I’m sometimes asked by curious non-vegans, “Can you recommend a good vegan cookbook and/or blog?” I feel an epic responsibility to respond in a thoughtful, careful and inspiration way. “What!” you must be thinking, she must have pickled her brain last night when she was ringing in the new year. Seriously, adopting a vegan lifestyle was one of my most life-changing decisions. It is among the top three, having children and going to dinner with Chuck for the first time are the other two. It is not just a diet. It is a lifestyle choice.

I personally recommend adopting a vegan lifestyle gradually. It takes time to learn how to master the art of cooking without dairy and eggs. Eliminating meat is easy but making great vegan pumpkin pie or greenbean casserole is an art.

Vegan Cookbook Recommendations

My vegan cookbook collection started with the Veganomicon by Isa Chandra Moskowitz. She is the queen of vegan. Chuck would argue the recipes are complicated and have too many ingredients which is why we purchased the Quick-Fix Vegan by Robin Robertson — healthy, homestyle meals in 30 minutes or less. I think I can blame this cookbook on an extra 10 pounds. I love the mac and cheezeburger bake. OMG this stuff is the ultimate comfort food and we ate it once a week for awhile which is why we bought the Appetite for Reduction also by Isa Chandra Moskowitz. It promises 125 fast and filling low-fat vegan recipes. Yes, Isa to the rescue. We lost the extra weight plus a few more. Whew! We just purchased the Happy Herbivore (light and lean) — over 150 Low-Calorie Recipes with workout plans for looking and feeling great. Like I said, we just purchased it so we haven’t tested all the recipes but I can say the tempeh bacon is delicious and is only 36 calories per slice. The recipes are easy to prepare and so far we’ve liked them all. Lindsay Nixon, the Happy Herbivore creator, provides meal plans on her website. This may be helpful to to new vegans.

Vegan Blogs

There are lots of vegan blogs and I have my old favorites. I shared these last October and these are still my favorites: Vegan Dad, Post Punk Kitchen and Fat Free Vegan. I found a few more in 2013 you should check out:

Oh She Glows is my first recommendation. Chuck hates the name of the blog but I think it is kinda cute. It has some tasty recipes including the vegan pumpkin pie and 5 favorite butternut squash recipes. I’m hopelessly addicted to the butternut squash burritos and mac’n cheeze. I now put butternut squash in any dish where I can sneak it. I love it.

Don’t Fear the Vegan is a humorous blog that I enjoy following. She has giveaways and writes useful posts about being vegan.

The last blog I‘d recommend checking out is Vegan Richa. We’ve enjoyed many of the recipes and the chickpea cauliflower tacos are excellent. We used store bought tortillas to save time. These are great and low-calorie.

Happy New Year! If you have a blog or cookbook to recommend, please leave a comment or send me an email.