Cooking with Kindness

by Pam Ahern (Editor)

If we could eat healthy, nutritious and delicious food without harming others, why wouldn’t we?

More and more people are waking up to a better way of living, one that is kinder to animals and more in sync with the planet, gentler on the mind and better for our health. Here, 50 generous chefs from around Australia share their secret recipes for cruelty-free cooking, from breakfast bowls and pancakes to vegan ‘comfort food’, mains and decadent desserts.

Featuring Matcha Mylkbar, Vegie Bar, Smith & Daughters, Transformer, Soul Burger, Elixiba, Pana Chocolate, The Raw Kitchen and many more.

All royalties from the sale of Cooking with Kindness go to Edgar’s Mission, a not-for-profit sanctuary that provides a safe haven for over 450 rescued farmed animals.

Genres: Cookbooks, Vegan, Food

Paperback

First published October 31, 2017

Reviews

[Suresh · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book for the handful of stories interspersed of how people turned to kindness and express it daily by avoiding animal products in their food. Being a vedg-ann (as Pam, the founder of Edgar's Mission, pronounced vegan when she became one), this book inspired me on my animal rights journey by hearing how people changed their minds and hearts and started to live lives truer to their conscience.
Plus, the pictures looks yum.

[Xanthi · Rating 4 out of 5]

You can never have too many vegan cookbooks! This one is a little special, though. It is brought to us by Edgar's
Mission which is a large and wonderful animal sanctuary in Australia. I've been on a tour there and it was an amazing experience.
But onto the book ... It is a collection of recipes from various Australian vegan eateries, businesses, chefs, activists, etc. The recipes range from simple staples to more involved dishes for special occasions. Also included are short pieces about veganism from various prominent people in the Australian vegan community. Naturally there are lots of professional shot photographs of recipes, people and animals.
My one gripe about the book is the lack of quick reference symbols for gluten free, soy free etc, that many other cookbooks use. These can be very handy.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I borrowed Cooking with Kindness, over 70 recipes from Australia's best vegan chefs and restaurants from the library not because I am a vegan. I borrowed it because, since recent surgery, I have become, inexplicably, lactose intolerant. This digestive catastrophe may, I'm told, be temporary, or last for months or a year, or maybe forever. This last is too awful to contemplate because I love French cheeses, hot buttered crumpets, and creamy Paris mash.

So, in what I am determined is only the interim, I am experimenting with culinary denials of this tiresome problem. I have created a recipe for date muffins made with cashew nut butter (which are quite nice); made a Coles magazine 'cheesecake' made with decadent coconut cream (though the nut-based crust fell apart all over the dining-table); made my signature 'party plate' spanakopita with goats cheese and dill instead of feta and ricotta (and it disappeared off the plate immediately so that was a success) and substituted lactose-free milk instead of the real thing in home-made Greek yoghurt. (It tastes ok, but it doesn't have that distinctive tang without which making your own seems hardly worth the bother.) 'Paris' mash made with goats milk tastes like the mash my mother used to make (and that's not a compliment), but goats cheese on Ryvita is surprisingly good. (Meredith Dairy make delicious goats cheeses (plain, dill, and (to-die-for) dusted with ash, and I have just discovered Maggie's General Store in Tucker Rd Bentleigh where she had a version made with Australian native pepperberries, plus also some aged hard goats cheeses which I think hope are going to be ok.)

But I needed some recipes for entertaining that would be just as nice as the dips and nibbles we usually serve. So I borrowed Cooking with Kindness from the library. The recipes all come from vegan restaurants so they are commercially successful, not just worthy efforts by amateurs. I skipped all the well-meaning 'journey to veganism' introductions, and (also skipping the breakfast chapter because I'm still ok with eggs) went straight to recipes which looked appealing. In 'Snacks' I found a not-too-fatty recipe for hummus; a 'Creamy Chipotle Aioli' that will use limes from the garden; sweet potato chips (supposed to be served with tofu aioli, but I can't abide tofu so I won't be using that aioli); Curried vegetable samosas with a coconut yoghurt dipping sauce (coconut yoghurt? who knew, and can I make it myself?!); superfood bars with a million ingredients including cumin (but I shall leave out the quinoa flakes for sure); and 'Scrumptious raw cacao balls' made with dates.

There were also good ideas in the 'Lunch and Dinner' chapter, but (apart from the fact that I'm ok with fish and meat though I don't like red meat) I have a good collection of vegetarian cookbooks with Indian curries and Italian meals using legumes etc and most of them don't use dairy. Also, I cannot come at the idea of a vegan chowder made with soy milk. Noooo. I would rather just think nostalgically about creamy seafood chowders and do without. (Hopefully not forever.) But 'Pumpkin Coconut Soup' sounds interesting, and so does 'Lebanese Pearl Couscous, Pumpkin, Saffron and Figs; Eggplant Caponata will be useful at harvest time (if we have any leftover after I make ratatouille. I love ratatouille.)

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2019/12/08/c...