Best Cookbook-Improve Culinary Skills?

[edde]

What Vegan Recipe Cookbook Really Transformed Your Culinary Skills?

Mine is Vegan for Everybody: Foolproof Plant-Based Recipes for Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, and In-Between. Next in line is the Fork Over Knives Cookbook that brags of OVER 300 PLANT-BASED RECIPES.

 

[Lou]

I love books. Maybe too much.

After college, I got so tired of moving books I pretty much stopped buying them*. I became a super user of the library. But the exception was cookbooks. In my home, I have many books shelves and some even have books on them. But all my cookbooks stayed on a shelf in the kitchen

A lot of those cookbooks got given away during my transition to veganism. And I resisted the temptation to buy vegan cookbooks. I did take some out of the library. cookbooks in e-book form are readily available and for the most part free. And don't take up valuable shelf space. Also, it seems with every new device I buy they give you an ebook of recipes. ( I also keep the manuals and other stuff they give you with new devices on the cookbook shelf). many of my favorite youtube chefs have given away ebooks.

But even the e-books have fallen by the wayside. Now if I want to know something, my first stop is Google. For instance, just recently someone suggested I blanch carrots before freezing them. I didn't know exactly how to do this - so I googled it. If you want to know the best way to stir fry, just google it. You'll probably even get a video.

The days of me keeping recipes on 3x5s, xerox copies from books or printed e-mails I got from friends, family and co-workers are pretty much over. There might be something to be said for flipping thru a cookbook looking for something special. But with tools like CopyMeThat and Pinterest you don't really need to do that anymore either.


*Helpful hint. the best way to move books is by tying them up with twine. Boxes or books are too heavy and also they rarely fit together well.

 

[silva]

What Vegan Recipe Cookbook Really Transformed Your Culinary Skills?

Mine is Vegan for Everybody: Foolproof Plant-Based Recipes for Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, and In-Between. Next in line is the Fork Over Knives Cookbook that brags of OVER 300 PLANT-BASED RECIPES.

That is a good one-Americas Test Kitchen-Vegan for Everybody. Americas Test Kitchen is a favorite PBS show of mine and even if not a vegan them they certainly have great tips and tricks

I remember getting a book years back I swear was Julia Child how to prepare vegetables, or something like that, I can't find it by looking at her bibligraphy! It was all about selecting, washing, cutting cooking --everything you could want to know about veggies.
I do agree looking online is probably the most practical way of learning.
What can't you find on youtube? Well, once you learn to spot the crap quickly--and there is so much crap!

 

[LoreD]

Actually, I have used quite a few recipes from meat based cookbooks. These days it is pretty easy to convert a meat based recipe to a vegan recipe. Chicken coconut curry becomes chickpea coconut curry, meat bolognese becomes lentil bolognese, meat shepherd's pie becomes Beyond shepherd's pie.

I love soups. There isn't a soup out there that I can't convert from a meat based recipe to vegan.

I think one of the things holding people back from becoming vegans is the belief that you have to completely change the way you eat.

I can take most of the recipes from an animal based cookbook and make them vegan.