Cookbook Challenge Week 33 & 34 - In Search of The Lost Taste & Alternative Vegan

The first book that I cooked from this week was In Search of The Lost Taste by Joshua Ploeg. I have had this book a few years but some of the recipes are quite unusual so I've only used it once, this week I made 3 recipes from it:

Tomato Boats Stuffed with Curried "Chiken"-This is the one recipe that I have made before and I chose to make it again because it really is good, the fake chicken is spicy but not too hot and full of flavour. The only thing that I didn't like was it being served in tomatoes, even after being dried out they still felt a bit soggy. I think this would be better in bell peppers or as a sandwich filling:

Peanut Breaded & Fried Marinated Tempeh - this was a delicious recipe, I usually just steam Tempeh and eat it as is or make fake bacon with it, but this dish was excellent. The Tempeh was spicy again without being too hot and it also had a slightly nutty flavour from the peanuts. I will certainly be making it again, I served it with:

Whole Fava Beans in Spicy Tomato Sauce - finally this was another great recipe, it was tasty & easy to make, full of flavour and very filling:

Overall I was really impressed with this book, it was a bit fly by the seat of your pants (the Tempeh recipe didn't specify amounts for the marinade just which ingredients to use) but I quite liked that as it leaves plenty of room for adapting recipes & using substitutes.

 

The second book that I have been using is Alternative Vegan by Dino Sarma. I first heard of the book a few years ago when I was a member of the Vegan Freaks forum where Dino was another member, this week I have used it to make 4 recipes:

Lentils & Chickpeas - this was an excellent recipe - nuts, chickpeas, lentils & spices all cooked together. It was just delicious and made a great filling for wraps:

Quick Garbanzo Soup - this was quite enjoyable, full of flavour but I found it a bit thin. Next time I am going to try blending some of the soup to make it thicker:

Rasam - this was my second favourite recipe - split peas in a spicy tamarind/lime sauce. When served over or mixed into rice it was a delicious and filling meal:

Banana Bread - this was my favourite recipe - banana bread with chopped nuts and peanut butter in it. It was divine and especially good warmed up and spread with coconut oil:

Overall I really liked this book, one of the best things about it was that non of the recipes contained soya/tofu/fake milks etc just healthy basic ingredients put to great use, although I do have a great liking for tofu etc its great that there are books out there that don't rely so heavily on them.