Veganize This!: From Surf & Turf to Ice-Cream Pie--200 Animal-Free Recipes for People Who Love to Eat

One of the struggles faced by many vegetarians, vegans, or any other person who has a restricted diet is that you can no longer eat the “comfort foods” you enjoyed earlier in your life. One of my favorite foods to eat when I was a child was beef stroganoff. I can still taste it when I think about the flavors, aromas, and even its delightfully sloppy appearance. Alas, I no longer eat red meat, so beef stroganoff is not a part of my culinary repertoire. And although I’ve made the low-rent version with mushrooms and cream sauce, the flavors and aromas that went along with this venture are just not as memorable.

The 30 Minute Vegan's Taste of the East: 150 Asian-Inspired Recipes—from Soba Noodles to Summer Rolls

The 30 Minute Vegan's Taste of the East is a compilation of recipes from India, Thailand, China, and Japan. There’s an additional section on Asian Fusion, featuring recipes from Korea, Vietnam, Indonesia, Tibet, and Nepal, as well as little known recipes from Iran and Afghanistan. Basically, this cookbook allows you to make vegan versions of your favorite Asian dishes in less time than it would take a delivery person to arrive.

Baked Explorations: Classic American Desserts Reinvented

Everything good these days seems to be coming out of Brooklyn, so I wasn’t surprised to find that Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito, authors of Baked Explorations, have a tremendously successful bakery in Brooklyn that is garnering national attention—not to mention a whole lot of love for from the food-centric blogosphere.

Ripe From Around Here

When jae steele’s Ripe From Around Here arrived, it joined a pile of vegan library books on my kitchen table. I needed inspiration and fresh ideas, and hoped one of the books would help. steele’s book was the star. These are the recipes that will become everyday favorites, and the ones that omnivores will devour, blissfully unaware that no animal products are present.

The United Cakes of America: Recipes Celebrating Every State

I’m the girl who never goes to a party empty-handed. I come bearing brownies, fudge, or cake balls for all of the guests. And every week I make my seventy-eight-year-old great uncle something decadent, and usually chocolate. He has an astounding sweet tooth, despite not having a single tooth left in his head. (Maybe it’s from all the sweets?) But, truth be told, I really dislike baking. It’s too scientific, too laborious, and feels like a chore. I much prefer the pinch-of-this, dash-of-that approach I take to cooking.

Hungry Town: A Culinary History of New Orleans, the City Where Food Is Almost Everything

I’ve had a long and passionate love affair with New Orleans, although I’ve never been there. In fifth grade, I did my state report on Louisiana, and as a bored teenager in a Los Angeles suburb where everything was bright, shiny, and new, I’d dream of spending my days in the historic French Quarter, hanging out in smoky jazz bars and eating poor boy sandwiches at cramped lunch counters.

The Vegetarian Option

In the past, Simon Hopkinson has been referred to as the best cook in Britain who nobody in the States has heard of, but I’m hoping this will soon change. After devouring The Vegetarian Option, I know the chef has a lot to offer when it comes to beautiful, simple food.

The Butcher and the Vegetarian: One Woman's Romp through a World of Men, Meat, and Moral Crisis

Food writer Tara Austen Weaver was raised in a vegetarian home since her birth. As an adult, she unexpectedly gets diagnosed with thyroid disease. What’s she to do? Fast for forty days? No. Go macrobiotic? Nope, not that either. Instead, Weaver must eat meat—by doctor’s order. So she turns to a carnivorous diet. What unfolds is part chick lit-cookbook and part treatise on farm animal rights. Weaver’s introduction to the world of animal flesh brings her into contact with many meat-industry types. Some she casts in an ethical light. These include kind butchers and organic cattle ranchers.

Vegetarian Dishes from Across the Middle East

The late Arto der Haroutunian first published this book in 1983 when how-to's for vegetarian cooking—let alone for Middle Eastern vegetarian cooking—were relatively rare in the U.S. Ahead of his time, der Haroutunian's tome of some 250 recipes laid dormant and out of print for 20 years.

Another Dinner is Possible: Recipes and Food For Thought

My interest in vegetables is quite young; around a year and half. Since this new found vegetarian interest, I’ve been looking out for recipes which are quick and involve simple ingredients so that I don’t have to run around super-market looking for all those hard to pronounce spices. At first glance, I must confess that I was disappointed with Mike and Isy’s Another Dinner Is Possible.

Quick and Easy Vegan Comfort Food: 65 Everyday Meal Ideas for Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner with Over 150 Great-tasting, Down-home Recipes

As someone who has been cooking far less time than I’d like to admit, I should explain that I’ve gotten quite skilled in the arts of chopping, mincing, and sautéing in a very short time, and I enjoy my kitchen prep time far more than I ever expected. I’m a vegan in a decidedly un-vegan land, so I had little choice when it came to learning to cook. After going vegan, the options were eat junk or go hungry. Alicia C.

Bitchin' Kitchen Cookbook: Rock Your Kitchen-And Let the Boys Clean Up the Mess

The cliché don’t judge a book by its cover doesn’t hold true in regards to the Bitchin' Kitchen Cookbook, which depicts a glistening topless guy next to a meat cleaver wielding tattooed woman wearing a beehive hairdo and a leather apron.

Vegan Brunch: Homestyle Recipes Worth Waking Up For - From Asparagus Omelets to Pumpkin Pancakes

Vegan = tofu = dreadlocks = body odor = weird. This review is not about debunking the vegan stereotype equation, and all its variations, but rather about introducing the equal opportunity indulgence: brunch. In a first read through, Isa Chandra Moskowitz's cookbook Vegan Brunch is nearly perfect.

O, The Oprah Magazine Cookbook

Cooking with O, The Oprah Magazine Cookbook is an exploration of taste. The cookbook is arranged by the type of food—salads and appetizers, drinks, desserts, meats, vegetables—and the recipes come from a series of chefs who have contributed their favorites. Colorful photos and commentary from the chefs accompany the recipes. Unlike other cookbooks, there is no clear theme here.