A plate of the Blue Velvet Hash, which went on the fuel me for a long day spent digging out from the December 26th Blizzard.

This year for Christmas Thing 1 gave me an assortment of new vegan and raw food cookbooks. The shining star of the bunch is Veganomicon: The Ultimate Vegan Cookbook by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero. Simply put, I love this book.

I have made quite a few recipes from it in the short time the Veganomicon has been in my life: the Chocolate Chip Brownie Waffles (page 74) made New Year’s Brunch a truly special event; the Blue Flannel Hash (page 73) is good fuel for a snowy winter morning; the Portobello Salad with Spicy Mustard Dressing (page 87) is an impressive dish for company; and the Pineapple-Cashew Quinoa (page 175) is a great way to serve this unusual grain to even the most anxious diner.

I have even been able to use the book during the Ultimate Transformation Challenge by making minor adaptations to the recipes. There are a whole slew of tofu, tempeh, and seitan recipes that have made eating huge servings of protein fun–I am especially fond of the Basic Braised Tofu (page 126), which requires no modification to work within the UTC restrictions.

Eating lots of seitan, as we have been doing, is expensive. Each box, which equals one UTC portion, runs me $4.20, and that adds up over the week. This weekend, I intend to try my hand at making  the Simple Seitan (page 131) to see of I can make my own seitan from scratch and hopefully save a little money in the future. My previous attempts at homemade seitan produce gummy lumps too soft to enjoy, but I have high hopes that things will turn out better this time, thanks to my faith in this wonderful cookbook.

I highly recommend Veganomicon to anyone who is interested in learning to cook vegan dishes and those who are more experienced cooks looking for inspiration. The recipes are inventive and tasty, and I have yet to encounter one that failed to please.