Jul 212013
Chloe’s Kitchen: 125 Easy, Delicious Recipes for Making the Food You Love the Vegan Way
Chloe’s Kitchen features vegan food like you’ve never seen it before. Classically trained Chef Chloe Coscarelli brings fun and energy to this healthful, animal-free cuisine by reinterpreting 125 of America’s favorite foods with great-tasting ingredients and clever techniques. Chef Chloe burst onto the culinary scene by winning the Food Network’s hit reality show Cupcake Wars—the first time a vegan chef captured the top prize—which delighted her many fans who had been loyally followin
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Easy, Accessible,Yummy,
First I must say I am not a vegan but I am trying to eat less meat and I am working towards a mostly plant based diet. I have been waiting for Chloe’s book for so long, I pre-ordered and was thrilled when I received it. I had made some of Chloe’s recipes that she had posted on her blog and her Facebook page and they were absolutely delicious and so easy! I am not a beginner but these recipes could easily be handled by someone with less experience. I made her maple roasted brussel sprouts with toasted hazelnuts last night and they were fabulous! I am looking forward to making a cinnamon chocolate chip cookie recipe tonight. There are so many things I love about her book that I don’t know where to start; her recipes are clearly written and her food is just delightful, everything I have made has turned out well and makes me even more excited to try something new. Another great part of her recipes is that they don’t call for items that are hard to track down. I haven’t run into a single ingredient that I haven’t been able to find locally. She has a great variety of foods and they honestly all look delicious. I am not into vegan/vegetarian cookbooks that (heavily) rely on tofu and meat substitutes and hers doesn’t either. There are a few recipes with tofu but many are hearty without always having a meat substitute. The photographs are beautiful and I love that she included a dog biscuit recipe too! I can easily see this becoming a favorite of mine. One more point that I was happy about, she didn’t overlap her recipes that appeared on her blog in her book. Only one that was featured on the blog was in the book that I can recall so be sure to check out her blog for more. The pad thai recipe on there is so tasty and really comes together in minutes (start to finish it was MAYBE 20 minutes) and there is a lovely creme brulee recipe on there as well as other entrees, sweets and sides. Just fabulous and highly recommended, Chloe’s food is so delicious and easy!I truly hope she will write more cookbooks.
*March 19: I just made her Chocolate Beer cupcakes with Irish Whiskey Buttercream for St. Patrick’s Day and they were hands down the best cupcakes I have ever made! They were such a success, moist and so rich with flavor I couldn’t believe how well they turned out and everything came together so quickly compared to making them with butter and eggs. Chloe’s recipes just work and she really makes it easy to incorporate vegan meals into your diet. No sacrificing flavor, just delicious healthy food!
*April 15: Everything I have made continues to be amazingly delicious! The penne alla vodka is so tasty and pairs perfectly with the garlic knots, I don’t miss the cream at all. Her five minute salad comes together in just that and is so full on flavor for just being a handful of ingredients. This week I am going to make her peanut noodles, Caribbean vegetables, chimichurri tacos and vanilla ice cream! Chloe’s cookbook is a favorite in my collection and I reach for it every week. I love cooking vegan foods and love eating them because of this cookbook. I am more adventurous in the kitchen and have incorporated many more vegan meals into my diet because every recipe has worked and even more importantly, they continue to be fabulous.
*October 19: I continue to reach for this and everything has still continued to be delicious! The peanut noodles are in a regular rotation and the recipe doubles so easily, it is wonderful having a big batch to munch on hot or cold whenever the mood strikes. The tacos and ice cream are fabulous, as are the Caribbean veg. Chloe’s vanilla ice cream recipe is my go to and is a cinch to whip up in the blender. Out of everything I have made, only one didn’t turn out to be awesome. It wasn’t a bad recipe at all (thankfully all of her recipes are well written and clear), it’s flavors just weren’t right up our alley for some reason. This is a perfect way to incorporate more plant based meals into your diet. It’s not intimidating and doesn’t call for any complicated techniques or hard to find ingredients. This was not my first vegan cookbook but I wish it was. I have a large cookbook collection, and there are only a handful that I consistently reach for and I am happy to say this is one of them!
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|NOT just for vegans TEN stars!,
Have waited so long for this cookbook and highly recommend it. It does NOT disappoint. A few friends and I chose different recipes to make for a week end get together and every single recipe turned our GREAT. There wasn’t a single failure. They tastes as great as the photographs shown. Whomever did the photography, you did a GREAT job!
This is not just for vegans! We have evolved into veganism, and have friends who are meat and potato eaters, who love GREAT vegan food. And that is one reason I will highly recommend this vegan cookbook. It has GREAT recipes that taste as good as the photo shows.
Please read the Foreword written by Neal D. Barnard M.D. because it has some valuable information to dispel concerns some may have in regard to getting getting enough protein and other nutrients when eating vegan.
The book has a wonderful Vegan Pantry section, with items even the grocery stores in my area of the California Sierras carry. There is even a good Gluten Free and Soy Free Cooking area that I appreciated because we have friends with gluten and soy food sensitivities. Its the first vegan cookbook I have purchased where the author has taken the time to have this section in a cookbook. Now for the recipes.
The Avocado Shitake Sushi was a big hit with my sushi family and friends. And so easy, that even my eight year old neighbor helped make these delicious sushi rolls which were all eaten within 15 minutes. Should have made more. The Jalapeno Cornbread Poppers with Whipped Maple Butter (vegan butter) on page 29 also were gone as soon as I set them out. I quickly made more. People didn’t even know these were vegan. The Sweet and Sour Party Meatballs were awesome and two male meat eater friends asked for the recipe, they loved them so much.
On page 43 is a killed recipes for Wontons with Apricot and Mustard Sauce. These are as good as any filled wontons we have had in the best Chinese restaurants in San Francisco. Being well traveled, they are better than many we have had outside of California and even the states. It’s the grated fresh ginger, garlic and shredded carrots that make them work so well. Add in the apricot jam with Dijon mustard for dipping the wontons and I promise you, you will be hooked!
Being native Californians who even make homemade sourdough bread with starter, that was started in the 1920′s by relative here in the Mother Lode, we LOVE the Cheesy Broccoli Soup with Sourdough Bread Bowls on page 51. It’s the nutritional yeast that gives the soup the cheesy taste and consistency. While the recipe calls for soy,almond or rice milk, this can be made without the milk,if you aren’t near a store, by taking some of the vegetable broth and thickening like you would for gravy.
One of my favorites is the Curried Lentil,Squash,and Apple Stew on page 55. I love anything curried. And the mix of apple, squash and lentil work well. If you are new to curry dishes, and are unsure about spicy foods, simply start out with half the amount of curry powder, then taste. Then add more if desired.
With spring here and summer around the corner we will be making the Mandarin Peanut-Crunch Salad with Crispy Wontons on page 59. Instead of peanuts we use almonds we toast, since we have friends with children who are allergic to peanuts. Am so glad to see Chloe using wonton wrappers which we get in the produce section of the grocery store, since we use these sliced and made like cooked noodles when we make soups, and even pasta dishes.
The Tuscan Bean and Greens Soup on page 66 is one like we make all year round. Her recipe has a head of escarole, roughly chopped. You can also substitute chopped cabbage, kale, and even fresh, whole leaf spinach. Chloe has such awesome recipes that newbies and seasoned cooks will love!
Because we have a big vegetable garden and because our family and friends LOVE vegetables, Chloes vegetable section is so much fun. My family LOVED the Coconut Mashed Yams with Currants on page 73. Will make this again for a potluck dinner I have been invited to, because it’s so luscious and delicious. Shows that vegan can be delicious food that even non vegans will love. The Maple Roasted Brussel Sprouts with Toasted Hazelnuts on page 81 should make a brussel sprouts lover out of any former brussel sprouts hater. If you don’t have hazelnuts available use walnuts or almonds as these worked for me as well.
Her chapter Eat With Your Hands which begins on page 93 is so much fun. It’s a chapter some children of friends loved as well. Her Chloe’s Award Winning Mango Masala Panini on page 101 is one the kids have asked to make again. Fresh mangos or frozen mangos are used. The tamarind paste may be harder to find locally, but Amazon.com sells it. If you are near an ethnic store you can buy Tamarind pods and make your own paste.
Yes, she has some excellent recipes…
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|Fabulous, easy, tempting vegan dishes,
I’ve tried a couple of vegan cookbooks before and was put off by the long list of ingredients, new to me, that I would need to purchase in order to make a dish. I first learned of Chloe Coscarelli by, yep, watching Cupcake Wars, and loved her enthusiasm and (seemingly) easy recipes. Now that her cookbook is out, I am delighted to find out that the recipes really ARE easy, no long list of ingredients to hunt down all over town, and the process is similar to meals I cook myself, only without the animal products/by-products.
If you are looking for a vegan cookbook to get you started on your journey, or would like to add some vegan dishes to your omnivore repertoire – this is the book for you.
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