Book Review: Vegan Bites and GIVEAWAY!

Last week I had the pleasure of reading through and cooking up some recipes from Vegan Bites by Beverly Lynn Bennett, which was kindly sent to me by Book Publishing Co. The book initially appealed to me since it was based on vegan cooking for “singles”, with most meals yielding 1-2 servings. Since D is not currently following my diet, I thought this would be a helpful resource for cooking-for-one nights.

The target audience is clearly young vegans who may be new to the lifestyle. The introduction to the book describes and guides vegan nutrition, discussing proteins and vitamin needs, as well as daily suggested servings for food groups. What I found especially helpful was a full-page chart of a “Cooking Guide for Common Grains” including amount, time, liquid, and amount yielded – how often do you find yourself scrambling with uncooked grains and serving sizes? Totally helpful.

The book also goes one step further and includes a one week sample meal plan for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and treats – with all meals from the book!  Genius.

The recipes are divided among 9 chapters, including toppings, breakfast, side dishes, soups, sandwiches, dinners, desserts, and more. All the recipes are comprised of wholesome and tangible ingredients, and do not require complicated cooking. Some recipes that I flagged that sound delicious include: maple-pecan french toast, tofu and vegetable hash, brunch and munch burritos, sun-dried tomato falafels, coconut curry in a hurry, vegetable gratin, double chocolate brownies, and light and luscious lemon cake.

Overall I found this book to be extremely accessible, and the perfect book for a vegan newby or “flirt”, as it really lays out how simple  and nutritious it is to follow a vegan diet. I think this is a must have for anyone who is a bit intimidated by a no-dairy and no-egg diet and

Last week I cooked up four recipes for dinner, and reviewed the results for the following Vegan Bites recipes:

Vegetable and Chickpea Stew

Pad Thai & Seasoned Tofu Tidbits

Orange Teriyaki Tofu

Giveaway time: This is the first time I’ve even attempted a giveaway, but I feel pretty strongly that this book would best benefit someone who has not quite tested the waters of veganism and is interested in exploring cooking a bit more.  So, for your reading pleasure, I am going to be giving away a copy of Vegan Bites, courtesy of Book Publishing Co.

How to Enter: Comment on this post about which of the above recipes I mentioned I was interested in or reviewed seem like something you’d like to try!  Extra entry if you share the link on your blog, and just comment and tell me you have.  I’ll run this give-away through next Sunday night, March 21st.  Happy entering!