Gena Hamshaw - Food52 Vegan: 60 Vegetable-Driven Recipes for Any Kitchen

When it comes to cooking and eating, we subscribe to the credo of eat everything, and in moderation. And if were being honest, we tend to bristle at any regimen that hinges on the rejection of an entire classor classesof food. Part of this is due to our upbringing, part to our past experiences as adventurous eaters and food writers, and part to our beliefs about what it means to eat healthily.

They say that as you get older you become more strident in your convictions, but we like to think this is an area where weve loosened up a little. In particular, we were wary of vegan cooking until not too long ago. When Genas column, the New Veganism, first launched on Food52.com in 2012, it was with a primer on veganism and an accompanying recipe for raw kale salad with lentils and apricot vinaigrette.

Clean and almost spare, Genas style ran in complete opposition to the loving embrace we gave to cream and butter and crme frachenot to mention steakfor so long. And this was a stance that our audience loved us for, so we were unsure of how our readers would take a vegan column.

But Genas tolerant and graceful presentation of vegan cooking (and her use of real, seasonal ingredients) made converts of us all, and the column became one of our most widely read. This proved that our readers, like us, were not only willing but eager to let go of their preconceived notions and come along for the ridewhether they ate vegan all the time, or only for Meatless Mondays, or just liked eating more vegetable-driven dishes (or just more of Genas dishes, because theyre great).

We love that Genas angle isnt always look, you can make this, and its vegan. Her column champions the enthusiasm shared by the entire Food52 community for the act of coming together around food and cooking. And she has an innate sense of what people actually want to eat.

Genas recipes are often standouts at our photo shoots. Her Date Nut Bread ().

Even our most skeptical editors have now become the sort of people who keep a block of tofu in their fridges at all timesalthough that fridge may also contain anchovies or bacon or cheese or eggs. Or all five at once.

Over time, Gena has introduced us to things like nutritional yeast and cashew cheese and made them feel like new, exciting additions to our kitchens, rather than weird vegan substitutions. She was the first person to write about tempeh on the site. And now its not so weird anymore.

Eating vegan is, at its best, less a rejection of certain foods and more an embrace of foods that are bright and flavorfulas a bonus, theyre simply healthy for you, too. As Gena shows us, challenging yourself to think more expansively about these ingredients is gratifying for any cook, and will forever change the landscape of your kitchen.

Amanda Hesser & Merrill Stubbs

Introduction

At its heart, vegan food is just food . In the last few years, veganism has emerged from the special diet shadows and begun to take a rightful place on a wide range of dinner tables. The idea that vegan dishes belong in a separate castea caste populated by strange specialty ingredients, meat substitutes, and bland flavorssimply isnt true. If you like stir-fried brown rice and hearty curries at dinner, quinoa salads at lunch, or a stack of fluffy pancakes in the morning, then you already know and love vegan food. It is creative, satisfying, and colorful, and it offers tremendous possibility to the home cook.

This is the premise on which my New Veganism column on Food52 was builtthe idea that vegan cuisine can be celebrated not as a set of replacements or alternatives, but as an assemblage of vibrant recipes that happen to exclude animal products. Since I started writing it two years ago, the New Veganism column has presented bold pasta dishes, hearty stews, ingenious bean burgers, nourishing whole grains, innovative salads, and rich desserts. The recipes are appealing because theyre good food, plain and simple, not because they fit a label. The column also explains techniques that are helpful to vegan cooks and omnivores alike, such as making cashew cream for rich, dairy-free soups and pasta sauces; using nutritional yeast to add umami to fresh pesto; or adding avocado to smoothies for a rich, creamy texture.

This book expands upon the column that inspired it. Its a celebration of the culinary versatility of plant foods: vegetables, fruits, grains, legumes, nuts, and seeds. The recipes I share are modern and bright. The food will be light and fresh, but it wont feel like health food (though it is, of course, healthful). This is food you can make for yourself or share with friends and family. And its food that you and your loved ones will relish eating.

In these pages, youll find sixty recipes, along with many kitchen confidence tipslittle tidbits of guidance that can help you become more adept and skillful at preparing dishes free of meat, eggs, and dairy products. I hope the book will enrich your meatless repertoire and sparkor rekindlea love affair with vegetables.

Enjoy!

Vegan 101

Throughout this book, youll find occasional tidbits and tips at the end of the recipes. Taken together, these notes serve as my Vegan 101 intro coursethey are the essential techniques and insider knowledge that I think youll need to become a more confident vegan cook. These tips cover everything from ingredient sourcing to cooking methods, and my hope is that theyll complement and enhance the recipes.

GETTING TO KNOW SOME VEGAN STAPLES

CHOOSING VEGAN INGREDIENTS

ESSENTIAL TECHNIQUES

TRICKS OF THE TRADE