McDonald - Vegan Comfort Cooking: 75 Plant-Based Recipes to Satisfy Cravings and Warm Your Soul

Creator of A Virtual Vegan

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All of you who make my recipes and feed them to your loved ones, all of you who share my recipes with your friends or on social media, and all of you who have supported me in this crazy adventure. Without you my little blog would never have grown into what it is today and I would not be writing this book. It is a testament to the fact that you should always follow your dreams, because you never know where they will take you.

My passion for creating recipes is something I didnt know existed until I started my blog, A Virtual Vegan, four years ago. I love how my recipes and website draw people together through a common interest in cooking, eating amazing food and living a kind and compassionate life.

How did it all begin? I came to the realization one day that how I was living my life was very wrong.

I remember the day it finally dawned on me clearly. I was at a farm show and I was petting the most beautiful, friendly cow through a fence when over the loudspeaker I heard that he was being auctioned off and would be slaughtered after the show.

Like most people, I was so detached from the reality of where meat actually comes from, that how it gets to the shelf in the grocery store had never really crossed my mind before. The reality suddenly hit me and I turned to my husband and told him that I would never eat meat again. I thought I would become vegetarian. Then the day after, I started to research the dairy and egg industriesand the effect animal products have on our healthand fell into a rabbit hole of horror. I had been living in blissful ignorance my entire life and what I learned shocked me to the core.

I became vegan immediately and, as someone who loves her food, soon realized that there was a real shortage of amazing, flavorful recipes that were as good as nonvegan ones. There was no way my greedy self was going to live life eating disappointing food, and having always loved to cook, I knew I could do better myself.

So, I decided to start a blog to share my own creations. I had no idea what I was doing, and some of my first blog posts and photographs will attest to that, but gradually people started coming regardless and they stuck around and multiplied into the millions that visit every year now. You may be one of those readers, and if so, it is you, your support and your love of my recipes that made this cookbook happen. And, wow, I could not be more grateful. I am getting to do something I truly love as my job: I get to make people happy through food every single day, and I help make a compassionate way of living just as damn tasty as an uncompassionate one. I am so incredibly humbled by this whole experience.

What will you find in this cookbook?

Comfort food! Which, in my opinion, is the best type of food and what I always want to eat. Were talking amazingly tasty, stick-to-your-ribs comfort cooking that will leave you and your family feeling totally satisfied.

There are breakfast and brunch recipes, entres, snacks and appetizers and, of course, plenty of desserts and yummy baked things. All the recipes are vegan by default but they can and will be enjoyed by everyone, vegan or not.

If, like me in the early days, you have tried other vegan recipes and felt a little let down, then you have arrived in the right place. Im sorry that you may have had to trawl through some not so good or just average recipes to get here, but without them, this book and my blog might not exist. They were, and still are, my motivation for producing the recipes I do.

I stand by a meme I saw recently that said there should be a refund on calories for things that dont taste as good as expected. Nothing is more disappointing, and it wont be happening on my watch.

Eating vegan food does not mean that you have to give up all your favorite things, and it does not mean that you have to sacrifice flavor or results. You just need to find yourself some damn good recipes.

The good news is that your search is over. Those damn good recipes are here between these covers. I have written this book for you to ensure that your good food drought is over. You will be having your cake and eating it from here on in.

My mission from day one has been to make vegan food that is just as good as its nonvegan equivalent. It has to be good as Im the only vegan in my family. If they eat my vegan food and love it, it makes the cut. If not, then you wont find it on my blog or in this book. I never sacrifice taste to make something vegan. The same can be said for any of my recipes that happen to be oil-free or gluten-free. If its here, its because it has earned its spot, got my familys approval and is seriously yum!

It doesnt stop there, though. Once the recipes have made it past my family, they go on to be tested by my team of amazing recipe testers so that I can be confident they can work as well as possible in kitchens other than mine. Every single recipe is the best it can be and has been developed with depth of flavor in mind. Each individual ingredient plays a part and is important in its own way. Because of this, I recommend that you do not make substitutions for any of the ingredients the first time you make the recipes, unless I specifically state alternatives. By all means, once you have tried a recipe as written, tweak it slightly to suit your tastes, but if you omit or significantly change the listed ingredients, you will likely not get the best results.

Wherever I can, I give instructions on how to make my recipes oil-free because I know many people like to cook that way. However, I will only omit the oil or give alternatives if it doesnt take away from the outcome of the recipe.

Alternatives to oil might be aquafaba (chickpea liquid), nut butter or maybe even water for sauting (it works surprisingly well!). Some recipes just will not work, or wont be anywhere near as good, if no oil is used, so in those no alternatives are given.

Before getting started, I encourage you to read the entire recipe, including the tips, just in case something needs preparing in advance, or there are components that can be premade up to a few days ahead to make your mealtimes or entertaining easier.

I also highly recommend that you use a digital kitchen scale to weigh ingredients, particularly with recipes that involve flour. You can pick one up for under $10 and it will last for years and years. If you really must use cups, then always spoon flour into the cups, then level off the top with a knife without compacting it or shaking it down into the cup. This will make things a little more consistent and more in line with my measurements. Do not scoop the flour up into the cup, as when you do this, you will end up using much more than was intended and things wont turn out as well as they should.