The Conscious Cook by Tal Ronnen

Never one to be overly impressed with Vegan foods, Tal Ronnen has made an impact in my thinking.  Tal Ronnen wrote the Conscious Cook – Delicious Meatless Recipes That Will Change The Way You Eat.  Tal Ronnen’s book while talking about the benefits of veganism, also shows how to make delicious, and yet totally meat and dairy free. The book is filled with beautiful color photos, and recipes, Tal also interviews with vegan innovators, the discoverers of powerhouse foods and has guest chefs.

Tal Ronnen lists his larder, and throughout the book lets you in on all his favorite ingredients to work with, whether it be a grain, vegetable, herbs or greens.  Plus you learn about the fake foods like Gardein chicken – it’s not real chicken.  We actually bought a package of it when we were shopping, we’re going to try it out.

My favorite thing that I learned is about making cream out of nuts.  Plus you can take it a step further and make cheese, or whipped cream.  If you’re allergic to dairy, it’s amazing that you can still make a cool cheese cake without any cream cheese.  I made some cashew cream, just to see how it worked.  The cream wasn’t bursting with flavor, but it had a decent thickness and texture.

I like that Tal Ronnen uses some of the same ingredients in more than one place.  If you buy something in the store you want to use it in more than one recipe.  The cashew cream is used quite a few places.  I think I can get enough ideas for how to make substitutions in regular meals so that they are vegan.  That said, I’m not a vegan, and not likely to become one, but maybe I’ll lean a little further towards healthy vegan meals sometimes. 

One of the best interviews is with Don McKinley, the Quinoa Smuggler.  They discuss all about how quinoa was brought into the US from the Andes and how it’s grown here.  Most interesting is the fact that we can grow quinoa, but we can’t get seed because our days in the US aren’t  long enough, since we’re further away from the equator. So they import it from Bolivia. Throughout the book there are interesting conversations, so it’s not just a cookbook.

 

My grade for the book is an A+.  It’s very well written and the recipes are very clear with wonderful photos.

 

Cashew Cream

2 cups raw cashews rinsed very well ( Whole foods has tons of different raw nuts)

Put cashews in a bowl and add cold water to cover them.  Cover the bowl and refrigerate over night.

Drain the cashews and rinse under cold water.  Place in blender with enough cold water to cover by 1 inch.  Blend on high for several minutes until very smooth. (If you’re not using a professional high speed blender such as Vita-Mix, which creates an ultra smooth cream, strain the cashew cream through a fine mesh sieve.) To make thick cashew creams which some of the recipes in this book call for, simply reduce the amount of water for the blender, so that the water just covers the cashews.

Here’s a YouTube with Tal Ronnen making a scaloppini using Gardein.

 

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