surprised.  I made this on the 19th--that's just shy of a week old.  The cake has been sitting in a covered container on my kitchen counter the whole time.  I'm not generally a fan of keeping baked goods this long, but this cake has held up perfectly well.  I hate having to eat up baked goods right away (small household) or wind up throwing out a bunch (I don't usually freeze baked goods as a) My freezer is usually quite full already and b) I prefer baked goods fresh, and I'm not sure what exactly freezes well.).  I'll definitely keep this in mind for future Vegweb Swaps. 

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OK, today's the 25th, and this Coconut-Lemon Bundt Cake is still incredibly moist and delicious.  I'm so surprised.   

Willwolf--there is 77 grams of fat in the average can of coconut milk, plus the 2/3 cup of oil--so I'm not surprised it's still moist!  Those kinds of cakes and breads usually stay moist for a long time.

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Yesterday I made my first recipe out of this even though I've had it for months.  I made the Mac Daddy macaroni and cheese recipe and added peas as suggested in one of the variations.  I have to say I wasn't that big a fan of it.  I couldn't get the cheese sauce to thicken and the taste was a bit weird with the mustard in it.  I'm going to finish it since I don't want to waste all the ingredients but it won't be anything I'll ever make again.

I agree. I was very disappointed by this dish, too, especially because I've tried some AMAZING vegan mac & cheese recipes. It wasn't terrible by any means, but I was underwhelmed & won't try it again.

to get the sauce to thicken i used a wisk.  it took a while.  but i liked it!  i liked the veggie broth instead of of a 1/2 cup of oil like another mac and cheese recipe i have!! eek!

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Yesterday I made my first recipe out of this even though I've had it for months.  I made the Mac Daddy macaroni and cheese recipe and added peas as suggested in one of the variations.  I have to say I wasn't that big a fan of it.  I couldn't get the cheese sauce to thicken and the taste was a bit weird with the mustard in it.  I'm going to finish it since I don't want to waste all the ingredients but it won't be anything I'll ever make again.

I agree. I was very disappointed by this dish, too, especially because I've tried some AMAZING vegan mac & cheese recipes. It wasn't terrible by any means, but I was underwhelmed & won't try it again.

to get the sauce to thicken i used a wisk.  it took a while.  but i liked it!  i liked the veggie broth instead of of a 1/2 cup of oil like another mac and cheese recipe i have!! eek!

I was using a wisk to stir it...I even turned up the heat like they suggested.  It just never thickened up.

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Yesterday I made my first recipe out of this even though I've had it for months.  I made the Mac Daddy macaroni and cheese recipe and added peas as suggested in one of the variations.  I have to say I wasn't that big a fan of it.  I couldn't get the cheese sauce to thicken and the taste was a bit weird with the mustard in it.  I'm going to finish it since I don't want to waste all the ingredients but it won't be anything I'll ever make again.

I agree. I was very disappointed by this dish, too, especially because I've tried some AMAZING vegan mac & cheese recipes. It wasn't terrible by any means, but I was underwhelmed & won't try it again.

to get the sauce to thicken i used a wisk.  it took a while.  but i liked it!  i liked the veggie broth instead of of a 1/2 cup of oil like another mac and cheese recipe i have!! eek!

I was using a wisk to stir it...I even turned up the heat like they suggested.  It just never thickened up.

oh man!  bummer.  hmph. 

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i made chickpea cutlets last night for the first time.  i know, i know...i'm a late bloomer.  i still don't actually have the cookbook, but someone gave me the recipe.  anyway...  they didn't really turn out nicely.  the flavor was AWESOME.  but they were kind of mushy/mealy in the center, or as bf put it 'raw-tasting'.  the texture was definitely off.  i'm thinking one of two things might have been the culprit:

1. i didn't watch him very closely while he was mashing the chickpeas and when i looked over, they were pretty much a mush, like they would be if i put them in the food processor.  did this make the texture go weird?

2. maybe if i added more wheat gluten...  i used the 1/4 cup it calls for, but maybe if i had used more, it would have bonded better? 

bf says next time he thinks we should steam them awhile before pan frying, but i think maybe it was just a bad combo of super mushy chickpeas and perhaps not enough wheat gluten.  any thoughts?

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any thoughts?

Maybe the heat was just too high? They might have gotten done on the outside before the inside had time to cook.

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2. maybe if i added more wheat gluten...  i used the 1/4 cup it calls for, but maybe if i had used more, it would have bonded better? 

bf says next time he thinks we should steam them awhile before pan frying, but i think maybe it was just a bad combo of super mushy chickpeas and perhaps not enough wheat gluten.  any thoughts?

Did you half the recipe? Because the regular recipe calls for 1/2 cup each of the gluten & breadcrumbs.

Heres a link to the recipe:  http://peppertree.wordpress.com/2008/01/30/chickpea-cutlets-with-mustard-sauce/

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ah!  maybe the recipe that said friend gave to me had a typo! 

i did make them pretty thin, so that wouldn't be it.  but i wasn't the one who did the pan frying, so i'm not sure about the heat on the stove. 

interesting!  next time i will double the gluten that's in my typo-ed recipe.  i'm glad they're not just gross, haha...

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