Post Punk Kitchen Forum

According to the cookbook, the name literally just means "pasta and beans."

I don't know if it's authentic, but I think you can make pasta e fagioli either soup-like or as a pasta entree sort of thing. When I make pasta e fagioli, it is definitely in the manner of an entree that is served on a plate and is quite filling. It might depend on personal preference.

Well, I've seen it with a tomato broth but I've always seen pasta e fagioli as a hearty soup. I have never, ever, ever, seen pasta e fagioli as pasta sauce with beans tossed in.

Respect the fazool.

I cook mine all in one pan because I'm lazy and can't be bothered to cook the pasta separately. Generally, I use fusilli, white kidney beans, tomatoes, veg broth, and Italian seasonings. The fusilli sucks up most of the broth and the result is a pasta dish with beans and tomatoes. It isn't really saucy and it isn't soupy either, sort of somewhere in the middle. It tastes rather light, but it's filling at the same time. As I mentioned above, it probably isn't authentic in the least, but that's the way I make it and it suits me fine.

Yeah, I've had starches soak up broth on more than one occasion. Somehow, I always plan on having extra broth but it does not always happen. So many distractions between the plan and the execution...

This is probably why I felt a little underwhelmed when I got the book and saw mostly simplistic recipes. That said, I have not made any of them yet, so I can't comment on whether or not they're good. Simple doesn't necessarily mean bad, so I think I'll save this cookbook for a week I need fast/easy meals and give a few of them a try.

Oh, and I do like having the nutritional information.

Yes, Vcon is one of my favourites. I'm not Vegan (vegetarian more than 30 years) and cook our daily meal with advanced techniques (or I'm very habituate) so I don't think her books are for me or they're too basic for me, perhaps.

This debate is going on and on...that I didn't expect ;-)

I don't know. I don't care how rudimentary your cooking skills, but pasta, beans, and jarred tomato sauce isn't even a recipe. It's "I'm way too hella drunk to drive to the store but still have the basic motor skills to work a can opener."

That's the only one I've seen that was that basic.

There's an album on her Facebook page of food porn from this book that Facebook fans and Twitter followers have posted...honestly, looking at those pictures is a big part of what made me buy the book and start cooking from the two I already had.

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set= ... 481&type=1

Same wave-length, I tried that out too because I was thinking of an easy dinner and could get everything at TJ.

The book is easy, it appeals to me because I often do not have tons of time for dinner, can get everything at the store down the street and it is not complicated. I am not one for complicated food!

Also I have never had Fanta. I was going to do red wine with Zevia orange soda - extra lo-cal and artificial!

I bought the first one out of curiosity and it has one or two things I liked in it but I won't buy any others because I don't want to support someone who promotes
nutritionally unsound diets to some very vulnerable people.

That is how I feel beyond the recipe copying thing. I have no problem with low-oil diets, Appetite for Reduction is a good book for that or even just reducing oil from regular recipes but I do have a problem with no-oil diets.

It's kind of annoying how threads on her book always seem to get side tracked by comments like this especially the recipe theft accusations......it's really getting old

You registered today and made one post and you're already annoyed with something that's done here. Man, sounds unpleasant.

I was registered and would post very frequently about a year ago and a stopped because people on this site can be so unwelcoming and judgmental at times but I still occasionally read the forums

In fairness, she said "threads on her book" generally. Not just this site. So maybe she is referring to accusations of theft that are made in other locations like Amazon.

ETA: Oh oops, just saw the response. Sawwee!

There are many good books out there, I see no reason to buy from an author where recipes are too similar for comfort to other recipes on a frequent basis. Also, the no-oil thing is something I don't agree with which means again, there are other great books out there.

Ha ha aw, that's kinda harsh as a blanket statement. Sure, it may not be an appropriate recipe for what this book is supposed to be, but there really are people out there who need this level of "recipe" to introduce them to the world of cooking. Gotta learn to walk before you can run!

^Absolutely. I was such a novice about cooking until I was about 20 or so that I could hardly even open cans with those metal supermarket can openers that you just gave up on trying to work the wheel mechanism and just punched the can the whole way round to get it open. And I needed basic recipes starting out with cooking because there was hardly any food around my house growing up to even learn to throw even the most basic things together.

I don't mind basic recipes, I think Robin Robertson does those pretty well. Nava Atlas has a couple (?) 5 ingredient cookbooks that are also good for people. I think the problem is making up a recipe and then naming it after a fairly famous recipe without being anything like the famous recipe. Sure if you want to have 'beany pasta', go right for it but calling it pasta e fagioli is a bit much.

I knew this would happen. I'm not keen on recipes that just use jarred stuff but I recognise there's a market for them, and I'd rather people did that that buy non vegan takeaway. But I don't think it's a side track to say that I don't like her books because I don't approve of her nutritionally unsound advice to vulnerable people.

I kind of can't believe that there is a full page recipe for beer and lemonade.

I could totally write a cookbook. Recipe #1 esme's Tofulish's Special Sauce.

Yeah, I always feel cheated if a cookbook has drink recipes. I can understand having 1 page in the appendix or something that lists 20 drinks on a single page but 1 drink per page? Or is it actually multiple drinks per page?

Guys and Girls, at the risk of being crasshole Moderator (tm), can we cool the recipe copying talk?

We have hashed this over before and it always brings negativity over. I am happy for talk about the merits or otherwise of the book but can we drop the other stuff?

I won't want to lock this.

Mat.

I kind of like the recipes in Urban Vegan. I guess the fit the vibe of the book, plus they don't exactly cut into the content.

No oil horrifies me, but testing for AFR (meaning I had to measure carefully) taught me how to not use so much oil. I used to be so careless about that.