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Series Design: Katy Brown
Interior and Designer: Patricia Fabricant
Art Producer: Sara Feinstein
Editor: Rebecca Markley
Production Editor: Sigi Nacson
by Dennis Mason
Photography 2020 Kate Sears. Food styling by Lori Powell.
Author photo courtesy of Dennis Mason.
Cover photo:
ISBN: Print 978-1-64876-501-8 | eBook 978-1-64739-589-6
R0
For the animals
CONTENTS
I went vegetarian in 1992 for ethical reasons, and then went vegan in 2001 after reading about the dairy and egg industries. A lot has changed since then. The Economist declared 2019 to be The Year of the Vegan, something I never thought could be possible back in the early aughts, when people thought vegans were extraterrestrial life-forms that hailed the planet Vega.
Young vegans dont know how lucky they have it. Back in the old days, wed have to walk uphill in the snow barefoot to buy powdered soy milk and boxed veggie burger mixes from obscure health food stores. The kind of store where all the signs were handwritten in magic marker on the back of cereal boxes and there was one bare, flickering light bulb hanging from the ceiling. Now you have your choice of nondairy milk in most coffee shops and almost every fast-food joint serves vegan burgers.
I lived with my mom when I stopped eating meat, and meals became a subject of great dispute. I remember one particular dinner that consisted of beef flavored Rice-A-Roni and microwaved frozen cubed carrots and peas, with Well, I dont know what you eat anymore! yelled at me from the kitchen as I stormed off and slammed my bedroom door.
I grew up eating packaged foods that could be taken out of the freezer and quickly heated up in a microwave or poured out of a box and mixed together in a pot. Since vegan convenience foods were scarce in the early 90s, I had to teach myself how to cook. I got a subscription to Vegetarian Times and started doing my own grocery shopping. I started simply, with meals like black bean tacos and chickpea salad sandwiches. After getting comfortable with plant-based ingredients, I soon began whipping up concoctions such as tofu vegetable curry and lentil veggie burgers.
Through veganism, Ive found a love of cooking. With vegan meats and nondairy cheese available in just about every grocery store now, you can still find me in the kitchen, making meals from scratch. Its a creative outlet for me, and the truth is that I just feel better when I eat homemade food. Theres no I shouldnt have eaten that feeling while my meal sits like a rock in my stomach. I sleep better at night, and I have more energy during the day now than I did when I was younger.
In this book, Im sharing with you some easy basics for those who are new to vegan cooking, as well as some of my favorite creative meals for seasoned vegans. I hope that you, too, will find a love of home-cooked, meat-free meals.
As with all things in life, we need to start at the beginning, so this chapter is an introduction to veganism. For those of you who are new to this way of eating, consider it a crash-course in vegan cooking. Here Ill help you make over your kitchen in order to create an animal-free-friendly space, and Ill also help you stock your pantry with the ingredients you need to put together delicious, cruelty-free meals. I will share my top tips for being vegan in a nonvegan world, too. Veganism is a lifestyle rather than a diet, but since this is a cookbook, Ill be focusing on the food.
WHY VEGAN
There can sometimes be a little confusion as to what vegan food is. I like to think of it this way: Vegans dont eat anything that came from a critter that had a mom. Meat, eggs, milk, cheese, and honey are no longer on the menu. Theres also a hard pass on animal-derived ingredients, such as gelatin and carmine. Dont worryI promise there will still be plenty of mouthwatering foods from the plant kingdom to eat!
FOR YOURSELF
There are countless studies that show the health benefits of ditching animal-based products. It could be because vegan food doesnt contain any of the nasty stuff thats found in meat, like saturated fat and cholesterol. Or it might be because plant-based foods are loaded with the good things our bodies need to thrive, such as fiber, vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients. Its most likely a combo of both.
