I hope everyone had a great weekend! Ours was low-key, but we did enjoy a date night in. This is where you pretend you are going on a date by making popcorn and watching a movie after the baby goes to bed. It feels like a date and you don’t have to pay for a babysitter! We had some delicious Sweet and Salty Movie Night Popcorn and watched Easy A (cute movie).
On to more important things than what we did with our weekend. One of the most frequent questions I am asked is, “What cookbooks do you use?” I’ve been working on a page for a while that highlights all of the cookbooks in my collection and gives a short review of each one. It’s almost ready, but in the meantime I thought I would give you a sneak peek into the five cookbooks on my shelf that have gotten the most mileage. Choosing which five to highlight for this post was difficult, but if I had to get rid of all other cookbooks and only keep five, these are the five I would hold on to.
You are probably glancing at the titles and noticing that three out of the five cookbooks are vegan cookbooks and four out of five are meatless. But I’m not a vegan or a vegetarian. So what gives? While I don’t carry the label of vegan or vegetarian and really don’t think I could ever (again) live under the scope of such a label, I do want the bulk of my diet to be made up of plants. Standard non-vegan or vegetarian cookbooks, in my experience, just put too much emphasis on animal foods. I can moderately add meat or dairy to my meals without them being the center of my plate. These cookbooks help me keep my meals with the emphasis where I think it belongs: on the plants.
Don’t be fooled into thinking you have to be a vegan or vegetarian to have meatless cookbooks in your collection. Seriously. My husband is one of the biggest meat-eaters out there (at least he was before he married me!) and he enjoys the plant-based recipes I prepare using the recipes in these cookbooks.
Here are my top five cookbooks, in alphabetical order. The pictures you see are of my own books, worn, used, and food-splattered.
1,000 Vegan Recipes by Robin Robertson
The title says it all. The best thing about this cookbook is the bulk! There are so many great recipes, from basic to unique. It’s one of those cookbooks that is falling apart because I’ve used it so much. This cookbook taught me how to make my own pizza dough, helped me get creative with soups, and showed me how to make a hearty vegan main course.
How to Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman
At 996 pages, this cookbook leaves no question unanswered when it comes to vegetarian cooking. Mark Bittman knows how to make simple food taste fabulous and thats what I love about this cookbook. Nearly every recipe has a basic recipe followed by a number of variations, which encourages me to explore new flavors.
Joy of Cooking: 75th Anniversary Edition
I received this cookbook as a gift at my wedding shower. “All Purpose” is an accurate description for this one as it has definitely been my go-to book for learning techniques. I have no culinary training; this book has been my make-shift-learn-to-cook school. When I have a question about how to do something in the kitchen, first I call my dad, and if he doesn’t answer, I open Joy of Cooking.
Veganomicon by Isa Chandra Moskowitz & Terry Hope Romero
Having beautiful pictures to accompany every recipe should be a requirement of cookbooks. This one has it. Every single recipe has a mouth-watering photo accompanying the step-by-step format of the recipes that makes it seem like Lauren is right there with me in the kitchen, teaching me her vegan-cooking-goddess ways. And this recipe is the only one on the list that has the prestigious award of having Tim like every single thing I’ve made from it. It’s my no-fail cookbook and I love it.
Be on the lookout for my new cookbook page which should be up and running this week and will include short reviews of the rest of my cookbook collection.
What about you? Do you have any cookbooks you can’t live without?
I wanted to let you know about another book. My friend just published a cookbook called “The Cleaner Plate Club: Raising Healthy Eaters One Meal At A Time”. I am going to get it and the reviews are great!
Awesome! Thank you. I’ll check it out.
I love the cookbook “Feeding The Whole Family”…it is full of delicious whole food recipes. I am not lying when I say that every recipe I’ve made from that cookbook is delicious! And easy. If I have a client who wants to learn to cook healthier food, I give her this book.
Thanks for the tip–I am going to have to check it out!
I am trying to eat more vegetarian food and I like what you have featured…..I also look a “liitle peek” at other people’s cookbooks!
I don’t have any of these, but, I’m so glad you did a post about this because I’ve been wanting to get a vegan cookbook. Although, we’re not vegan or even vegetarians I like to keep my focus on plant-based foods, also. My family is still easing into my new way of cooking, though. We’ve only gone from one meatless night a week to now 3 meatless nights a week. I’m trying to ease everyone into a slow transition to more plant-based meals. So far, we’re doing great and my hope is that eventually we’ll be eating more plant-based meals than meat-based meals. SInce my mom got diagnosed with breast cancer in April I’ve learned so much about what we should be filling our plates with and I’ve completely changed how I want to live my life. I’m a different person now then I was before my mom’s diagnosis. Thanks for the recommendations. I’m going to look into purchasing a couple of these, for sure.
Our stories are very similar. It was my mom’s cancer diagnosis that motivated me to make changes, too. I hope your mom is doing well!
I love hearing about what cookbooks other people use. I have quite a big collection too and am thinking I might have to add Vegan Yum Yum to it. A picture for every recipe? I’m sold!
You can’t go wrong with Vegan Yum Yum. Every single recipe I’ve made has been fantastic.