I was SOOO looking forward to this cookbook-after all the good reviews. My youngest daughter is allergic to milk products-and I am vegetarian... so, I am in search of good non-milk, vegetarian dishes that my meat-eating, more traditional meals, husband would enjoy so that I don't have to make 2 or 3 different meals for every dinner. Admittedly, I only made one recipe-a desert-which came out ok-although the rum SURE was the MAIN ingredient, taste-wise-not really a family desert. Then, I started looking through the book-and couldn't find any entrees that I thought he'd enjoy-I thought I'd really like them, but the recipes are not for the unadventurous.

The OTHER thing I realized, which is why the title of my review, is that she periodically uses profanity. It is not on ALL of the pages and is only in some of the descriptions. However, I was not expecting a cookbook to include such words-and I am not comfortable having a book like that in the house as my children are beginning to learn how to read-and enjoy reading my cookbooks. That is NOT where I want them to hear those words. What a shame. I would have kept the book around, if it hadn't been for that. At least I would have had some variety for my husband to eat-even if they weren't his favorite dishes. So... I am still looking for a good vegan cookbook for the whole family. This was NOT it.

This was a gift for someone, but the recipes looked great and it came really fast. Thanks!

(And one of the other top ones is her newer book, The Veganomicon)

I found Vegan with a Vengeance at my local Waldenbooks in podunk town, Okla. I was so shocked that they had it, I bought it (trying to create demand here, you know?) It's one of the best purchases I've made in my young vegan life.

I found the recipes wonderfully easy to make, and easy to find the ingredients for, even in a small Oklahoma town (with occasional trips for specialty items to the health food store about an hour away, but only if I was going in that direction anyway). I love her pancake recipe ... it's one of the easiest vegan pancake recipes I've ever found. Her scrambled tofu recipe is also great ... I was loathe to abandon my own tried and true scrambled tofu, but I decided to give hers a try and haven't looked back. The pumpkin-chocolate chip cookies are also awesome. I was skeptical about the "fronch" toast, because I loved me some french toast back in the (nonvegan) day. I was pleasantly surprised. It's not totally like the real thing, but it looks convincing and it tastes pretty awesome in its own right.

All in all, I liked that these were actual real recipes of actual real food that actual real people eat. Five stars!

I purchased this book for my 4 y.o. who is allergic to dairy and eggs. I've made the "fronch" toast (that's what the author calls it), pancakes, muffins, cookies, and he hasn't liked anything I've made from this book so far. Both of the gravy recipes weren't even edible; the "punk rock" chickpea gravy was sour and all I could taste in the miso gravy was the cooking wine. Every recipe I've tried took me at least 1 and 1/2 hour prepare (and that's not including all the shopping). Most of the recipes call for at least 10 ingredients, many of which are not available in my neighborhood grocery store in Philadelphia. In order to make several dishes from this book I had to make separate trips around the city. I purchased at least 11 spices from an Indian market (~$30) and specialty foods from the Asian market and health food store that I will probably never use again (eg. nutritional yeast and hijiki). There are no pictures for these uncommon ingredients and there are only 10 pictures of the finished dishes. What there is a lot of in this book is personal anecdotes and jokes which were more annoying than amusing because it seems more time was spent on trying to be witty rather than providing decent recipes. I've had more luck with vegan recipes I found off the internet or by just using the vegan alternative in tried and true recipes.

Really interesting recipes....her Isa pizza (best pesto and marinara sauce i have ever had) and mango rolls are delish. However, the recipes are all fairly time consuming and i did sometimes wish she used more nutritious ingredients (whole wheat flour vs. white, etc). However, she is very entertaining and the cookbook is a testimony to her amazing journey as a vegan...

I've tried a good deal of the recipes in this book and my family has loved almost all of them. I especially love the cookies and muffins! Some of the meals are a bit too "hippie" for my liking but the concepts are great.

My only complaint with this authors books is the use of products that are somewhat hard to find (or overly expensive) in rural areas.

Overall its an amazing addition to even the non-vegans cook book collection. I love so many of the recipes and use them all the time! It has a great lay-out, nice pictures, its easy to read, and the recipes are practically "dummy proof".

This is a good book for us Vegans. She has done a great job developing baking recipies that are yummy!

I have not starting making the main dishes yet, but so far everything is really good.

I really like this cookbook--everything I have tried in it has come out the way it is supposed to, in large part due to the helpful comments in each recipe. I have not been let down by anything in this book and I love that the book includes cookies and desserts, muffins, and waffles, as well as savory meals. Our favorites include the pumpkin muffins and waffles, pad thai, morrocan dinner, tofu frittata and the incredible pumpkin, oatmeal raisin cookies. My only gripe is that maple syrup seems to be the secret ingredient in most everything in here, but hey, it seems to work!

Isa Chandra Moskowitz, Vegan with a Vengeance: Over 150 Cheap, Delicious, Animal-Free Recipes that Rock (Avalon, 2005)

I think a new rule of thumb is called for here: never trust any book whose title contains the phrase "with a vengeance" whose author promises-- after a ranting, raving foreword by Ryan MacMichael-- at the end of page one that "the heavy-handedness ends here." Because I guarantee you, folks, that just isn't true. It's certainly not true in this case; As the book progresses, you will find yourselves reading propaganda for Food Not Bombs, cutesy asides on the evils of corporate America, etc. etc. ad nauseam. Pretty much what you'd expect from a book whose foreword contains the sentence "Eating is a moral act or a political statement, depending on whom you ask." (I'll give MacMichael credit, at least, for the "whom", and Avalon credit for not changing it.)

Which is kinda too bad. If you can stuff down your inherent loathing for such things, there are some great recipes to be found here. I can't knock any cookbook that contains a falafel recipe. Everyone should know how to make falafel correctly, and there are maybe fifty people on the planet who do. (They mostly work for really expensive restaurants.) You can end your ignorance on page 98 of this book. (Oh, good lord, the style has rubbed off on me. I'm sorry. I'll try not to do it again.)

Unfortunately, the book does have one other big knock against it-- Moskowitz' repartee throughout is an odd mixture of cynical and cute. Sometimes it works (cf. Tricia Sullivan's Maul, which I will review once I've unburied myself from the other fifty I have to get to). Sometimes it doesn't. If you come away from this book with the former response, good. I didn't-- it grated incessantly.

But still, the recipes. I am, as I'm pretty sure you figured out from the beginning of this review, not a vegan-- I believe the familiar and much-loathed acronym stands for People Eating Tasty Animals, and wear my philosophy proudly whenever possible-- but, you know, falafel. And interesting egg/milk substitute ideas that could be invaluable to non-vegans watching their weight, for example. So bite the bullet, get it out of the library, and see if there's anything you can use. I will be quite surprised if there isn't, no matter how much of a carnivore you are. ***

I love VWAV, I especially love the vegan chocolate chip pumpkin cookies.
This book is fun, quirky and I'm a huge fan of the post punk kitchen.

Yum yum yum!! I love that so many of the recipes can be made with things you might have laying around in the cupboard!
I suppose that my only "gripe" is the proliferation of white flour, but any experienced cook can substitute whole wheat pastry flour with little effort.
YUM! What a wonderful book!

I'm a new vegan - for health reasons. I like to cook but cooking without meat and animal products has been a steep learning curve for me. This book has been a great resource for me.

These recipes are good because they taste good. I think they work because Isa comes at them from someone who likes food and is just sharing what she likes and works for her. They are not driven by a production schedule of a TV show.

The recipes are straightforward, simple, easy and cheap to make, and taste good. I recommend this as a great cook book for anyone - especially vegans.

pretty good recipes and it is easy to get the ingredients in Oklahoma. Some things in other cook books are not easy to find here. I love the ideas it also gives me tweak other recipes to make them vegan..they give a great list of ingredient substitutions.

Isa Moskowitz is a fabulous vegan chef and these recipes are a testament to her awesomeness. Every recipe I've cooked has turned out great on the first try and there are lots of recipes I still want to test. There are lots of great recipes on Isa's website as well [...]. I only wish I lived in Brooklyn so I could watch her local access cable show.

There are two negatives to this cookbook, though. The first is that the prep time and cook time are not listed at the top of each recipe-- you have to read through the text to find that information. If you're looking for something to throw together in a hurry, this can be a problem.

The second negative is the same negative I've found in other vegan/vegetarian cookbooks: some of the recipes have lots of ingredients and spices that your average grad student either doesn't have or can't afford. But that's only a problem if you're strapped for cash like me!

I love this book! Great recipes, great information and written in a fun, easy to read style.

Everything I have tried from this book has been great and that's hard to say about a lot of cookbooks.

No weird ingredients to find, no strange procedures to follow, just great tasting food.

Even meat eaters like these recipes!

I'm a huge fan of all the recipe books that Isa Chandra Moskowitz has put out. Her cookbooks are the inspiration for me to return to being vegan after a few sad years of being just vegetarian. All the recipes are delicious, all of the recipes are creative, and all of the recipes have appealed to even my non-vegan friends (which we all know it's not easy to please them when it comes to eating & actually enjoying vegan food!).

What I am most impressed with is her use of seitan in recipes. Before her recipes books, I used tofu, oh, about 100% of the time!! I never bought seitan because it was on the more expensive side, and I was too intimidated to think about MAKING my own to use in recipes. But alot of the recipes in Vegan with a Vengeance (VWAV) that looked so awesome were recipes that call for seitan & so I jumped right in, made my own seitan (well, Isa's recipe) & I will say I am now obsessed with all things seitan. Btw, I use the basic seitan recipe from her Veganomicon cookbook for any recipes in VWAV that call for seitan; I find it to be a slightly better taste than the recipe she uses in VWAV (and not as high sodium too).

The recipes from VWAV that blew me away are the Seitan-Portobello Stroganoff, the Ethiopian Seitan and Peppers with Savory Crepes, and Cold Udon Noodles with Peanut Sauce and Seitan. The other recipe that I am compelled to rave about is the Tofu Dill Salad. I cannot believe that I can now make a better Salad spread than what I used to pay lots of money for (for little quantity) at a health food store. The key to this recipe succeeding is that you HAVE to follow it exactly - don't skimp on draining the tofu for an hour, and don't skimp on refrigerating before eating. Isa has mastered her recipes - follow them & you'll be in vegan heaven!!!!!!!!

This book has had a kind of cult following from the start, but as a sturdy, everyday kind of vegan cookbook, it falls short. I've made several of the recipes with really mixed results: the basic pancakes are fabulous, the jerk seitan was so-so for all the effort it took, and the matzo balls made a horrible slurry at the bottom of the pot. I agree with the other reviewers that the desserts are too sugary; and why use all-purpose flour when you can use whole wheat pastry or spelt with the same or better results? Still, there are a lot of inventive ideas in the book, so I haven't totally given up. The black-and-white design is pretty boring, though the photos are good. The authors are funny, but I don't necessarily need comedy when I'm trying to get dinner on the table.

I seriously refer to this book daily. I've been veggie (now vegan for about a year) for 18 years and was getting a little bored with my old recipes and needed help "veganizing" things. Chandra has opened my mind to a whole new world! I can have french toast again! Can't wait to buy the Veganomicon book. You will not be dissappointed.

I don't use cookbooks much, but this is the only cookbook I couldn't live without. Every recipe I have tried in this book has been fantastic. My favorite part is that the ingredients can be found in most grocery stores and the recipes are easy to make. Don't miss the scone recipe. I had veganized my shortcake recipe that I grew up the, but the scone recipe in this cookbook blew that one out of the water. My family would rather eat the vegan scones with strawberries than go back to my regular shortcake recipe. We also love the Banana pancakes, the Fronch toast (absolutely yummy) and the Ginger Roasted Winter Vegetables. Even my meat eating/dairy loving husband liked Isa's Pizza. We did a full vegan brunch for my daughter's birthday using recipes out of this book and most of the people there were not even vegetarian. They couldn't get enough of it. Buy it!!!!

This is a great cookbook and a definite must have! I have been vegetarian for 16 years and vegan for 3. Cookbooks for me are important and I read them like a real book- envisioning the finished dish! This book reads well and made my mouth water the whole way through before I even made anything!! Some of my favorite recipes from this book are: Lemon Corn Wafles with Blueberry sauce, White Bean and Roasted Garlic soup, Olive Tomato and Millet stuffed Zucchini, Chickpea and Spinach Curry and the Chocolate Chip Cookies- which no one would EVER KNOW were vegan! If you don't have this book, you are missing out!

i really wanted to like this book. I like the author's newer book, veganomicon, which has many excellent recipes as well as information on how to cook vegetables so they come out just right. This book, unfortunately, has disappointed me numerous times, with many of the recipes just not tasting so good, if you know what i mean. I'm a health nut and former macrobiotic, so i'm open to tastes outside the mainstream. I've prepared a lot of my own vegan food, and enjoyed a great deal of vegan food in some pretty amazing restaurants that range from the informal to the fancy-schmancy. The dishes i've made out of this book are complex and time-consuming, but just not so great. (i've made about six or seven of them). I kind of wonder whether these recipes were thoroughly tested, like those in the later book were said to be. In addition, this book is vegan but not so concerned with health, and in fact it is possible to make AMAZING vegan food without the use of white flour and sugar, which the author uses rather too liberally.

This cookbook is outstanding. My wife is a vegetarian and I make her dishes from this all the time. She has loved all of them.

My daughter is a Vegan and made these "Chocolate Chip" cookies with a friend. They were crispy and delicious! That's why we bought this book.

Often when someone learns I eat a Vegan diet they will say "you don't eat meat and milk and eggs, what do you eat." And I'll respond "everything else." I'm posting this one comment in the review section for seven Vegan cookbooks because these seven cover a lot of "everything else." For several weeks I have been rotating these cookbooks-cooking a new recipe from that day's cookbook each time. And my biggest difficulty in doing this is that I now have favorites from each book that I must bypass, for now, to try a new recipe. If you think about what you eat you may find, like me, that you repeat the same dozen or so meals each week. This method of cookbook/recipe rotation has helped me break out of my menu rut. I've had a few meals flop, but the good to excellent meals have far exceeded the flops. Here's the list-all purchased from Amazon.

Vegan Success-Daffron & Byrd
Quick-fix Vegeatrian (actually vegan) Robertson
Vegan Fire & Spice-Robertson
Vega Vittles-Stepaniak
The everyday Vega-Burton
Veganomicon-Moskowitz & Romero
Vegan with a Vengeance-Moskowwitz

Good cookbook for impressing non-vegans, eating for enjoyment, picking up some great techniques. Buy that gallon-sized can of olive oil tho, you'll need it for many of the recipes in here.

For those concerned with veganism for health: I wasn't impressed on the overall theme of the book. Lots of meat-substitutes, simple carbs, sugar, and frying -- things that often contradict the concept of eating vegan for health. This is a good supplemental book, and excellent for making comfort foods, but not one to base your diet on.

I decided to hit myself where it really hurt this lent and chose to give up dairy. To help me out, a friend lent me this cook book. I quickly ordered my own copy. I've been vegetarian for over a decade but had not discovered all the wonders of completely animal free cooking that this book showed me. The recipes are easy to follow, the tips are very informative, and everything I made was delicious (I HIGHLY recommend the spannikopita). The only thing that I would have liked to see was more pictures of the end products.

Great Book! I am not Vegan but many of my friends are and i just needed a book that would help me cook for them. But after looking through the new book i found a great collection of recipes and great information. I am VERY happy with my new cook book and suggest it to everyone! Eating healthy and natural is the best way to go. Vegan Vengeance is the best book to help anyone do just that!

Virtually all the recipes in this book contain soy--soy milk, soy yogurt, soy cream, soy sauce, tamari, tofu, miso. Baked goods call for refined sugars and/or grains. The author does have a cool, quirky personality but, sorry, that's not enough for me to keep this book. Simply too many ingredients with a big health question mark over them.

This is a book that our family uses often. The pumpkin muffins are the best I've ever tasted.

Vegan cooking can be fun, affordable, easy and adventurous, all at the same time. Whether you're considering going vegan or have been vegan for ages, this book absolutely should be on your bookshelf. The recipes are straight forward and easy to follow, the ingredients are cheap and easy to track down, and you can wow your tastebuds in short order with a huge variety of common-sense, filling meals; some are vegan renditions of childhood classics, others are exotic and worldly.
This book helps to show that choosing a vegan diet is a safe, healthy and fun decision that's entirely doable for regular, every day people, especially students or those just starting out as vegan or vegetarian. This book is especially geared toward late teens and 20-something-types, as it has a bit of an edge, and functions as a sort of support mecahnism for thos who may be feeling a dose of 'vegan angst'- that singualr sensation experienced when you choose a plant-based diet in a carnivorous society.

I've adhered to a Vegan lifestyle for over four years now, and I've grown very familiar with all of the free vegan recipe websites and whatnot. NONE CAN COMPARE TO THE JOY THAT IS USIING THIS COOK BOOK! Not only is every recipe that I've made so far absolutely delicious, the recipes are fairly inexpensive. I mean, it's not like Ramen Noodle cheap or anything, but it also tastes a lot better. This book is not really for anyone planning to lose weight or anything, though, but she does teach you how to modify recipes to make them low fat. It's basically just delicious meals that work well for Vegans and non-Vegans alike! Along with the recipes you get to read little blurbs from Isa's cat (yes, her cat) who helps you understand exactly how to follow the directions, so you won't be left in the dark wondering how to "deglaze" the pan. I recommend it, if nothing else, you'll get a kick out of the little stories she throws in.

I am an experienced vegan cook and was very disappointed by this book. Nearly every recipe contains soy, every recipe is fried, baked, broiled, or boiled, and there is heavy use of refined sugar and grains. Frankly a lot of her ideas seemed ripped off from the Moosewood cookbooks.

Her claim that these are inexpensive recipes with easy to find ingredients does not ring true to me. Most recipes require a special trip to the health food store, where items are typically rather costly, at least where I live.

She does have some clever ways to make omni foods with vegan products, but since I am a vegan for health reasons, I'm not too interested in fake bacon.

I've been using this book for a couple of weeks and I've only been eating mostly vegan for a month or so. I was getting a bit tired of tomato soup and rice and bean burritos...so I picked this book up. I've never relly cooked much, but in the past couple of weeks I've cooked four of the 150 recepies several times each and I have to say that I really enjoy cooking, and vegan food is great. It's a well written book with tons of different recepies, lots of muffins, cookies, scones, and sweet stuff but also more than enough meal items to last me a lifetime, literally. I suggest you pick a copy up and enjoy!

A must if you are vegan says it all, in this book you will find great recipes that are easy to make and delicious!. I own all her books, I recommend getting them all!

I bought this book for the Black Bottom Peanut Butter Pie recipe. I didn't belive you could make it without all the usual ingredients. Not only was the pie fabulous, so was the blueberry coffee cake (Which I took to work and now am being asked to make it again and again!)
Time is a precious commodity in my life so this is a great choice for peeple on the run who want wholesome, great tasting food. Since I bought this book I have made about twenty of the recipes from it. All were simple, quick and affordable. All under an hour or so for prep and cooking.
Most ingredients available in regular supermarkets too. For anyone just making the switch to veganism or for seasoned veteran vegans, this is a great book.

I have dozens of cookbooks but VwaV is used more than any other. So many cookbooks aim too high (dishes that take hours to make and require esoteric ingredients) or too low (reliance on packaged foods) but VwaV hits the spot. Almost every recipe is tasty, nutritious and easy enough for a weekday dinner.

This book is so far from boring that I read it every night before I go to bed. I'm well entertained, well informed and well fed. Anything vegan is hard when you live in a world of fast paced fried foods and bovine byproducts. But these recipes make it easy to have delicious, affordable, and easy vegan meals. This is everyday food gone vegan made with familiar and easily accessable ingredients. The author makes herself known to the reader through personal accounts thus adding dimension to these already fantastic recipes. If you're new to veganism, 'Vegan with a Vengeance' is easy to use and a great reference book. But the recipes are creative enough to satisfy the craving of any 'seasoned' vegan. I can't say enough good things about this book- my new Vegan Bible.

I had bought two vegan cookbooks before this one. I was certain that as a vegan, I could feed myself without relying on processed foods, but I couldn't really convey how great veganism could be to anyone else. Enter Isa Chandra Moscowitz. Any time I REALLY need someone to impress someone, I make the curried sweet potato crepes from this book. I would have never believed that I could make food this incredible or desserts this rich before, even as an omnivore. I cooked my way through this entire book and emerged as a confident chef.

All the recipes in this book are great tasting--I've made about 1/2 of them so far. However, some can be a bit time consuming with many ingredients. A few ingredients are difficult to find. Some recipes are not "health food" because they have lots of sugar or white flour/pasta/rice, etc...but they sure taste great! Maybe not an everyday vegan cookbook unless you have an hour or two to cook, but great to use for entertaining. All my non-vegan coworkers are always begging for a taste of my leftovers at lunch.

These recipes are tasty and inspired! I've made 4 dishes from the book so far, and all have turned out very well. Some of the flavor combinations I've learned have been useful for cooking my own recipes as well. And the brunch dishes... I'd forgotten how indulgent breakfast could be. Others have said plenty about VWAV - I'm pretty late joining the party - but I wanted to add to the statistics. This is a definite 5 star cookbook!

Now if I could just get the "Falafel" song to the tune of "Come Dancing" out of my head...

This is by far the best vegetarian cookbook I've used. I have not had one recipe I didn't like. Since I am on a special diet for my arthritis and can only eat fish, I found this a wonderful source of information on alternative protein sources and delicious ways to cook them. It even provides internet web sites for more information on the "vegetarian" world. Try it, you will love the cookbook, even if you eat meat!

Delicious and fool proof!! We aren't vegans but my son has a severe egg allergy and I received this as a gift. We have now made at least 10 things and they are great!! We cheat a little (I use real butter and cow's milk instead of soy milk) and everything has been wonderful. The Northern Bean and roasted garlic soup has become a staple. The coconut muffins are great with and without the icing and the Chocolate chip cookies really do taste as good if not better than those with eggs.
Cannot recommend highly enough for those who are truly vegan, vegetarian or just want a great cookbook!!

Ever recipe I have made so far has been easy and amazing. I even got my carnivore relatives in on the action at Christmas. This is a must-have for anyone cutting back on animal products and also includes web reference. Isa's writing style is funny and informative, my new copy is already well-worn

My daughter is trying to introduce more vegetarian foods into her diet. Though not a vegan, or even a true vegetarian (she likes her Dad's hamburgers too much for that), she has been delighted with the book. She's made several of the dishes and even served one to company. She and her boyfriend, who doesn't like or eat vegetables regularly, loved the spinach and potato knishes. In less than a month it's already become her primary cookbook. Because of her enthusiasm I'll be ordering a copy for my cookbook library.

This was my first vegan cookbook and I love it. The recipes are simple and tasty. I recommend it to everyone considering improving their diet.

I love the recipes and the attitude, and my mom does too! Everything tastes good.

This book provides an abundance of recipes. The ginger cookies are AMAZING. The entrees are very good as well. The only draw back is that if you are trying to make something quick and easy, this is not the book for you. If you want more creative and high quality vegan food, this book is great.

When we opened our eco friendly, vegetarian bed and breakfast inn my wife searched everywhere for good vegan breakfast recipes. Luckily she found this book at our local library. Great recipes that even our non vegan guests love. We ended up buying our own copy and recommend the book to many of our guests.

Dinner recipes are great as well.

I'd read reviews on Amazon about this book, some saying it was too sugary, some saying there were too many meat substitutes, others saying the recipes had hard to find ingredients. These were all considerations I had to take into account, I live in Auckland, New Zealand which isn't the food paradise of the world. However, when my veganomicon failed to arrive in the post I was desperate for a vegan cookbook for my first vegan family christmas. Luckily there was a copy in Borders, $43.50 (ouch!) but it was a risk I was prepared to take, not wanting to go up to see the family without an armament of recipes.

The first flick through had me a bit worried. Some of the food titles were just odd, unappealing or SAD sounding. This isn't really an uncommon problem with me, I'm an incredibly fussy eater and I tend to stick to foods that I know (and the same goes for movies, music, I'm like an old shut-in man). At first I thought I'd just let it collect dust but then one of the pages got damaged and once I realised I couldn't return this insanely expensive book, I figured I'd better pull myself up by the bootstraps, kick my ideas of what I'd like to eat out the window and get cooking!

I'm really glad I did. The first recipe I made was the split pea soup, which was so easy to make and cheap too. We made lemon gem cupcakes and the consistency of these and the delicate flavour was incredible (it actually turned out better than our cupcakes take over the world cupcakes).

Elated by the success of these two recipes, we went for more. Jerk seitan? Incredible, chewy bbq goodness on the outside, soft tender yummy inside. Chickpea punk rock gravy? Absolutely incredible (and the whole family loved it). The tempeh sausages were good although there was a weird bitter taste in there occasionally which nobody else seemed to notice, I have odd tastebuds. Then the maple glazed 'taters, yummy. We had fronch toast for breakfast, tasted just like the real thing, except not as sickly.

So what are the bad points? Like I said before, some of the food titles are just odd and not that appealing. The book isn't exactly a pretty book either, the cover is just bizarre and doesn't really represent the author or vegan cooking very flatteringly in my opinion. The inner pages are a bit dull and lifeless, but in a way that's a good point because I don't care if I splash all kinds of food over it. It's a book that screams out to be splattered.

Some people mention that ingredients are hard to find. I'm a bit surprised at this because as I mentioned before, I live in a city that isn't foodtopia. We get nutritional yeast (savoury yeast) in any supermarket, not just in Auckland but up north too. Liquid smoke can be purchased from Zarbos in Newmarket. Chickpea flours can be found from Huckleberry Farms in Ellerslie or if you're near a Bin Inn you can get 3 cups of chickpea flour for only a few dollars, as well as TVP, any herbs and spices you would need, soya flours etc. I'm really mentioning this for any kiwi folks who happen to be reading. Those ingredients are out there. If you can find them in New Zealand, I'm sure you can find them anywhere else around the world.

I do agree with some reviewers that there are too many sweet recipes in here, and I don't mean that the savoury recipes are sweet, just that there are lots of scones, puddings and other eats of the same nature. At the end of the day though, I see it as a bit of a comfort food cookbook. These recipes are cheap (invest in spices, or don't cook at all), easy to make, they're filling and feed myself and my partner amply. If you don't like puddings, don't make em. If you don't like comfort food, maybe this cookbook isn't for you.

All I know is this food is opening up my horizons and makes me excited about cooking and eating. Not just me, but my partner too. It makes being vegan FUN and takes all the guess work out. Besides, why arm yourself with one cookbook? Get a whole bunch of them and mix and match healthy recipes with "I want to stuff my face like a giant truffle hunting pig" recipes. Hoorah for variety, and hoorah for Isa and Terry.

I'm really surprised this book gets so many great reviews. It just goes to show how far hype and a funny personality can take someone. I love vegan food, but hated all of the savory recipes I made from this book: the biscuits are dry and flavorless, the punk rock gravy tasted too strongly of lemon juice, the sausage crumbles were bland. The bbq tofu was okayish but I already had a much tastier recipe for it and the coconut rice was virtually flavorless. But the worst of the bunch? The veggie burgers. Weirdest thing I have ever tasted, absolutely nauseating. I threw it in the trash. Her dessert recipes ARE very good tasting, but full of sugar and fat. Personally, I prefer desserts that are a bit on the healthier side, with ingredients like whole wheat pastry flour, maple syrup and fruit sweetener. I have to agree with another reviewer who said the author needs to go to culinary school.