Eating Vegan: A Plant-Based Cookbook for Beginners by Dianne Wenz is an awesome cookbook that provides the foundation for adjusting your diet or, if you’re like me, just want to add some fun new recipes to your list!
I don’t have any health concerns that would require me to go fully vegan, but I do really struggle with meat on occasion. I really only eat hamburger, steak, chicken, and turkey, but if I get a bad bite, I can’t eat meat for weeks!
On top of that, I’m an extremely picky eater and have some really odd allergies…
So when I saw this one, I was super interested to check it out to see what dishes I could add to the little book of recipes that Alex and I have been organizing since we moved in together.
Full disclosure: This book was provided to me by the publisher via Callisto Publisher’s Club in exchange for an honest review.
Let’s dive in!
My Thoughts on Eating Vegan: A Plant-Based Cookbook for Beginners by Dianne Wenz
I loved that the book begins with a lovely note from the author and then moves into a chapter titled “Vegan Eating 101” that covers reasons to go vegan, debunking myths about the vegan lifestyle, and what to expect in this cookbook.
Next up, was a chapter that explained vegan staples such as nutritional yeast and seitan. The chapter then went into some fundamentals that someone looking to adopt this lifestyle or learn more about plant based recipes will need to know, followed by meal prep support.
Next, we dove into the recipes! Each recipe had a little note to indicate if it is a 30 minute or less recipes, gluten free, leftover-friendly, nut free, or if you needed to plan ahead and prep certain elements! These notes are wonderful!
This book covered Breakfast, Salads Soups and Stews, Snacks and Sides, Handhelds, Main Course, and Desserts. There was also a section on homemade essentials if you wanted to make them on your own.
At the very end of the book, there was a wonderful selection of resources from books and documentaries to apps and websites!
Throughout the book, my favorite element was simply the little jabs of humor that the author included here and there!
With the recipes, I knew that they would be hit or miss for me like most cookbooks. In this case, a number of the recipes would need to be adjusted for me, or I’d have to just skip them if the tofu was the main element. I’m allergic to onions, I can’t do mushrooms or anything ginger or cinnamon, and tofu doesn’t work well with my digestive system… Those alone nixed quite a number of recipes for me, but there were still a few recipes in there that I bookmarked to try later!
These recipes that I marked included:
- Lemon Raspberry Overnight Chia Pudding
- Apple Spinach Salad
- Chickpea Noodle Soup
- Crispy Roasted Chickpeas
- Spinach Artichoke Dip Buffalo Cauliflower (for Alex only)
- Rosemary Garlic Potato Wedges
- Mac and “Cheese” (obviously to those that know me… lol)
- Chocolate Chip Cookies Almond Parmesan Crumbles
I can’t wait to try these items!
My Final Thoughts on Eating Vegan
I thought that this was a great collection! I can’t wait to check out more cookbooks like this one to help grow my list of fun things to try!
Snag a copy through Bookshop to help support local indie bookshops:
Thanks for reading!
Have you tried any plant-based recipes like the ones I listed above? Do you have any favorite plant-based recipes you make and enjoy? I’d love to hear about them in the comments below!
Sounds like a good cookbook to have if you like like vegan meals.
Definitely! I can’t wait to try some of the snacks!
I’m not vegetarian or vegan but I only eat meat a few days a week so this sounds like a great book to try.
I can eat tofu but I can’t have acidic foods like onions, tomatoes and citrus which are usually staples in this kind of cooking to make up for the flavor so there are usually more misses than hits for me too. But it still gives me ideas.
Karen @ For What It’s Worth
<3