BOOK REVIEWS
Bravo Express
By Ramses Bravo
Chef Ramses works at TrueNorth Health Center in Santa Rosa, CA, and uses herbs, spices, and creativity to produce vegan dishes that contain no added sugar, oil,or salt. This book contains SOS-free, whole-plant-food dishes that are easy to prepare. You will find menus for two weeks with recipes and photos.
Sample recipes for soups include butternut squash, as well as kale, and cream of corn. Add a salad such as grilled plums with baby arugula, curried apples and watercress, or spicy jicama and you have a terrific midday meal. You can also try out one of his dressings!
One chapter called Starch and Starch-ish offers recipes like oven-roasted plantain fajitas and buckwheat tabbouleh. The Where Do You Get Your Protein? chapter serves up Indian-spiced baked beans, carawaymustard kidney beans, and garbanzo crunch.
Vegetable dishes run from orange-braised fennel and cider-steamed Swiss chard to roasted cactus fingers and roasted cauliflower and peas. Comfort food options include savory lentil cr?pes, tempeh tacos, yam empanadas, and more. Finally, the Snacks and Treats chapter provides recipes for vanilla poached pears, blueberry-lime truffles, and coconut rice pudding.
Bravo Express (ISBN: 978-1-57067-362-7) is a 154-page book. It is published by Book Publishing Company and retails for $21.95. Purchase this book from our catalog on page 31.
Reviewed by Debra Wasserman
The Plantiful Plate
By Christine Wong
This vegan cookbook is beautifully designed and offers readers handy charts with numerous options for each recipe's preparation. This allows for flexibility and makes the odds better that you will have all the ingredients on hand when you start cooking. For example, to prepare her Fried Rice recipe you choose a grain such as rice, quinoa, or millet; an aromatic including fresh chives, garlic, or shallots; an oil; vegetables like edamame, snow peas, or broccoli; finely chopped greens such as bok choy, chard, or spinach; and seasoning including soy sauce or nutritional yeast. An exact quantity for each ingredient category is listed. You will also find an example of a complete recipe using some of the suggestions found in her chart.
Other recipes found in this book include Sweet Potato and Salted Caramel French Toast, Fresh Herb and Fennel Frittata, Curry Lime Trail Mix, Asian Pear Salad, Watermelon Gazpacho, Asian Edamame Falafel, Kohlrabi Fries, Coconut Lime Cauliflower Tacos, New Year's Dumplings, Caribbean Peanut Curry, Plum Crumble, and Meyer Lemon and Ginger Cheesecake.
The Plantiful Plate (ISBN: 978-1-68268-267-8) is a 256-page hardcover book. It is published by The Countryman Press and retails for $29.95. Purchase this book online or from your local bookstore.
Reviewed by Debra Wasserman
Your Complete Vegan Pregnancy
By Reed Mangels, PhD, RD
This latest book from The Vegetarian Resource Group Nutrition Advisor, Reed Mangels, PhD, RD will enable you to calm down family, friends, and doctors that might be concerned you are having a vegan pregnancy. It explains what women should eat for a healthy vegan pregnancy and provides critical information to know during each trimester, as well as during labor and delivery. You will also find more than 50 vegan recipes including Quick Tofu Breakfast Burrito, Vegan Pancakes, Easy Falafel Patties, Tandoori Seitan, Lentil and Rice Loaf, Baked Millet Patties, Edamame Salad, Baked Sweet Potato Fries, Chinese Hot and Sour Soup, Hot Artichoke Spinach Dip, Pumpkin Maple Pie, and Sweetheart Raspberry Lemon Cupcakes.
Your Complete Vegan Pregnancy (ISBN: 978-1-5072-1019-2) is a 239-page book. It is published by Adams Media and retails for $15. Find this book online or in your local bookstore.
Reviewed by Debra Wasserman
