Post Punk Kitchen Forum

I'm interested in this one, but I just couldn't get into Vegan Italiano. I think I was mostly put-off by all the jarred pasta sauce in an Italian cookbook. Any recommendations?

I can't remember which of her books it is, but one of them has lots of recipes that calls for purchased bread dough, which is something I have never seen here.

I think the Mediterranean one is better than the just Italian one by a mile. The Tropical one is also amazing.

In MVK my favorites are: white beans with kale, braised cabbage with red beans and rice (this is amazing, perfect comfort food), and the braised cabbage with garlic (I always do this with purple cabbage and unless I'm serving it for company, I just shred the cabbage and bake in the broth/garlic rather than wedging and pre-steaming, much easier - you could even do it with a bag of pre-shredded cabbage from the store). There's also a great tomato soup with bread.

The caponata & salso romesco from MVK are also ace! I'm getting the Tropical one next.

I wasn't sure I'd like this cookbook, but it's increasingly a go-to. First, I really like the technique - simple but refined methods for preparing a very broad variety of vegetables. I often have a CSA subscription and need to use up vegetables, and this often as not has a good, simple preparation for what I need to use. She even has two recipes for braising with lettuce, which is GREAT when you're practically buried in the stuff at the beginning of CSA season. Secondly, the recipes have been reliably good. Finally, there's nutritional information on every recipe. I only wish there were more pictures.

Also, this blog seems to use recipes from this cookbook a lot (I imagine this blogger is on the PPK): http://theveganmouse.blogspot.com/ I actually purchased the cookbook because the dishes she posted looked so good. I wasn't disappointed!

I love this cookbook! We cooked for our own wedding and almost everything we made was from this book. It's very accessible, recipes are never overly complicated, the recipes are consistent, and it doesn't use tofu/tempeh/seitan so no omnis get weirded out.

Favorite recipes off the top of my head: Spanish sweet and sour pearl onions in tomato-raisin sauce (OMG! I put it on polenta rounds), Tunisian beet salad with harissa, Ligurian bread salad, minestrone, Persian multi-bean soup, Moroccan tagine, bulgur pilaf with dried fruits, linguine with asparagus and tomato coulis, enraged penne, asparagus in orange sauce (amazing), baked tomatoes, and all the fruit desserts are great!

I don't mind the font and formatting in this one, so much, but I hate it in Tropical Vegan Kitchen, so much so that it's hard for me to use despite liking the recipes.

I ordered this book online a couple of days ago and I'm super excited about it! I was raised on a Mediterranean diet as a child, so for me, this book is chock full of comfort food. So excited and planning on cooking my way through this book.

I don't know why I love it so much, but the Baked Cabbage with Garlic is delicious. I'm fine with cabbage, but this just elevates it to wonderful.
Also, my spouse is crazy about the Garlic Herb Pita Toasts. He requests them every time we have a party to go with hummus. They're time-consuming and the disappear almost immediately, but I only make them 2-3 times a year.
The basic herb vinaigrette is really nice. I always use different fresh herbs, and it's always yummy.

I love the Tomato Fennel Soup from MVK. I never know what to do with fennel bulbs when they show up in my CSA box, so I usually throw them into this soup.

The ratatouille and the tabbouleh recipes are amazing in this book. Love them.

For NoRooz I made the Persian Herb and Bean soup from this book. I made some tweaks to it, cause my father who makes it for me when he gets the chance always adds in additional spices and is heavier on the herbs then this recipe was. It was really good, not exactly like my father's (but that is hard to replicate) but it definitely fit the bill and cured my craving for this soup.