Nom Yourself: Simple Vegan Cooking

by Mary Mattern

A beautiful cookbook for the next generation of newly vegan and vegan-curious, from the creator of the popular website and Instagram Nom Yourself.
 
Mary Mattern became a vegan in her early twenties, and was immediately astonished by how great she felt—and how rewarding she found her new vegan lifestyle to be. She soon became a vegan personal chef to the stars, working with people such as Entourage actor Jeremy Piven and touring with pop singer Ellie Goulding. When she began blogging about her vegan recipes on NomYourself.com, she soon built up an enormous following, with nearly 100,000 followers on Instagram. Mattern has also gotten support from big names in the plant-based world, including Brendan Brazier, Chad Sarno, and many more. With her terrific personality and edgy, hip style, Mattern is poised to become the rock star of the millennial vegan world.

Now Mattern offers her delectable American-with-a-vegan-twist recipes to the world in her beautiful cookbook, Nom Yourself . With comfortable, familiar recipes such as Beer-Battered Buffalo [Cauliflower] Wings, American Apple Pie, and Creamy Cashew Alfredo, Nom Yourself will be the perfect book for the vegan-curious. And with beautiful color photos throughout to illustrate the mouthwatering recipes, Nom Yourself will prove that eating vegan is both delicious and easy.

Genres: Cookbooks, Nonfiction, Cooking, Vegan, Food

224 pages, Paperback

First published September 8, 2015

Reviews

[Skeetor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lots of great, tasty recipes. My husband and I are not vegans nor vegetarians, but are simply trying to boost our vegetable intake and lower our consumption of animal proteins. My husband and I love the Southwestern Scramble, the Black Bean Jambalaya, Garlic Cauliflower Mash and the Balsamic Garlic Portobello Chop. One of my favorite cookbooks.

[Diana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Can't wait to fix the 3 cauliflower recipes I've marked to try-- Cauliflower steak, Buffalo cauliflower kale salad and crispy orange sesame cauliflower. There are several other yummy looking recipes I hope to make as well as interesting vegan substitution suggestions throughout the book, call me a fan!

[Penny · Rating 5 out of 5]

In an effort to expand my cookbook library (I own like maybe . . . 3 cookbooks) I spent some time browsing the Food/Cooking section of Barnes and Nobles. This book sat on one of their end-cap displays. Quickly paging through the recipes seemed to use a lot of simple ingredients (and a lot of use of cauliflower). I got the book for Christmas and have been cooking out of it ever since. Let me just warn you though, this is NOT a "diet" cookbook. There are definitely a good amount of fried, buttery and creamy dishes in the mix. And you know what? I love that about this book. It thinks outside of the mindset of boring, traditional, kale-and-quinoa vegan. But it isn't all junk food. There is a great variety of solid staples; bread recipes, pasta recipes, veggie sides, and vegan mains!

I wanted to make sure I made a good bit of the recipes before writing a review. I've tried the Basil Tomato Spaghetti w/ Kale, Kale Noodle Soup, Black Bean Jambalaya, Buttermilk Biscuits, Orange Sesame Cauliflower, Garlic Roasted Carrots, Crepes and Classic Pancakes. Everything I've cooked from this book has come out pretty darn tasty. Even the recipes where doughs seemed too dry I went along with and they still came out fabulous. I've passed off the Mushroom Gravy, Half-Baked Macaroni and Cheese as well as the Cauliflower Stuffed Shells on family members who turn their nose up at traditional vegan meals, (without revealing the key ingredients of course), and they gobbled them up; no questions asked!! The photographs are huge and gorgeous. If you're not full vegan, the recipes are simple enough to modify. This is hands down my favorite cookbook!

[Tara · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think the title "simple vegan cooking" is somewhat deceiving, there are definitely some really easy recipes- like just putting a 1/3 cup of your favorite hot sauce over cauliflower to make BBQ tacos :/ but a lot of the recipes involved frying, I personally find frying to be a pain and a lot of work. There's definitely some fun and creative recipes in there, but only a few jumped out as ones I really want to try.

[Erin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too simple for my tastes. Gave it away.

[Michele · Rating 1 out of 5]

Nom yourself - not so much!

[Bernadette · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good collection of tasty, well seasoned recipes, most easily prepared with easy to find ingredients. Good introductory information on suggestions for kitchen set-up, utensils. Very beginner friendly.

[Mariah · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book didn’t wow me but did give me a few ideas. The pictures were great.

[Julie H. Ernstein · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mary Mattern's Nom Yourself: Simple Vegan Cooking contains some very tasty recipes and, what was most appreciated by me, an astounding number of vegan (and therefore non-dairy) alternatives to such must-haves as cream cheese frosting, mac and (not) cheese, etc. The one major detraction is that someone needed to have done a more careful edit. For example, the "crabby heart cakes" (a vegan alternative to crab cakes) have you chop and saute some onion which the directions never instruct you to add into the rest of the ingredients. Because most readers are not idiots, they'll figure such things out, but that's precisely the sort of thing that keeps the book from getting a four or five-star review. Plus, if I'd made those "crab" cakes precisely as described in the recipe, they'd have been a wet, soggy, hash (literally) and not cohesive patties. Any half-decent cook will be able to call an audible in such instances, but I've been spoiled by other cookbooks (including the outstanding Thug Kitchen series of vegan recipes) that haven't required that I make adjustments on the fly. That said, you may want to borrow this one from the local library and copy the recipes that interest you into your own recipe book. I'm not sure I'd want to shell out (you see what I did there?) for a cookbook that still needs an editorial once-over.

[Crystaline · Rating 4 out of 5]

This year I've moved to a mostly plant based diet. I purchased 3-4 different cookbooks but this one is my favorite. I've been using it at least once a week since it arrived on my doorstep. I live overseas so one of the big issues I run into is cookbooks requiring speciality ingredients that I can't get my hands on. Most of Mary's ingredients stick to the basics which I love. Though I should mention I live in a place where it's pretty easy to get your hands on nuts, beans, lentils, and tofu. It's the health food variety that's tough (flaxseed, tempeh, etc) in my neck of the woods.

So far I've tried the follow recipes:
Garlic Potato Kale Cakes
Sweet Roasted Pumpkin Soup (it really is sweet so be prepared).
Chiptle BBQ Quinoa Chili (also pretty sweet)
Half-Baked Macaroni & Cheese (easily my favorite recipe in the book)
Cauliflower Steak
Crispy Orange Sesame Cauliflower (nice alternative to Chinese food!)
Garlic Cauliflower Mash (major hit at a recent dinner party!)

[Lara · Rating 4 out of 5]

First of all, I HATE THE TITLE. Nom Yourself? Like, you want me to eat...myself? Huh??? Also, I'm just super tired of the "word" nom.

Anyway.

Once I got past that, I actually really liked this book. There are a bunch of recipes that I want to try, and I like that she's kind of made things super easy and fairly fast to make. It's not intimidating at all! And the Half-Baked Macaroni and Cheese recipe looks like the most delicious and easiest vegan mac & cheese recipe I've ever seen. I want to make it right now, except for I don't have all the stuff and it's 10:00 at night, booooooo! I also like that Mattern is not afraid of frying things. I'm a little afraid of frying things, but I might be willing to make an attempt in order to put the Deep Fried Guacamole and the Shiitake Mushroom Po'Boy with Remoulade in my belly. The Balsamic Garlic Portobello Chop also looks freaking amazing.

So, yeah. I'm gonna make some of this stuff! And nom it! Myself!

[AC · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've made several recipes in this book and have loved every one of them. So far, my favorite has been the German Potato Salad. I can't wait to make more!

[Chelsey Reid · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book, beautiful photos, hope she makes more cookbooks.

[Pinky · Rating 4 out of 5]

Want to try the Tempeh Bacon Spinach Quiche, Deep-Fried Guacamole, and the Whisky Lady Cupcake recipes.

[Elena Lang]

It's perfect for a Vegan and Vegetarian household. I tried a lot of the recipes and loved them!