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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To want a vegan/veggie cookbook that isn't trying to substitute?

33 replies

Aroaringfire · 13/12/2020 12:08

I'm trying to reduce the amount of meat I eat, for a few common reasons (health, cost, environmental) I was veggie for twenty years before I started eating meat but I seem to have lost/forgotten how to cook decent vegetarian or vegan food (struggling with ideas in this lockdown!)

I've bought a couple of vegetarian or vegan cookbooks so far that have had good reviews, but they're all about the substitutes and making fake versions of regular meat/fish meals. The last one I got was Jack Monroe and I really like her cooking usually but this was was really disappointing! I guess it's to appeal to people who might be hesitant about vegan/veggie cooking but it puts me off.

I want to eat vegan or vegetarian food that is good in its own right, not food that feels like a poor substitute of something else. I know what bacon and chicken taste like, so anything that sells itself as an sub just feels a bit flat.

Can anyone recommend any books/sites/chefs? I've got a Bosh! cookbook which has lovely recipes in it, but they're a bit time intensive for every cooking (large number of ingredients and often things I can't buy locally)

OP posts:
FraughtwithGin · 13/12/2020 12:10

Rose Eliot's books are a good source.

IHaveBrilloHair · 13/12/2020 12:12

I like HFW's Veg Everyday.

AnnaMagnani · 13/12/2020 12:13

Anna Jones is great. She does tend to call her recipes steak or lasagne when they are nothing of the sort, but every one of her recipes has been a winner, including with meat-eating DH who was v disappointed to realise he'd bought me a vegetarian cookbook.

HDready · 13/12/2020 12:16

Green roasting tin is great. And the HFW Veg.

LunaNorth · 13/12/2020 12:19

Rachel Ama. Her Nigerian Peanut Stew is to die for.

gannett · 13/12/2020 12:19

Meera Sodha is the best vegan food writer around by a mile IMO.

Not even a vegan but every recipe I've done by her has been knockout. Interesting, inventive, delicious. She's got a ton of stuff on the Guardian to get you started.

(Also totally agree that trying to replicate meat/fish/dairy makes for awful vegan food!)

jess3817 · 13/12/2020 12:21

@HDready I came on to say the same 🙂

Mebeline · 13/12/2020 12:27

Anna ford
Meera sodha

Also Thomasina miers does some absolutely knock out salads, lots were in the guardian over lockdown, stunning

underneaththeash · 13/12/2020 12:34

We have meat-free once or twice a week now.

I've mainly used recipes from here

www.bbc.co.uk/food/diets/vegetarian

Porcupineinwaiting · 13/12/2020 12:40

Try "Vegan Street Food" by Jackie Kearney. Veganism was a closed and buried book to me til I discovered this.

Bittercup · 13/12/2020 12:41

Another recommendation for the Green Roasting Tin from me Smile

LonnyVonnyWilsonFrickett · 13/12/2020 12:44

Green Roasting Tin and Plenty - which is an Ottolenghi book.

AnnaMagnani · 13/12/2020 12:48

Oooh, yes Meera Sodha is great.

I love Ottolenghi's recipes on line in the Guardian but I've afraid Plenty went to the charity shop. I never got on with it.

The Roasting Tin is a godsend for midweek. Even DH, who can't cook at all, can manage the Roasting Tin.

Aroaringfire · 13/12/2020 12:48

Ooh thanks all I've had a Google and some of these look great!
Meera Sodha's recipes look amazing (happy to do more ingredients if it's stock cupboard/spices which a lot of hers seems to be). Green roasting tin looks lovely too!

OP posts:
Aroaringfire · 13/12/2020 12:49

Also now I really want a peanut stew!

OP posts:
Stuffofawesome · 13/12/2020 12:54

My go to ones are Anna Jones
deliciously Ella.
HFW veg
Vegan japaneasy
Green roasting tin
One pot vegan by so vegan

purplegirl13 · 13/12/2020 12:56

Green roasting tin gets my vote

TheQueensGambit · 13/12/2020 12:58

I have Meera Sodha's East and The Green Roasting Tin. They are both good.

I also like Aine Carlin's Keep it Vegan. Some meals do resemble meat dishes, but not all of them.

I don't rate (but lots of people do), Thug Kitchen...am I remembering the name right? The sweary one. It isn't the swearing I object to, I just don't like the recipes.

EmilySpinach · 13/12/2020 13:00

Meera Sodha, Fresh India, plus the archive of her vegan column in the Guardian online
Rukmini Iyer, The Green Roasting Tin
Alice Hart, The New Vegetarian
Nigel Slater, Greenfeast
Anna Jones, especially The Modern Cook’s Year

BonnieDundee · 13/12/2020 13:01

Another vote for HFW Veg book. His second veg book Much More Veg is also quite good and completely vegan

WooYa · 13/12/2020 13:02

The Hairy Bikers have just brought put a veggie cook book - its great!

WooYa · 13/12/2020 13:02

*out

Celtic1hair · 13/12/2020 13:03

The original cranks cookbook, honestly every recipie is gorgeous and always super easy. Can be picked up for a few pounds online, worth every penny

CoffeeCheeseandCupcakes · 13/12/2020 13:03

Literally just pulled out my old veggie cookbooks for the same reason.

Straight from the Earth is my favourite so far

EmilySpinach · 13/12/2020 13:04

A specific recipe rather than a book but the root vegetable toad in the hole in this Ottolenghi article is absolutely superb.