Vicki's Vegan Kitchen: Eating with Sanity, Compassion, and Taste - Softcover

Chelf, Vicki

Softcover

ISBN 10: 075700251X ISBN 13: 9780757002519

Publisher: Square One, 2009

Synopsis

Vegan dishes are healthy, delicious, and surprisingly easy to make. Yet many people are daunted by the idea of preparing meals that contain no animal products. For them, and for everyone who loves great food, vegetarian chef Vicki Chelf presents Vicki’s Vegan Kitchen, a comprehensive cookbook designed to take the mystery out of meatless meals.

The book begins by offering tips for making nutritious food choices, as well as an extensive glossary of ingredients. Vicki then discusses the simple kitchen equipment you need to have on hand and explains basic cooking techniques. Following this are twelve chapters packed with over 350 recipes for delicious dips, scrumptious soups, pleasing pastas, decadent desserts, and much, much more. Whether you’re interested in compassionate cooking, you value the benefits of a meat-free diet, or you just want to treat your family to a wonderful meal, Vicki’s Vegan Kitchen will bring delectable vegan fare to your kitchen table.

About this title

About the Author

Vicki Chelf is an experienced natural foods cooking instructor, an accomplished artist, and an internationally recognized food writer. She has also served as head chef at a top natural foods restaurant. Ms. Chelf has written six cookbooks, including The Arrowhead Mills Cookbook and Cooking for Life.

From the Back Cover

"It is very gratifying to see a cookbook that follows the principles outlined in The China Study in a way that is both nutritionally sound and delicious. Vicki's Vegan Kitchen is perfect for anyone who is interested in moving towards a diet for optimal health and longevity." ―Dr. T. Colin Campbell (Professor Emeritus of Nutrition, Cornell University, and best-selling author of The China Study

-- Dr. T. Colin Campbell ― Vicki's Vegan Kitchen

Reviews

Veteran cookbook author Chelf (Cooking with the Right Side of the Brain) expands the vegan culinary universe in this collection of 375 meat-, egg- and dairy-free dishes for those with dietary restrictions. Yes, there are smoothies, Tabouli, and Hummus, but Chelf helps readers expand their diets with vegan versions of pizza, lasagna, and even Cheez Whiz in this accessible and imaginative guide. Chelf's creative concoctions enable vegans to enjoy French Toast, béchamel sauce, pie, and a mock beef stew that finds its umami in seitan, tahini, and liquid aminos. A guide to vegan-friendly sources for key ingredients, and foods to avoid or seek out ensures larders will be stocked with healthy staples. Helpful step-by-step instructions for baking bread and making noodles, and tips on sprucing up soups and smoothies inspire confidence and enable cooks to expand their culinary repertoire. Though special ingredients are often required for many of her dishes, Chelf does an admirable job of keeping things as simple as possible. This is a terrific guide for vegans tired of settling for a salad. Photos. (Oct.) (c)
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Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Welcome to my kitchen! Come on in and sit down. There’s always room for anyone who wants to experience the joys and pleasures of vegan cooking. Don’t laugh. I know that vegan foods may not have the reputation of being fine cuisine, but once you taste dishes made with fresh local ingredients that are properly prepared, you are going to find them surprisingly delicious . . . and the healthiest that this planet has to offer.

Over the years, notable names in the medical field like Drs. Neal Barnard from The Physician’s Committee for Responsible Medicine, and Dean Ornish with his famous heart-disease reversal study, have repeatedly illustrated the health benefits of a plant-based diet. Now, these advantages are even more apparent. The dramatic results of the comprehensive twenty-year China Study--headed by health and nutrition researcher Dr. T. Colin Campbell in partnership with Cornell University, Oxford University, and the Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine--showed an undeniable connection between what we eat and our health. The study, which involved thousands of adults from mostly rural areas of China, found that the subjects who ate the most animal foods developed the most chronic illnesses. Those who ate the most plant-based foods were the “healthiest and tended to avoid chronic disease.”

The conclusion of the China Study, which has been considered the “most comprehensive large study ever undertaken on the relationship between the food we eat and the risk of developing disease,” is obvious. Avoiding meat and dairy products and eating a whole foods plant-based diet can help prevent many serious health conditions, including heart disease, cancer, type II diabetes, and autoimmune diseases.

As you are about to discover, Vicki’s Vegan Kitchen is the perfect cookbook to support this healthy dietary lifestyle. You will learn not only how to prepare divinely delicious plant-based foods, but also how to do so without spending hours in the kitchen. Taking the time to learn the basics of this diet will enable you to make healthy vegan cooking an integral and fulfilling part of your life.

To start you off on the right foot, the book begins with an overview of the vegan diet, including its nutritional benefits and impact on weight control. Consider the next few chapters a primer--a place to turn to when you have a question regarding ingredients, cooking techniques, and food preparation methods. Extensive glossaries that cover each of these subjects put all the information you need at your fingertips. Setting up a vegan kitchen has never been easier.

What follows next are fourteen chapters filled with over five hundred of my favorite recipes and recipe variations. As a follower of the vegan diet and a teacher of vegan cooking for over three decades, I have accumulated a great many recipes for delicious foods and beverages in my cooking arsenal . . . and it is my great pleasure to share them (along with lots of guidelines, tips, and suggestions) with you.

For breakfast, you’ll find a collection of delectable choices to start your day, from pancakes and waffles to hot cereals and scrambles. Along with sensational smoothies and juice drinks, the beverage chapter includes recipes for making your own nondairy milks, including oat, almond, coconut, cashew, and rice milks. You’ll also learn how to make heavenly breads and muffins, perfect pie crusts, and incredible homemade pasta (you won’t believe how easy it is). There is an assortment of spreads and dips that range from gourmet to everyday, and a collection of sensational soups that can serve as elegant beginnings to a dinner party or comforting quick meals in themselves.

Nothing is healthier than a delicious fresh salad, and I share many of my all-time favorites with you. Chapters devoted entirely to beans and grains--staples of a healthy diet--offer palate-pleasing dishes that are a joy to eat and a pleasure to share with even your most discriminating dinner guests. Typically, delicious desserts have the reputation of being dietary “no-no’s,” but mine aren’t. I will show you how to create absolutely delectable pies, cakes, cookies, and other baked goods, as well as crumbles, crisps, and refreshing sorbets that are made without refined sugars, flours, or unhealthy fats. They are nutritionally superior to any that you can buy . . . and just as delicious.

To help ensure successful results, step-by-step reader-friendly directions accompany every recipe, as well as instructional drawings for the more complex preparation methods. No matter what you decide to make, every dish is a winner--easy to make, completely vegan, and utterly delicious.

Thanks for stepping into my kitchen. Please stay awhile, look around, try the recipes, and ultimately enjoy the radiant health that comes from good food.

Edition details

• Publisher: Square One
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 075700251X
• ISBN 13: 9780757002519
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 320