the Voluptuous Vegan
Posted by hiimkelsi on Sep 07, 2009 · Member since Sep 2004 · 2297 posts
I've made several things from this over the years, but my most recent favorite is the dill sour cream. It's simply blended, no cooking, and it goes perfectly with mashed potatoes. YUM!
Does anyone else have this book? What have you made from it that you enjoy? A lot of the things seem overwhelming, but from what I remember, they're not too difficult. I would do more reviews, but I just looked through the cookbook, I remember some of the recipes, but I dont remember specifics of whether I enjoyed it or not or extra comments about them.
I got this cookbook years ago and didn't make much from it. The lima bean gravy was good, but I made it before I had a pressure cooker and I think it would be better made in a pressure cooker. Also, I made some kind of millet croquettes--I forget the name but I remember her describing the mixture as a tasty porridge--in any event they were definitely not a hit. I do find it instructive on things like using agar and kudzu, etc., but since I don't cook with those ingredients a lot, I just don't use this book that often. Maybe I'll pull the book out again and give it another try.
I've made a handful of recipes from this book and find that I usually have to double the seasonings and salt, but that the cooking time and technique is spot on. Some favorites for you...
Soups
Squash, Fennel and Apple Soup- Awesome, comforting and delish. Great for an autumn dinne party.
Pinto Bean and Grilled Vegetable Soup: Spicy and good! Making this recipe gave me the idea to grill all my veggies before adding them to chili. It adds a whole other layer of flavor.
Creamy Chickpea Soup w/Morrocan Spice Oil The chickpea soup on it's own is tasty and simple, but the spice oil...oh, man. It's both pretty and very flavorful. Extremely easy to make too!
Miso Soup with Greens This is very, very healthy and has clean flavors. Not my favorite miso soup, but it gets 3 out of 5 stars.
Main and Side dishes:
I know I've made more than this, but it's a list of recipes I tried and loved...
Warm Chickpea Salad with Artichokes & Sun-dried Tomatoes
Caramelized Brussel Sprouts w/Pecans
Brocolli Rabe Polenta
Herbed Ravioli w/Porcini Pesto and Tofu Ricotta
Tofu-Leek Tart w/Pinenut Crust
Potato Salad with Tarragon Vinaigrette (but I roast the potatoes instead of boiling them. Personal preference)
Paella (excellent! Especially if you double the sices and add a package of soyrizo)
Mushroon Nuggets
Desserts:
Raspberry Cornmeal Tart w/Raspberry Sauce- brings the awesome and is easy to make!
Chocolate Pudding Tart Creamy chocolate pudding with a brownie crust? Why, yes. I will have seconds. One of my favorites as a birthday dessert, especially with fresh berries on top.
Apple Walnut Crisp Good, but I like my mom's recipe better. Again, a bit too healthy tasting. Dessert is not where healthy belongs.
Mamaanna thank you fo rthose reviews! I will definitely give this book a second try. The chickpea soup and raspberry cornmeal tart sound particularly appealing to me.
I've had it for years too. Its a bit decadent, so I don't use it often.
Recently I made the red cabbage and beer dish which was good. I've made a French lentil soup recently too from it.
I've had it for years too. Its a bit decadent, so I don't use it often.
Recently I made the red cabbage and beer dish which was good. I've made a French lentil soup recently too from it.
How was the french lentil soup? It's almost soup season!
Most excellent! I think it even used wine....you know those French.........I'm at work without the book, so I can't look at the ingredients.
Oh! I just found the forums on Friday, and now I just found the cookbooks forums! Oh, my! ...I'm LilyRoze and I'm a vegan cookbook-aholic...lol.. and The Voluptuous Vegan is my favorite cookbook. I love the sour "cream"s, and they're fast to make and better than what you can buy, use the best and most natural silken tofu of course.
The French Lentil Soup is delicious, I've made it 10-20 times, and tweeked it to my liking. It's really good if you make a stock with kale and a red bell pepper, and put the herbs in the stock, doubled. But it's good without a stock, if you double the herbs. I skip the tomato paste. Greens are optional. The soup is much better the second day, so I usually skip the greens. When adding greens, I add them only to that amount that will be served immediately.
The Columbian Black Bean Soup is delicious. After I made it once, the man of the house asked me to make it for him again, and I told him it was quite a bit of work, so if he felt like helping... Even though he never really cooks, he said sure. Now we've made it together several times, and a salad and cornbread. It's proved to be a bonding experience for us, occasionally we cook a datenight dinner together now. The point of all this, is that the Columbian Black Bean Soup is great, and worth the price of the cookbook alone.
The stocks are very good, there are several different stocks. I was disappointed with the Hot and Sour Soup, but I didn't make it exactly as written. The Vietnamese Noodle Soup was amazing. Alot of work though, because you have to make the Southeast Asian Stock first. But it was really really good, and I've eaten at lots of great Asian restaurants and am particular about Asian cuisine.
Thanks for the tip about the black bean soup, Lily Roze! I'm going to make it tomorrow night! I should really cook some more things from this cookbook and review it. It's actually quite good, but I think the lack of pictures and the semi-granola/crunchy appearance of the book deters me a bit.
I do tend to double the herbs and spices as I think she plays it really safe with her recipes. I cannot overstate, though, how good both the paella and pinenut tart w/leek and tofu filling (it's like an extremely elegant, non-tofu tasting quiche) are. I've made both many times and highly, highly reccommend them.
You're welcome, MamaAnna. When making the Columbian Black Bean Soup, I blend it with a hand held blender. And be careful with the addition of the lime juice and lime garnish. The lime juice really makes it IMO, but I dispense with the lime garnish completely.
Another of her soups that is so good is the African Groundnut Stew. It was so delicious. I used the kabocha squash, which is now my favorite winter squash. It also calls for yucca, this was the first time I had it. It was wonderful. Veggie Queen has a groundnut stew, which is good, but this is better.
The Cranberry Relish with Apples and Pears is so good! I make it with the cardamom. Some might consider it a little too zesty, but I packed that tablespoon with zest (to pack or not to pack, that is the question). Anyway, the 2nd day, the zest mellows into it nicely. Either way, I'm crazy about it and make it every Christmas.
The Sauteed Haricots Verts with Horseradish were good, a fancy way to dress green beans, and a fancy way to ad-dress them. I think that this dish goes better with a simple entree, rather than a rich holiday meal, but that's just me.
I was disappointed with the Lima Bean Gravy, sadly so, as I'm quite fond of lima beans.
We were very pleased with the Fresh Corn Millet and Rice Croquettes, but I tweeked it a little. I know I left out the corn kernals, didn't miss em!
Unfortunately I haven't kept notes on everything I cooked.
Hi LilyRoze! Glad you found the forums! I'm a cookbook addict too! I'll have to look up that black bean soup, love me some black bean soup.
I agree the VV has some labor intensive recipes. Also seems to have some obscure and expensive ingredients sometimes. Like the red cabbage beer dish called for umbeoshi vinegar, which I went ahead and bought because I was intrigued (very salty) but haven't used it since. But I guess Voluptuous means Voluptuous...
Tweety: Thanks for turning me onto a recipe to use ume plum vinegar, I love that stuff! Was the Red Cabbage Braised with Beer and Mustard worth making twice? Did you make the Potato Latkes and apple sauce and sour cream to go with it?
I searched and found some recipes that use it, so you can make some space on your vinegar shelf.
Sweet Pickled Carrots http://vegweb.com/index.php?topic=22299.0
Asian Salad http://vegweb.com/index.php?topic=9404.0
Delicious Brussels Sprouts http://vegweb.com/index.php?topic=11871.0
If anyone tries these, let me know how they turn out.
That doesn't have much to do with V V but this does: tonight I'm making the Cream of Harvest Soup. Hope it's as good as it sounds.
Thanks LilyRoze, the Asian salad looks real good.
A few days ago, I made the Cream Of The Harvest Soup on page 26. Man, and Woman, does this cookbook have some great soup recipes! . I've had similar soups before, in restaurants, and this was better than any I've had of the type. The main ingredient is butternut squash, and it also has some sweet potatoes and a parsnip, onions, ginger, cumin and coriander, and a little bit of lemon juice to keep the color bright (you don't really taste the lemon). It's served pureed, but I think it would be just as yummy not pureed, it cooks down nicely, and a few lumps of butternut squash in it wouldn't bother me. There's a simple Red Chili Paste that you make to garnish the soup. The red chili paste really adds something special to the soup, and the result is complex in a good way. Go easy on the ginger, so that it doesn't over-power the interesting blend of flavors.
It makes a huge pot of soup, and is very filling. If it isn't going to be the centerpiece of the meal, you might consider cutting the recipe in half. The soup is real good the way it's written, but I later added some unsweetened soymilk, not enough so you'd notice in the taste (1/2 cup or so), but enough to make it creamier; and we prefer it with the soymilk. The soup is a beautiful orange color, or with the soymilk, golden yellow. It looks great in the bowl, with the red chili paste.
I will definitely make this soup again, for company. With the warming spices and bright color, it would be especially pleasing on a cold wintery day.
Having the sauteed broccoli and roasted red peppers tonight......I've had them before and it's a great side dish. I'm serving it to my parents, and it's more impressive than just plain broccoli and not that hard to make and very tasty.
Thanks, Tweety. So many recipes, I never noticed Sauteed Broccoli with Roasted Red Peppers until you mentioned it. Looks really good, I'm going to make it. Some of the recipes in Voluptuous Vegan are very simple, but very good. It's easy to overlook them in this gourmet cookbook, thinking they're not special. But they're actually amazing. A few days ago I made African Groundnut Stew again. This time I was missing a few ingredients that are added at the end, the scallions, cilantro and peanuts, it was still incredible. I garnished with some microgreens (tiny sprouts) instead. I made the Quinoa And Millet Pilaf to go with it, which was soo good, that I may never make quinoa or millet alone again. It is just quinoa and millet, steamed together, but they totally complement each other. The quinoa makes the millet more delicate, the millet gives the quinoa more substance, Perfect! Like a good marriage.When they met, it must have been magic! Now they'll never be alone again! Music swells, curtain closes....a happy ending. tee-hee
Ginger baked tofu - I used tempeh instead of tofu, steamed the tempeh first and marinated about 30 minutes and baked about 30 minutes. It's a nice mix ingredients that includes mirin, thyme, ginger, sesame oil, soy sauce and of all things maple syrup. Was very good!
http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash2/hs442.ash2/71560_1474844429915_1197836956_31098960_6994093_n.jpg
Spicey sauteed spaghett squash - I'd never made spaghetti squash before and this was a nice side dish. It was relatively painless to make.
http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc4/hs944.snc4/73727_1482131452086_1197836956_31111002_5316378_n.jpg
Asparagus, beet, and fennel salad - This is so good. What makes it great is the dressing which is blended fresh basil, garlic, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar, as well as the unique taste of fresh fennel. The store didn't have fresh beets, so I used a can I had on hand which is a bummer because I was going to use raw beets, a favorite way of eating them.
http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc4/hs976.snc4/76903_1494056990217_1197836956_31132042_5240431_n.jpg
Is this the book that has recipes grouped together into 'menus' or 'courses'? I remember seeing a vegan cookbook like this in B&N about a year ago but i never can remember which was which.. in any case, the things you guys are mentioning on here look/sound delicious.
Is this the book that has recipes grouped together into 'menus' or 'courses'? I remember seeing a vegan cookbook like this in B&N about a year ago but i never can remember which was which.. in any case, the things you guys are mentioning on here look/sound delicious.
Yes. It's contents are soups, main-course menus and desserts.
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