What’s for Dinner? (Our Favorite Vegetarian Cookbooks)

It probably comes as no surprise that we’re big supporters of the idea that the kitchen is the heart of any home.  After all, we spent months and months building our tiny (albeit super small) kitchen in Berlin.  It seems that no matter where we live, I’m always showing you the kitchen first (like here in Denver, too) and swearing off preservatives and additives in our food.  So after more than a handful of requests for our favorite cookbooks we’ve collected over the years, I thought I’d finally dish the goods.  Plus they’re all less than $27 bucks – the same price as dinner out.  Let’s dig in.

 

moosewood-cookbook

1. The New Moosewood Cookbook –  Besides having a really cool name, this book’s one of the top ten best selling cookbooks ever.  The down-to-earth, handwritten style had me hooked at first glance.  (I used to spend hours trying to find decent vegetarian cookbooks.)  Wait – vegetarian?  Yep.  We’re a meat-free household.  Mmm lettuce.  The Moosewood Cookbook had Martin hooked after a bowl of hearty soup.  Or was it the cake?  Either way, it’s hands down the best soups and fruit-based recipes ever, which explains why this book is still in print 30-some  years later.

vegetarian-cooking-for-everyone

2.  Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone - This book is called the Julia Child cookbook of vegetarian cooking.  It’s really handy for those days when you think you brought home lettuce only to discover it is something called kale that you need to cook first.  Jet lag, language barrier… I don’t know.  There are a lot of different fresh vegetables in Germany than I grew up with; that’s all I’m saying.   We’ve got one copy in Germany, and I got a second for Christmas to keep here.  You know how hard it is to part with something you love.

vegan-with-a-vengeance

3. Vegan with a Vengeance – Call me a hippy ’cause I love this book and the punk rock author, Isa Chandra Moskowitz.  It’s introduced us to a lot of really fun ingredients and really freaked Martin out on several occasions when he discovered we were going to eat scrambled tofu “eggs” (which really are amazing, by the way).  Every recipe in this book has no meat, no dairy, and no eggs.  It’s the only book I’ve purchased myself; the rest have been gifts over the years.  This book is in Germany, and I miss it.  Waahh!

how-to-cook-everything

4. How to Cook Everything Vegetarian – Well I hate to say this after years of bragging about Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, but I think this book has taken the lead.  The author, Mark Bittman, has a kitchen just slightly bigger than ours (wanna see it?).  He also has the world’s best pancake and quiche recipes.  Apparently How to Cook Everything is pretty brilliant, too.  You know, if you’re into that red slimy stuff.  I mean cows.

Any page-turners in your kitchen – vegetarian or not?  I know my family would especially be interested in a few heads up.  Christmas comes faster every year, ya know.