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You Won't Believe It's Vegan!: 200 Recipes for Simple and Delicious Animal-Free Cuisine
Gourmet chefs Sher and Doherty, former owners of the highly successful restaurant Down to Earth, offer a collection of innovative yet simple restaurant-quality recipes, for every day and special occasions, all toxin- and animal-free. From basic dishes to world-class entrees and hors d'oeuvres, You Won't Believe It's Vegan! serves up over 200 delicious recipes that just happen to be animal-free. With sections devoted to appetizers, entrees, sides, drinks, Down to Earth's famous desserts, fun food for kids, and raw food alternatives, this book contains all the ingredients for an eco-friendly feast. You Won't Believe It's Vegan! offers comprehensive information for any animal-free kitchen, equipment essentials; key cooking techniques; the vital items for an organic pantry; and conversion ideas to help make any recipe whole food and vegan.
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2008
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72 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
August 2, 2012
Lacey Sher is the chef at Encuentro, one of my favorite local restaurants and everything, from the small plates to the entrees to the desserts, always make me happy. They recently featured some amazing potato chorizo taquitos rolled in a thin almost phyllo-like crepe with cilantro dipping sauce. So I was super excited to start cooking from her book because I hoped she would impart some of her secrets.
Cook the blue corn hempeh. The tempeh was nicely flavored, had good texture, crispy crust, and drizzled with a delicious mustard sauce. When accompanied by the tomato pudding, sautéed greens, and mashed potatoes, the result is a meal fit for Thanksgiving in July. The savory, sweet, bitter, earthy combo will knock your socks off. The gado-gado was an enjoyable big salad but it’s much better if you toss the greens with dressing before assembling the salad. Vanilla banana cake was very nice but the coconut frosting, while tasty, never thickened and tasted slightly like tofu. That kind of vegan cooking isn’t really welcome here. Samosas had a very good filling and tamarind sauce. The tortilla outer layer made the recipe easier to make by skipping the step of making the pastry but it did still taste like a crispy tortilla around samosa filling.
The dressings, sauces, and batters that accompany the dishes are almost laughably disproportionate to the food, so much so that sps and I had to reduce them by ¼ or more in proportion to the main dish. And the sugar content for some dishes is insane. For example, the tomato pudding recipe calls for a 28oz can of tomatoes, 2 cups of bread cubes, half a cup of molasses, and half a cup of sugar! That’s ridiculous. I left out the sugar and added 2 more cups of bread cubes. It was terrific that way. A lot of recipes had funky proportions like that and an experienced cook should be able to adjust ratios to their liking but I can imagine a new cook making some of these recipes and thinking they’re really gross or thinking what the hell am I going to do with 3 extra cups of gado-gado dressing or 2 cups of crushed tortilla crumbs? The writers could have done a more thorough job of having home cooks test the recipes and all the extra sauce they have you make could have been remedied by some simple math. It just seemed a little lazy of them not to do it for you. Heck, if you're writing another book I'll test out recipes for you, Lacey!
Many recipes are complicated or require extra steps like making a sauce, garnish, marinade, etc. so don’t cook from this if you’ve come home late from work but it is good weekend meal food (or if you’re lucky enough to have a stay-at-home wifey). Try the recipes but use common sense, try adding less sugar or taste before you add the full amount, and be aware of ratios. Eat at Encuentro.
Cook the blue corn hempeh. The tempeh was nicely flavored, had good texture, crispy crust, and drizzled with a delicious mustard sauce. When accompanied by the tomato pudding, sautéed greens, and mashed potatoes, the result is a meal fit for Thanksgiving in July. The savory, sweet, bitter, earthy combo will knock your socks off. The gado-gado was an enjoyable big salad but it’s much better if you toss the greens with dressing before assembling the salad. Vanilla banana cake was very nice but the coconut frosting, while tasty, never thickened and tasted slightly like tofu. That kind of vegan cooking isn’t really welcome here. Samosas had a very good filling and tamarind sauce. The tortilla outer layer made the recipe easier to make by skipping the step of making the pastry but it did still taste like a crispy tortilla around samosa filling.
The dressings, sauces, and batters that accompany the dishes are almost laughably disproportionate to the food, so much so that sps and I had to reduce them by ¼ or more in proportion to the main dish. And the sugar content for some dishes is insane. For example, the tomato pudding recipe calls for a 28oz can of tomatoes, 2 cups of bread cubes, half a cup of molasses, and half a cup of sugar! That’s ridiculous. I left out the sugar and added 2 more cups of bread cubes. It was terrific that way. A lot of recipes had funky proportions like that and an experienced cook should be able to adjust ratios to their liking but I can imagine a new cook making some of these recipes and thinking they’re really gross or thinking what the hell am I going to do with 3 extra cups of gado-gado dressing or 2 cups of crushed tortilla crumbs? The writers could have done a more thorough job of having home cooks test the recipes and all the extra sauce they have you make could have been remedied by some simple math. It just seemed a little lazy of them not to do it for you. Heck, if you're writing another book I'll test out recipes for you, Lacey!
Many recipes are complicated or require extra steps like making a sauce, garnish, marinade, etc. so don’t cook from this if you’ve come home late from work but it is good weekend meal food (or if you’re lucky enough to have a stay-at-home wifey). Try the recipes but use common sense, try adding less sugar or taste before you add the full amount, and be aware of ratios. Eat at Encuentro.
August 2, 2012
Great textures and flavors, sometimes too much sugar, but whoa, the translation from restaurant to home kitchen did not entirely work. Only for experienced cooks who can modify (ingredients, seasoning, quantities) where common sense dictates.
-Baked samosas: the filling was too sweet but overall a tasty dish. Reduced the (ridiculous) quantity of tamarind sauce down to something more reasonable.
-Blue corn hempeh: with a name like that, yes, we do believe it's vegan. The marinating tempeh smelled hella good and the finished dish was tasty and fancy. Definitely needed to cut down the quantity of mustard sauce. The chef de cuisine reduced the sugar in the tomato pudding recipe and it came out delightfully; we wouldn't have wanted it sweeter. Actually we made it twice, once with the tomato pudding plus garlic mashed potatoes and sauteed greens, and had a savory feast.
-Gado-gado: our tofu never puffed but this made attractively colorful big plates of salad-for-dinner. We had better results when we were generous with the dressing rather than the mere light drizzle the recipe suggests.
-Vanilla cake (banana variation) plus coconut frosting was not the sublime banana-coconut cake available at Encuentro, alas. However the cake was delicious, moist, and smelled like pure aromatic heaven while baking. This was probably accomplished by the full 1/4 cup of vanilla it calls for, so only make this cake when you're feeling rich. Or when friends have just moved away and given you their bottle of Berkeley Bowl vanilla.
-The coconut frosting recipe we had to halve. Also it was too thin for its first three days in the fridge and kind of, a little bit, if I'm totally honest, tasted ever so slightly like the tofu that was in it. Still good, but not something I'd make for company. The chef de cuisine and I were happy to pour it in custardy puddles over the cake, though.
antes de leer:
Lacey Sher is one of the chefs of Encuentro in Oakland. Her cakes are so good, people who don't like sweets still want to eat them. Let us hope I can replicate the results by following her recipes.
-Baked samosas: the filling was too sweet but overall a tasty dish. Reduced the (ridiculous) quantity of tamarind sauce down to something more reasonable.
-Blue corn hempeh: with a name like that, yes, we do believe it's vegan. The marinating tempeh smelled hella good and the finished dish was tasty and fancy. Definitely needed to cut down the quantity of mustard sauce. The chef de cuisine reduced the sugar in the tomato pudding recipe and it came out delightfully; we wouldn't have wanted it sweeter. Actually we made it twice, once with the tomato pudding plus garlic mashed potatoes and sauteed greens, and had a savory feast.
-Gado-gado: our tofu never puffed but this made attractively colorful big plates of salad-for-dinner. We had better results when we were generous with the dressing rather than the mere light drizzle the recipe suggests.
-Vanilla cake (banana variation) plus coconut frosting was not the sublime banana-coconut cake available at Encuentro, alas. However the cake was delicious, moist, and smelled like pure aromatic heaven while baking. This was probably accomplished by the full 1/4 cup of vanilla it calls for, so only make this cake when you're feeling rich. Or when friends have just moved away and given you their bottle of Berkeley Bowl vanilla.
-The coconut frosting recipe we had to halve. Also it was too thin for its first three days in the fridge and kind of, a little bit, if I'm totally honest, tasted ever so slightly like the tofu that was in it. Still good, but not something I'd make for company. The chef de cuisine and I were happy to pour it in custardy puddles over the cake, though.
antes de leer:
Lacey Sher is one of the chefs of Encuentro in Oakland. Her cakes are so good, people who don't like sweets still want to eat them. Let us hope I can replicate the results by following her recipes.
October 28, 2019
I've had this book for several years, and have made everything from pancakes, to seaweed dishes (pre the plethora of seaweed cookbooks), to crackers, cake and some of the live food recipes. The highest praise I can give a cookbook is that it is reliable, and this one is. The recipes don't disappoint. Most are short, use common ingredients and have clear instructions. I like that too! I enjoyed "reading" this cookbook before cooking from it, as you get a sense of the authors/cooks. I use this book. As a vegan, this book is filled with food I want to cook and eat. And true to the title, non-vegans will enjoy it too...and have a hard time believing it's vegan.
February 20, 2012
I got this book for a great price and the Border's close out sales and finally got a chance to read through it. There are some tasty sounding recipes, nothing seems to difficult and it has given me some new ideas for some vegan dinners and different ways to use up the packs of tofu in my fridge. ;-) I made the Potato-Leek Soup with Lemon & Dill this weekend with a few adjustments and loved the flavor and how quick and easy it was to make. Here's a link to the post with that recipe: http://kahakaikitchen.blogspot.com/20...
October 25, 2008
How do you rate a cookbook? I might like the overall idea of a book or drool over its exotic dishes, but is that really the point of a cook book? Isn't the true value determined by how many recipes you plan on actually making?
If so I gave this book 3 stars because I found only a few recipes I would use. However please take note, I am NOT a vegan just a vegetarian trying to make more vegan meals.
If so I gave this book 3 stars because I found only a few recipes I would use. However please take note, I am NOT a vegan just a vegetarian trying to make more vegan meals.
April 10, 2009
A few recipes I'd like to try. Recipes seem to use many ingredients, as well as ingredients most new vegans may not be familiar with using. Otherwise, it seems like a good vegan cookbook - recipes sound very tasty!
February 14, 2011
Most of the recipes are too complicated and a lot of them use tvp. I prefer basic whole food recipes with ingredients I can find in most major grocery stores. I only put a couple recipes in my box to try.
July 30, 2008
Vegan cookbooks always have tons and tons of steps. Some of the recipes look yummy, but I probably won't try any.
January 30, 2010
A decent vegan cookbook but it relies a little too much on overly processed protein sources - tofu, setian & tempeh.
April 21, 2014
Best tofu recipes I've ever found.
October 13, 2010
Cool. Lots of good info. and some pretty neat recipes.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews