A former steak lover himself, Chef Tal struggled for years on a vegan diet that left him hungry and filled with cravings for butter and meat. By applying traditional French culinary techniques to meatless cuisine, he found that he could gratify his cravings for rich flavor and fat.
The Conscious Cook shows readers that avoiding the health risks and ethical dilemmas of eating meat and dairy does not mean sacrificing taste and appetite. This is not a cookbook of sprouts and tofu burgers, but of mouth-watering, hearty meals that keep the protein at the center of your plate. Featuring 75 original recipes that will satisfy the fussiest foodies and the most dedicated of carnivores, The Conscious Cook is a breakthrough in meatless cuisine that will revolutionize the way readers experience food.

This is an extremely sincere high-end vegan cookbook. In the past, vegan cookbooks produced average to sub-average results and include recipes that involve either mixing vegetables (cooked or raw) in various combinations, using frozen pie dough and wonton skins in a couple obvious ways, and simplistic tofu/tempeh recipes that don’t taste very good.

This book is more comprehensive than the other because it goes gives vegan chef bios (many of them vanguard and brilliant)and important vegan restaurant history as well as rationale for eating vegan and ways to use new-to-newish vegan ingredients, such as Gardein (vegan “meat” products; chicken breasts, chicken strips, and beef strips), Earth Balance (vegan butter in solid form), Vegannnise (vegan mayo), Field Roast Italian Style seitan sausages, New Chapter All-Flora probiotic capsules (to culture homemade cashew or macadamia cheese and give it a sharp flavor), tempeh bacon, precooked udon noodles, vegan mozzarella, etc. Also, for people who haven’t cooked vegan, recipes are included for ingredients for more involved recipes such as cashew butter, hazelnut milk, Asian slaw, the use of ground flaxseed in baked goods as a substitute for eggs, and new ones such as chipolte cream and tofu ricotto.
For those who haven’t cooked vegan or vegetarian, this book will give you contemporary “how-to” that will make your first efforts worthy endeavors and bring your skills to produce multi-level and exotic flavors quickly. No oddball vegan results here. Working from this book is cooking with vegan master chefs, you really can’t go wrong. It is the sort of book beginners should cook their way through. By the time they get to the last page, they will be a master vegan cook with a sophisticated repetoire… a very nice endeavor indeed.

Related Books:

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2. The Art of Simple Food: Notes, Lessons, and Recipes from a Delicious Revolution – By Alice Waters
3. Eat This, Not That! Thousands of Simple Food Swaps that Can Save You 10, 20, 30 Pounds–or More! – By David Zinczenko
4. Diners, Drive-ins and Dives: An All-American Road Trip . . . with Recipes! (Food Network) – By Guy Fieri
5. The Instinct Diet: Use Your Five Food Instincts to Lose Weight and Keep it Off – By Susan B. Roberts Ph.D
6. Naturally Thin: Unleash Your SkinnyGirl and Free Yourself from a Lifetime of Dieting – By Bethenny Frankel