PROS:
- The photos are really beautiful & make me want to cook
- mostly "normal" ingredients I can find easily
- short ingredient lists, not a lot of steps
- labels for vegan and GF
- weight measurements included (e.g. "1 cup (190g) chickpeas")
CONS:
- use of egg in most burger recipes; I appreciate there is a note on how to replace eggs in the front of the book, but having made bean and veggie burgers for nearly 20 years I know they will still fall apart without an egg. In fairness, this book isn't being advertised as a vegan cookbook but I assumed it was when I requested it based on title or I expected more vegan than vegetarian; especially with a second edition republish.
- use of egg in buns. I can buy buns at the store without egg so wondering why egg is used in all the buns.
- some recipes have you cook ingredients from scratch. I would prefer to know how much of canned items or already cooked items I could use instead. It is unrealistic for me to cook rice and lentils and then go on to make and fry bean burgers for dinner on a weeknight. TBH, I'm not going to put this much effort in for a burger even if it is a weekend, Note: Some recipes DO list amounts of cooked rice or beans, however.
- I don't like to fry food; certainly not every recipe. I would have liked baking and/or air-fry instructions.
- some recipes require going to another part of the book for instructions how to cook or prepare an ingredient. This might not be so bad with a physical book but it was annoying on an ebook.
- some recipes use TVP. I would have preferred an alt option since these were some of the vegan burgers. crumbled walnuts? quinoa? TVP is hard to find and not very healthful and it destroys my belly ;)
OTHER NOTES:
- I wish there had been more sauces and condiments; they were the most exciting "I want to try" recipes in the book. I think there were 4? there were some yogurt ones too but they aren't vegan, though I could probably try to sub my way through if I really wanted.
RECIPES I MADE:
- Best Portobello Burgers; I didn't use the oil (3 tbsp) as we don't use oil too often and I thought it would be really greasy/oily in the end. I used 1/3 cup broth or so for cooking. The portobellos cooked fine using broth. I appreciated the description of what the cooked end product should be like. I normally cook bella burgers with balsamic vinegar or soy sauce and would have never tried miso or rice vinegar and thought it was an interesting "Asian" flavoring. We added Sriracha. We ate them as part of an asian bowl meal and not a burger.
- butternut squash and black bean burgers. I make a sweet potato and black bean burger all the time and was intrigued to make something with butternut instead. It was very, very bland. There aren't any spices in the recipe except salt (onion, beans, rice, oil, spinach, starch, breadcrumbs). The recipe suggests to add mozzerella, which my husband did (using a vegan brand) and it didn't improve it much. I will, however, use the leftover butternut in my usual recipe for a change. I also felt like it was too many carbs between the beans, rice, squash, buns...
- tofu and chard burgers. Instead of frying burgers, I cubed the tofu and cooked it with the other ingredients (chard, soy sauce--I used coconut aminos, garlic, ginger) instead with a touch of toasted sesame oil at the end (recipe calls for 1/4 cup oil and then 2 tsp sesame oil). It was good. I didn't make the sweet sesame glaze called for with it but think tahini would have been nice on top. The sauce sounds really good but I'm lazy. my husband added sesame seeds and avocado to his.
- watermelon and citrus salad. It's still a little too early in the season for watermelon but nevertheless it was still really good. I didn't add vegan feta (calls for regular feta) but might try it that way this summer, I left off the almonds because we don't like hard nuts with fruit usually, but think I'd garnish with that next time.
- curried tomato relish, This was such an exciting recipe for me as I love roasted cherry tomatoes. I reduced the onion and added the spices to taste instead. It is something I will make again for sure if cherry tomatoes are on sale.
Thanks netgalley for my ARC!