I like food. I like making it, I like the history attached to it, I like serving it to friends. Some corners of EA have an odd attachment to thinking of food purely as fuel, and I think this is bad for vibes but a little bit bad in general as many people like food and if you make delicious vegetarian food your example might be more persuasive to them than if you drink a rebranded SlimFast for dinner, not that there’s anything wrong with that.
So for the sake of other EAs that like food: What are your favourite cookbooks or recipes? For fairly obvious reasons, I’m most interested in vegan, vegetarian, or low-meat recipes.
I’ll go first: I think the best way to get tasty no or low-meat food is to find books or recipes from food cultures that have a deep tradition of such food. My biggest wins have been mining recipes from Chinese (Fuchsia Dunlop writes good recipe books here), Indian, or Jewish (“dairy” recipes) cuisine. I also like the Ottolenghi books.
I must offer my strongest possible recommendation for Speedy BOSH! - it has genuinely changed my relationship with food. None of the recipes I have tried are bad, some are fairly average but many are truly glorious. Obviously, as an EA I have been keeping notes on each dish I try from it in Google Doc and I’d be happy to suggest my favourites to anyone who buys/has the book.
+1 to this! I also recommend the plain old BOSH! book—in my experience, these aren’t much slower than the Speedy BOSH! recipes, either.
Agree! The recipes I’ve made from them have been consistently very good.
My favourite cookbook right now is The Korean Vegan. Magical, delicious flavour combinations. The bulgogi blew my mind. The cookbook also sets you up to have a fridge full of sauces and banchan to dress up any weekday rice + protein combination into a delicious meal.
This West-African-inspired peanut soup from Cookie and Kate is what I pull out whenever I want to make something impressively delicious, but also fast and low-effort.
I found I Can Cook Vegan by Isa Chanda Moskovitz to be somewhat hit and miss, but the hits (buffalo cauliflower salad, sloppy shiitakes, chickpea tuna melt, maple-mustard brussel sprouts) were really solid. I recommend this over her earlier cookbooks; she has really reined in her desire to have 30-ingredient recipes that take over an hour to prepare.
The Moosewood Cookbook is a classic for a reason, but you gotta get a version released either before or after the 1990s low-fat fad. We like oil and salt! We like calories! Put the fat in!!
Not a book but a website (only some recipes are veg*n or low meat): https://www.seriouseats.com/
I got a lot out of Vegetarian Chinese Soul Food.
I recently made this Lentil Dahl and this Matar Paneer and both went pretty well!
My hot take: Asian food (esp. Chinese and Indian) is in a different, higher league to all other cuisines.
Not a book but @Kirsten has some good simple recipes in this post
I like this one and the use of the word “thrice”:
First up, “Plenty” by Yotam Ottolenghi. This book is a game-changer for veggie and low-meat options. His recipes are packed with flavor and creativity – seriously, you won’t miss the meat.
Then there’s “Thug Kitchen” – these folks keep it real with their vegan eats and no-nonsense approach. It’s all about good food that’s easy to make and even easier to enjoy.
And hey, speaking of recipes, I recently stumbled upon the pico de gallo recipe. It’s a simple mix of fresh ingredients that adds a burst of flavor to any dish. Trust me, once you try it, you’ll wonder how you ever lived without it.
I love cooking vegan or veganized cuisines from other cultures!
Chez Jorge makes vegan Taiwanese food, and everything I’ve tried from him is a banger: https://instagram.com/chez.jorge?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=
One of my favorite soup/stew bases is coconut milk, tomato paste, peanut butter. I believe this is a West African flavor combo. You can google West African peanut soup if you want a recipe (not all have coconut milk but I strongly recommend).
Made with Lau is not a vegan channel but they have a lot of vegan recipes and many are easily veganizable (they will even often state how to veganize). Its a a channel where a child documents his fathers Cantonese Chinese recipes (who also worked in an American Chinese restaurant). https://youtu.be/lWJpa0MRHAs
I have never made better Thai food than the Thai food I make following Pailin’s Kitchen. She’s not vegan but has many veganizable recipes. Just amazing. The stuff tastes like it came from a Thai restaurant. https://youtu.be/miLLiyXd1Bc
My favorite cuisine to make is probably Korean. I don’t have any specific people I follow, but I flipped through the Korean Vegan Cookbook by Joanne Lee Molinaro and it seems very good. My preferred dish is tteokbokki but I haven’t found a good solo recipe for it and will usually combine a few.