Practically Vegan: More Than 100 Easy, Delicious Vegan Dinners on a Budget: A Cookbook

by Nisha Melvani

Overview

More than 100 delicious, easy, and colorful vegan dinners on a budget from the founder of the massive social media platform Cooking for Peanuts, with a foreword by Jonathan Safran Foer.

Nisha Melvani appreciates that it's hard for many people to commit to being 100% vegan. But committing to one vegan meal a day—dinner—is much more feasible. For those trying to incorporate more vegan meals into your diet, Practically Vegan is your go-to weeknight dinner cookbook and the perfect entry to veganism.

A registered dietitian nutritionist, Melvani offers solid, tested vegan recipes and a non-militant approach for those wanting to eat less meat. Plant-based cooking will no longer feel intimidating with easy-to-find ingredients that you will use in the kitchen over and over again. Inspired by the flavors she was introduced to while growing up in Jamaica, England, and Canada, as well as her own Indian heritage, Melvani shares over 100 delicious recipes, including Creamy One-Pot Cheesy Broccoli Pasta Soup, Cauliflower-Sweet Potato Curry, Sesame Noodle Veggie Stir-Fry, Mushroom Bourguignon, and more, accompanied by a foreword written by bestselling author Jonathan Safran Foer, who urged Melvani to write this cookbook after feeding his family her recipes.

With easy-to-follow directions and recipe substitutions as well as culinary tips and tricks, Practically Vegan will be the helping hand you need to prepare a vegan dinner for yourself or your family with confidence.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780593233412
Publisher:	Harmony/Rodale
Publication date:	03/29/2022
Sold by:	Random House
Format:	eBook
Pages:	272
Sales rank:	301,462
File size:	57 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Of Indian origin, born in Jamaica, and educated in England and Canada, Nisha Melvani has grown up with a myriad of cultures and ingredients around her. A graduate of the Natural Gourmet Institute and a registered dietitian nutritionist, Nisha feels strongly that we can all eat healthier while still maintaining a budget. She runs the Cooking for Peanuts Instagram feed and lives in New York City with her three children.

Read an Excerpt

The Cook Behind the Book


I tried to get out of writing this chapter. I told my editor, “They’re here for the food. They don’t want to know about me!” It turns out this chapter was non-negotiable. So, if you are here for just the food, that’s totally cool. Skip ahead to Pantry Staples on page 15. That one you must read.

I’m trying to resist using the cliché “I always loved to cook.” But the thing is, I really did always love to cook, just like I loved to sew and play the piano—I sound like one of those eighteenth-century girls being primed for marriage. My story, however, is anything but romantic.

I was born and raised on the island of Jamaica by two full-time working parents. So, in reality, they didn’t really do much of the raising. It was Paulette, my awesome nanny, with whom I spent most of my time. She and I were very close, but she took no prisoners. If I was out of line, I was in big trouble. And I rarely toed the line.

It was a challenge for her to manage me. I was a capricious kid, very naughty, always wanting to try something new. Which explains why piano and sewing were eventually replaced by new ventures deemed far more interesting at the time. But cooking, that I never really did quit. Some part of me couldn’t relinquish the challenge of transforming something as mundane as white flour into a delicious, crispy pizza.

My parents didn’t cook. My mom ate because she had to. Her default foods were SPAM and “bun and cheese,” a Jamaican specialty where the bun is a dried-fruit-spiced loaf, and the cheese is packaged as Tastee Cheese. I never saw my mom eat a fruit or vegetable, besides the occasional banana and the many sides of french fries. She recently had one foot of her colon removed because it was so damaged. I’m 100 percent sure it was 100 percent caused by her no-fiber diet, though she will never admit it.

My grandma was the best cook I’ve ever known. She was constantly humming Bob Marley tunes while cooking. Her veggie dishes were so delicious that I could never understand how it was my mother did not like vegetables.

My dad’s dietary choices couldn’t have been more different from my mother’s. Not only did he embrace fruit and vegetables, but he even ate the skins of fruit that aren’t designed to be eaten. Like banana peels. He still literally eats bananas without peeling them. I tried to explain that it’s called the peel for a reason. My kids think this is the best party trick ever.

Our home meals brought these two conflicting perspectives about food to the table. There were a lot of Chef Boyardee ravioli dinners, as well as from-scratch mutton curries. (My parents are both Indian, and so curries were a mainstay for dinner.) While it’s not ideal to be raised on canned foods, having been exposed to these two extremes resulted in giving me a balanced perspective about how food can mean such different things to different people.

My palate became even more diverse when I was sent off to British boarding school at age seven. It was the Oliver Twist kind of boarding school—one where you were made to pull your socks up and were beaten (albeit gently) for crimes you never committed. Boarding school meals always had meat. A lot of meat. Meat dishes previously unfamiliar to me: steak and kidney pie, shepherd’s pie, cottage pie, liver, haggis, roast lamb, lamb chops, bangers and mash, pigs in a blanket, fish and chips. There were also lots of veggies but I wasn’t such a fan, as they tended to be overcooked until they were mush. Think overboiled Brussels sprouts and green beans like someone forgot they were still on the stove. (Maybe this is why I became so motivated to make veggies irresistibly delicious.) The food was so bad that we even had a rhyme about it. Sung to the tune of “Frère Jacques,” it went like this:

School dinners, school dinners,
Mushy peas, mushy peas,
Soggy semolina, soggy semolina,
Doctor quick, I feel sick,
It’s too late, dunnit on the plate!

Oh, and if you really, really couldn’t eat something, you had to bring in a note from your parents requesting that you be excused from eating that food. You were allowed to cancel two foods—and no more. I’m assuming everyone’s canceled food was some sort of vegetable, given how disgustingly they were prepared. My choices were beets and Brussels sprouts.

And then there was Montreal, where I went to college and enjoyed delicious French food. This didn’t happen all too often given my limited budget as a student, but whenever I had extra money at the end of the month, I would use it to eat in some fancy French restaurant and then try to re-create those gastronomic delights in my dorm kitchen.

After graduating from college and two very short careers (if you can even call them that), one as an investment banker on Wall Street and the other as a secondgrade teacher at a New York City private school, I found my way to Columbia University, where I completed a master’s degree in nutrition, while I also gave birth to three kids in three and a half years. It was at this point that I became focused on raising healthy children who would love vegetables. But I wasn’t confident in my cooking skills and wanted to get better at making creative food. And so, when my kids were old enough to brush their own teeth and wipe their own butts, I signed up for full-time culinary school at the Natural Gourmet Institute, where I spent six months cooking vegan and vegetarian recipes.

Armed with the skills and knowledge I needed, I was now on a mission to make tempeh, the least palatable vegan protein in my opinion, utterly delicious. I am happy to say that my now teenagers are adventurous eaters who enjoy eating plants. I have, over time, learned how to make veggies, tofu, tempeh, beans, lentils—you name it—palatable to children and adults alike, without spending hours in the kitchen, and for cheap.

It was from a want of sharing these ideas with others that I started my Instagram feed, cookingforpeanuts. The success of this feed made me realize how many people are interested in eating this way, and so, when my friend Jonathan Safran Foer suggested I write a cookbook, I went for it.

I set out to create a cookbook filled with vegan dinners that everyone would enjoy with limited, easy-to-find ingredients. Every recipe should be inexpensive, simple, and practical. But they should also use quality ingredients and be sophisticated in their own right.

After making these recipes over and over again, you will become culinary chemists, meaning you will feel confident experimenting with ingredients you have on hand to spontaneously create your own delicious recipes. Plant-based cooking will no longer feel intimidating. Quite the opposite. It will seem ridiculously easy.

I assure you that this book is neither about trying to convince you to become vegan nor about ostracizing those of you who enjoy eating meat. It’s really a guide for those who are trying to eat more plant-based meals and are looking for nonintimidating recipes that are flavorful with affordable, pantry-friendly ingredients that are used over and over again and not left to gather dust on your shelves.

I hope you enjoy making these recipes as much as I enjoyed creating them. Good luck on your plant-based journey.

Nisha

Table of Contents

Foreword: HELP IS ON THE WAY 8

Introduction: The Cook Behind the Book 11

Pantry Staples 15

Kitchen Essentials 30

Techniques & Tips 34

Chapter 1 Pasta

Lentil Bolognese 45

Tofu Bolognese 47

Sneaky Veggie Pasta 49

Creamy One-Pot Cheesy Broccoli Pasta Soup 50

One-Pot Nut-Free Creamy Spaghetti 53

Sun-Dried Tomato Hummus Pasta 54

Mushroom Tahini Pasta 56

Tomato Zucchini Pasta 57

Fire-Roasted Rigatoni alla Vodka 59

Creamy Corn Pasta 60

Eggplant Parmesan Meatballs 63

Chickpeas & Broccoli in Béchamel Sauce 64

Miso Sweet Potato Pasta with Sage 66

Mushroom Stroganoff 67

Pasta Alfredo with Toasted Pumpkin Seeds 69

Chapter 2 Beans & Chili

Sweet Potato Baked Beans 73

Smashed Pinto Beans with Tahini 74

Coconut Kidney Beans 77

Tahini Black Beans 78

Taco Pinto Beans in Creamy Tomato Sauce 79

BBQ Chickpeas 80

Spicy Black Bean Chili 83

Creamy Lentil & Corn Chili 85

Fire-Roasted Tempeh Chili 86

Mushroom Chili 88

Potato Bean Chili 89

Peanut Pinto Chili 92

Chapter 3 Curry

Red Lentil Go-To Curry 97

Thai Veggie Curry with Tofu 99

Simple Chickpea Masala 100

Butternut Squash Tahini Curry 102

Black Lentil Coconut Masala 103

Cauliflower-Sweet Potato Curry 105

Creamy Dal 106

Tofu Curry 108

Creamy Thai Red Curry 109

Chapter 4 Burgers & Patties

Stuff It, Wrap It, Top It

Smoky Lentil Burgers 113

"I Can't Believe It's Tofu" Burgers 114

Black Bean Corn Burgers 117

Irresistible Tempeh Sliders 118

Artichoke Pinto Burgers 121

Potato Tofu Patties 123

Chickpea Quinoa Patties 124

Cheesy Broccoli Fritters 127

Chickpea Fritters 129

Sweet Potato Falafel with Yogurt Drizzle Sauce 130

Cheesy Tofu Scramble Bagels 133

Tempeh Sweet Potato Hash Tortillas 134

Chickpea "Tuna" Salad Wraps 137

Tofu Beef Tacos 138

Chapter 5 Asian Fake-Out

Tofu Veggie Fried Rice 143

Tempeh Bacon Fried Rice 145

Sesame Noodle Veggie Stir-Fry 146

Sweet & Spicy Cauliflower Wings 148

Chickpea Bell Pepper Stir-Fry 151

Miso Eggplant Steaks with Spicy Peanut Noodles 152

Sticky Sesame Tofu 154

Tofu Lettuce Wraps 155

Teriyaki Pulled Jackfruit Sandwich 157

Ginger Sesame Soy Curls 158

Chickpea Eggplant Stir-Fry in Peanut Sauce 161

Chapter 6 Comfort Food

Tofu & Sweet Peas in Béchamel Sauce 165

Crispy Cauliflower Steaks with Pimiento Sauce 167

Braised Jackfruit Stew 169

London Broil Tempeh with Smashed Potatoes 173

Chickpea Cashew Loaf with Ketchup 175

Chickpea & Sun-Dried Tomato Coconut Stew 176

Inverted Ratatouille 179

Chickpea Nuggets with Crispy Oven Fries 180

Sloppy Joes 185

Cauliflower, Lentil & Mushroom Stew 186

Mushroom Bourguignon 187

Chapter 7 Sides

Salads & Veggie Sides

Cabbage Slaw 191

Mediterranean-Inspired Salad 192

Kale Caesar Salad with Chickpeas 195

Asian-Inspired Crunchy Salad with Sesame Ginger Dressing 196

Roasted Broccoli or Cauliflower Bites 197

Sheet Pan Veggies with Tahini Dijon Dressing 198

Garlicky Kale 201

Sautéed Asparagus with Garlic "Facon" 202

Creamy Miso Cauliflower 205

Coconut-Battered Cauliflower Steaks 206

Roasted Carrots in Garlic-Chili Oil with Crunchy Pepitas 207

Maple Soy Green Beans 208

Brussels Alfredo with Toasted Bread Crumbs 210

Protein Sides

Easy Cheesy Nooch-Crusted Tofu 211

Crispy Baked Tofu Cubes 213

Cornflake-Crusted Tofu 214

Crispy Tofu Cutlets 217

Soy Curls 218

Tempeh Nuggets 219

Tempeh Bacon 221

Chickpea Croutons 222

Potato Sides & Starchy Sides

Tangy Potato Salad 223

Perfectly Crisp Roasted Baby Potatoes 224

Smashed Potatoes 227

Crispy Top Potato Rounds 229

Deliciously Dressed Roasted Potatoes 230

Roasted Sweet Potato Chunks 231

Baked Sweet Potato 232

Coconut-Infused Sweet Potato Rounds 234

Garlicky Rice 235

Coconut Quinoa 235

Lemony Cauliflower Rice 237

Spicy Peanut Miso Noodles 238

Cheesy Savory Pancakes 239

Sesame Garlic Ramen Noodles 240

Pita Chips 243

Cornbread Mug Cake 244

Chapter 8 Dips, Dressings & Sauces

Sour Cream 249

Light & Fluffy Hummus 251

Easy Guacamole 252

Cashew Cream 254

Aioli 254

Tzatziki 255

Yogurt Drizzle Sauce 255

"Tangy, Sweet & a Little Bit Cheesy" Dressing for Salads or Roasted Veggies 256

Multipurpose Dressing or Dip 257

Sesame Ginger Salad Dressing 257

Vegan Caesar Salad Dressing 258

Ranch Dressing 259

Maple Dijon Dressing 259

Tahini Dijon Dressing 260

Sweet & Spicy Dipping Sauce 260

Basic Stir-Fry Sauce 261

Hoisin Stir-Fry Sauce 261

Sesame Stir-Fry Sauce 262

Peanut Sauce 262

Sweet & Spicy Gingery Stir-Fry Sauce 263

Teriyaki Sauce 264

Ketchup 265

BBQ Sauce 265

Acknowledgments 266

Index 267

Editorial Reviews

02/01/2022

Melvani declares that "every recipe should be inexpensive, simple and practical," in this first cookbook, where she highlights a variety of vegan recipes and shares her favorite pantry staples. For Melvani, "practical" vegan cooking means always having tofu and tempeh on hand and relying on nuts and seeds for additional protein. Recipes are organized by type and feature pasta dishes, burgers, comfort food. Sides and snacks are also considered, with Melvani taking advantage of chickpeas in various ways. She also lists her favorite kitchen essentials, including a blender and a food processor, for straightforward vegan cooking. Melvani's accessible handbook has a wealth of meal ideas and should be an important addition to vegan collections (especially given the growth of this topic), since it focuses on ease-of-use in a friendly, approachable style. VERDICT A handy guide for quick and easy vegan meals.—Barbara Kundanis

Library Journal