Plantcentric Cookbooks on Parade #1

After almost twenty years of eating this way, I have a solid collection of vegetarian/vegan/plant-based cookbooks in my kitchen.  I've been formulating an idea for a blog post series to highlight some of my favorites from this particular library.  I've decided to give it a go.  Call it Plantcentric Cookbooks on Parade.  The first installment* features Lauren Toyota's Hot For Food All Day: Easy Recipes to Level Up Your Vegan Meals.

Rice noodles, veg, and tofu in the Sesame Ginger Sauce.  5/19/2024

I love this cookbook for a couple of reasons.  For one thing, I love the way Lauren Toyota provides a base recipe and then a bunch of modifications/add-ons to make that one recipe into multiple different meals.  This is the "leveling up" referred to by the subtitle of the book.  I think it is a terribly clever strategy.

Tofu Fingers.  5/30/2024

A great example of this involves my favorite recipe from the collection:  One-Pot Mac N' Cheese.  This is my favorite vegan mac and cheese recipe to date.  There are a LOT of vegan mac-n-cheese recipes out there.  A lot are made with nuts, some are baked with breadcrumbs on top, some heavy on the nooch, some with miso, and so on.  Even boxed, store-bought options abound!  Matt and I tried a couple of Kraft's plant-based mac recently. Lauren Toyota has a bunch of different cheese recipes on her website.  

I particularly enjoy her One-Pot version from Hot For Food All Day though because it is super easy to make, very creamy, nut-free, and has just the right amount of richness.  Instead of boiling and draining the pasta, the macaroni is cooked in a combo of milk and water.  There is no strainer involved.  Some shredded vegan cheese, nutritional yeast, and other ingredients are added to the pot when the pasta is tender.  Even as a stand-alone dinner the One-Pot Mac N' Cheese is excellent, but then there are so many ways to make it extra special.

A variation^ on one of Lauren's variations.  It is the Green Mac N' Cheese, but with some tweaks.  I didn't have peas so I used steamed green beans.  I didn't have pistachios so I used pepitas because they're green, too, and then Matt mixed them all in rather than using the nuts as a garnish.  Then we added some cubed seitan...just because we could!  6/1/2024

This is another reason I love this cookbook.  I love how much Lauren loves macaroni and cheese.  I learned this when I tried her recipe for mac-n-cheese stuffed onion rings (which are freaking awesome, btw) from her other cookbook, Vegan Comfort Classics.  To my delight, a whole section of mac and cheese-based recipes was in her follow-up cookbook.

A cross-section of the aforementioned mac-n-cheese stuffed onion rings from Lauren Toyota's other cookbook, Vegan Comfort Classics. 7/22/2023

Hot For Food All Day contains the base One-Pot Mac N' Cheese recipe...and then equally amazing companion recipes for: 

Thai Curry Mac N' Cheese (with coconut milk, curry paste, spinach, and peanuts),

Green Mac N' Cheese (with pesto, peas, spinach, and pistachios),

Pizza Mac N' Cheese (with onions, peppers, basil, and pepperoni),

Tex-Mex Mac N' Cheese (with black beans, salsa, lime, and tortilla chips), and

Buffalo Mac N' Cheese (with ranch, carrots, chxn, and buffalo sauce).

One take on the Tex-Mex Mac N' Cheese.  It is pretty dank.  I love that cilantro cashew cream.  8/8/2023

The whole cookbook has that "add-this," "build-on-that," sort of vibe.  It seems brilliant to me.  How efficient!  If I am going to roast a squash...why not have three different ways to use it!  When making a creamy ranch sauce, why not use it in wraps, bowls, tacos, and salads.  In addition to the great recipes in Hot For Food All Day I love how it opened my mind to that stacked way of culinary thinking.  "What other directions can I take this?"  I love leftovers and this cookbook inspires even greater creative use of leftovers.

Sesame Ginger glazed seitan with rice and asparagus.  4/29/2024

I have a lot of favorite recipes from the cookbook, including the Corn Chowder (and the Cacio E Pepe made from leftover chowder).  The Sesame Ginger Sauce is now one of the easiest and tastiest in my stir-fry/dipping sauce repertoire.  The Tofu Fingers are awesome.  If you haven't thought to put Old Bay Seasoning on your popcorn it is spectacular!  Hot For Food All Day is also where I got the idea of including a sweet component, like strawberry jam, in a grilled cheese sandwich.  I wanted to try that so hard that I themed my 40th birthday party around it. 

A grilled cheese with strawberry jam.  5/16/2024

If you want more info about Lauren Toyota she has a website (where she has lots of great recipes and links to her cookbooks) and a Youtube channel (where she shares a lot of different stuff about her life, including vegan food and travel).

Another version of the Green Mac N' Cheese.  3/12/2024

* It felt like this post took forever to complete.  Seriously.  So, episode #2 will probably come out at, oh, Christmas or something.  Hahahaha.

^Even with great recipes like these, I never follow them to the letter.  I often reduce the amount of oil or salt.  I will increase or substitute the vegetables.  Panko bread crumbs stick to the tofu fingers better when blitzed up smaller.  We use the air fryer for a lot of things that call for deep frying or baking.  That sort of thing.  One of the best parts of cooking is being able to customize my food to juuuuuuuuuuuust how I like it.

 I love this photo.  Matt holds out half a mac-n-cheese-stuffed-onion-ring for me to photograph while simultaneously smashing the other half into his maw.  They really are that scrumptious!  And not nearly as fussy to make as I expected.  7/21/2023