ethiopian

When Tami, over at Vegan Appetite and author of American Vegan Kitchen, posted a contest for PaPa Tofu Loves Ethiopian Food, I knew there was no way I was going to wait to just lose in the contest, so I hurried over to Kittee's blog to grab her zine. Besides, I knew I was going to have to have it, so I didn't want to take the chance away from someone else.

I love, love, love Ethiopian food and the complete lack of a vegan cookbook on the topic was depressing. Until this little zine came along.

She covers how to throw your own Ethiopia food party and gives you all the essential recipes to start cooking your Badookie off. 

She has a gluten-free injera, (flat-bread), recipe, the niter kibbeh, (flavorful cooking fat), recipe and a berbere paste recipe. It's all here to get you started. 

I made the injera, niter kibbeh (you can't skip it), dinich siquar allecha (sweet potatoes), ye'miser w'et (red lentils in spicy stew), and ye'takelt w'et (mixed vegetables in spicy stew). It was all amazing! The two w'ets used the same red spicy gravy, but they were still distinct enough that they were able to stand on their own. 

All vegan, all Ethiopian and all gluten-free. And leftovers? Just as amazing. But, like Kittee says, don't even entertain for a second to have it with rice. Although I've erred in the past regarding this, I now concur.

Dinich Siquar Allecha (Sweet Potatoes)

Ye'Takelt W'et (Mixed Veg in Spicy Gravy)

Ye'miser W'et (Red Lentils in Spicy Gravy) with Selata (Salad)

peruvian stew with walnut and pepper sauce

With the New Year so close, I thought I would dig into my new cookbook collection and give a sample of a few of them, especially if you are new to veganism. 

As you must know, one of my absolute favorite authors is Bryanna Clark Grogan. No surprise, I am sure that she is a favorite among many of you as well, being such a pioneer in vegan cooking as far as I am concerned. She was one of the first ones who made vegan delicious for me and introduced me to many techniques to make vegan successful. 

A few of my first books were:

 Simply Heavenly  by George Burke - yes, I still own my one copy that I was lucky enough to buy before it went out of print again. Simply Heavenly was my first successful introduction to seitan. 

New Farm Vegetarian Cookbook by Hagler and Bates, with their simple and rustic recipes. It is a perfect segue into veganism. 

Then came Bryanna, and I knew for the first time that year that our family was going to be okay.

Since then, Robin Robertson, Tami Noyes and Isa Chandra are among my super stars of cooking. You really can't go wrong with any of them. 

New Year, New You, and no excuses.

My first cookbook in my international week line-up is Bryanna's new one - World Vegan Feast.  The first thing I noticed about this book is that she has ingeniously included some (most?) of the recipes from her Vegan Feast Newsletter. Love it! 

I made the first international (aren't they all that, though??) recipe that jumped out at me, Peruvian Stew with Pepper and Walnut Sauce, mainly because it uses aji pepper paste. I have 25 pounds of dried aji peppers and love using them simply anyway it is remotely appropriate. 

This dish was delicious and unusual! It makes a lot of sauce and I advise you to double the potatoes in the recipe. We still have some of the sauce left over - which isn't a problem if you can make more potatoes right away, however, at the dinner table, it is not so optimal. Trust me, make extra.

The sauce is beautifully thickened, flavorful with walnuts and parm cheese (recipe is in the book). This is poured over Crispy Tofu and boiled potatoes. I roasted my potatoes, but that is totally optional and more than likely not at all authentic. 

This and 197 other recipes await you.