Veganomicon_ The Ultimate Vegan Cookbook - Isa Chandra Moskowitz [3]
Many of the recipes were written for everyday meals, in hopes that you won’t even need to look at the recipe again after making it a few times. You know, the kind of chow you can whip up any night of the week with your pantry staples and some seasonal produce. But you can also trust this cookbook when you’re looking for an extravagant spread to impress, say, your in-laws, or the mayor of your town when she stops by.
Besides just giving you recipes, we’ve included lots of basic cooking information. Maybe you already know how to roast pumpkin, soak beans, and toast millet. In that case—awesome! (Then you can just be like, “Shut up, Isa and Terry!” and move on to an adventurous casserole.) But we also wrote this book with the beginner cook in mind, or maybe just the forgetful cook who can’t be bothered to memorize grain-to-water cooking ratios or the baking time for sweet potatoes. So we’ve included simple preparation guides for beans, grains, and veggies (see pages 24-44).
RECIPES WE WISH WE GREW UP WITH
“How do you come up with a recipe?” is a question we get time to time. (Why nobody believes us when we mutter things about sacrificing beets under the full moon, we’ll never guess.) Instead, be content in knowing that we are tireless and slightly obsessed foodies. There‘s not a vegetable we don’t adore (except a certain so-called baby corn), nor a spice that doesn’t take up precious real estate in our spice racks.
It also helps that we call the greatest city in the world our home. New York City is a supermarket of almost every flavor of ethnic cuisine. We can’t help but be inspired by it. It’s what we’re thinking about when munching on crispy yet soft scallion pancakes or tucking into a saucy eggplant rollatini, when digging into a sub sandwich bursting with tangy barbecued seitan or scooping up that last bit of hummus with freshly baked pita bread. We get flashes of inspiration after finally putting down that huge canvas bag on the kitchen floor; the one filled with gorgeous Brussels sprouts still on the stalk, creamy yellow ears of corn, or voluptuous butternut squash from the farmers’ market, all grown within a few dozen miles of the city and lugged home for a few more on the subway.
It may sound a little New Age, but we spend so much time thinking about food that ideas for recipes often strike when we’re nowhere near a kitchen . . . walking down the street or running after a bus. Hang with us for any length of time and it will probably happen to you, too (if it doesn’t already).
During the course of developing recipes, we kept coming back to this phrase: Recipes you wish you’d grown up with. These aren‘t necessarily restaurant masterpieces, although we bet lots of these dishes rival the $26 entrée at many vegan eateries. These meals were not born in spotless, stainless-steel, made-for-TV kitchens. The recipes that await you in Veganomicon were created by two women who cook, live, and eat in real, urban kitchens. Since we’re both apartment dwellers, these are lessons learned from waging wars with temperamental gas burners, moody ovens, and tiny little cabinets bursting with pots, gadgets, and groceries. This is food made while chatting with significant others, gossiping with friends, and shooing nosy pets off the countertops. In other words, this is kind of food you make and eat while life happens.
LET THEM EAT TEMPEH
We didn’t make this cookbook alone. Well, by definition, we wrote it together so already we weren’t alone. What we mean is, the results are a combination of many things: years of being out there in the field, talking to, meeting, and eating a bazillion meals with vegetarians and vegans of all stripes, taught us lots. It seemed that no matter how long it’s been since you’ve stopped eating hamburgers—be it eight months or eight years—the common question seemed to be, “What else is there for dinner/lunch/breakfast/midnight snack/Groundhog Day party?”, besides tofu hot dogs or pasta and jarred sauce?