The 30-Minute Vegan - Mark Reinfeld [4]
Create the Space
We encourage you to create an inspiring ambience when you prepare your meals. Listening to your favorite music and bringing flowers or other objects of beauty into the kitchen will help spark your culinary creativity. We sincerely hope that 30-Minute Vegan motivates you to prepare more of your own vegan food and to share a meal with loved ones. Celebrate the flavors and the ease of these recipes. Have fun and enjoy the process!
To Life!
Mark and Jennifer
CHAPTER 1
Getting Started
Before you dive into the recipes, let’s go over some essentials. This chapter highlights our favorite ingredients to help you set up a rocking vegan pantry. We also go over some of the kitchen gear that will help you along your way. Finally, we have a list of tips and tricks for kitchen efficiency and tastiness. Consult this list frequently!
As you go through the recipes, you will be learning many of the basic techniques involved in natural food preparation. These techniques are detailed in chapter 2.
Shopping
Try shopping on your least busy day and make an adventure of it. If you become familiar with your local farmers’ market and health food store, you’ll find shopping is an enjoyable adventure. Spend lots of time in the produce aisle and sample different fruits and vegetables as they become available seasonally. Educate yourself by reading labels. If you are having trouble pronouncing ingredients, it could be that artificial ones lurk within the package.
When shopping for produce, look for vibrant colors with a bit of firmness. When shopping for nuts, seeds, grains, and beans, purchase only what you’re going to consume within a few weeks. Nuts and seeds should have a crunch to them.
We always recommend enjoying foods as soon after preparing them as possible. Some dishes actually do taste better the next day, once the flavors have had a chance to deepen. The recipes in this book generally keep for at least two or three days if stored properly, and certain items such as dressings keep for up to a week or longer.
The Vegan Pantry . . . Ingredients Galore!
So many awesome flavors await you! You don’t need to go out and purchase all of these ingredients at once. Build your pantry over time. The more variety of foods you have access to, the more motivated you will be to try new dishes. All of these ingredients are available at health food stores. Many large supermarkets now have a “natural food” section (makes you wonder what kind of food is in the rest of the store) or integrate natural foods throughout the store. You can also check out appendix B for Web sites where you can place special orders online.
Remember to go for local and organic ingredients whenever possible. Visit ethnic markets to experience the diversity of culinary traditions. See the glossary for more information on many of these ingredients.
Consider stocking up on some of these essentials:
Fruits: Fresh fruits are the ideal snack. You will appreciate having many types on hand, including lemons and limes, which are excellent on salads and with drinking water. Dried fruits are also fabulous for quick snacks and natural sweeteners. Sample some of the many dates available, such as Medjool, Deglet Noor, or Barhi. We like to keep dates soaking in water in the refrigerator, for use in smoothies and desserts. We also love figs (black mission, Turkish, Calimyrna), raisins, apricots, and cranberries. Store dry fruits in an airtight glass container in a cool, dry place, or in the refrigerator.
You may also wish to have some store-bought organic lemon or lime juice on hand, especially when making larger batches of dishes that call for the juice. The Santa Cruz Organic juice company puts out a good