One Fine Afternoon In The Bookshop.

Various full color attractive veg cooking books are displayed in B2S. In Thailand basically there is the well know “Jay” which is Buddhist food without any animal ingredient just like vegan food, and also some specific herbs like garlic are not used for health reasons (related to traditional Chinese medicine), and the lesser popular “Mangsawirat”, which means lacto ovo vegetarian and has no connection with a religion.

The book in the middle is Mangsawirat. It looks trendy and goes with the modern “eat less meat” trend. Great job!

The book at the right, look at that! My fav!! A Jay food recipe book with great tasty vegan recipes and attractive full color photos. The yellow Jay sign cleverly is not in the usual old fashioned  Chinese style but a modern Thai style font. The sub title reads “Vegan Food”. That’s right! It is vegan food; no animal ingredients  for ethical reasons just like us western vegans. 

NEW The HappyCow Cookbook

There are already a zillion or so vegetarian and vegan cookbooks, so what’s so different about this latest cookbook?

Well, first of all, it is not simply a collection of recipes of one author, but a whole collection of the best rated vegan restaurants. That means that these recipes are not created just for this cookbook (as in many other cookbooks) but are real recipes that are carefully developed and have proved themselves to be the best of the best recipes.

What's cooking 2

Yesterday I blogged about my disappointing experience with a MEATLES recipe. Well, the next day after this Broccoli Pesto failure, I had a much better cooking day with a Thai curry dish.

Curry paste is usually made with shrimp paste but last week I saw curry paste without shrimp paste in the “Macro” shop. And it was pretty exciting to see not one, two, or three, but a whopping six different flavors of curry paste, which I did buy all and will try out the coming months.

Since these curry pastes are NOT vegan “Jay” curry pastes, they DO contain garlic, which is a basic and authentic ingredient of a Thai curry paste. (“Jay” is the Thai Chinese style of veg Buddhist cooking ; besides no animal ingredients also various plants like garlic are not used.)

I like garlic, so it is great to see a vegan curry paste with it!

Okay, i will blog more about vegan curries later, keep in touch. :-)

What's cooking?

This week I tried the Rice Noodles With Broccoli Pesto on page 302 from Martha’s “MEATLESS cooking book.

I was excited to make a Broccoli Pesto, it sounded so creative! But I was less excited when I tasted it. First of all, pesto’s are just great, from a classic Basil Pesto that I use for a spaghetti or a pizza, to a variation with roasted smoky bell peppers that I yet have, and will, try.

Roasted and smoky bell peppers have great and deep and full flavors. Many times I have added them to a chickpea hummus for a really deliciosa Smoky Bell Pepper Hummus. So I am pretty sure they also will add in the same way to a pesto.

But broccoli…? 

Book Review: Martha Stewart’s MEATLESS

This week I did buy MEATLESS, a vegetarian cooking book “from the kitchens of Martha Steward Living” published last year.

“Meatless” is written for vegetarians, flexitarians, and meat eaters (grrrr!) who are interested in vegetarian food, so why should I, a hard core vegan with a stack of Vegan Cooking Books, buy this book? Well, because it is just an awesome book with very creative recipes.