VeganMoFo: 1,000 Vegan Recipes cookbook review

This post is part of the Vegan Month of Food - or VeganMoFo to you and me. To learn more about VeganMoFo, click here.

I really, really like 1,000 Vegan Recipes. Mainly because it's got, y'know, 1,000 vegan recipes in it. Yep, 1,000 of them.  And you know what? Most of them are really, really good.

I've had the book for the best part of a year,  yet haven't cooked an awful lot from it. I think it's the embarrassment of riches - where do you start when you've got a 1,000 recipes to choose from?

If you're those good people at the sadly now defunct Cooking from 1,000 Vegan Recipes blog, you just get stuck in and cook your way through it like a mad bastard, posting lovely photos as you go.

For me, I just thumbed my way through it, nodded approvingly and then got distracted by a flashing light or a bird singing, made a cup of tea and forgot all about it.

My other half really inspired me to pick up the recipe book again after he made a batch of falafel using one of the recipes in the book. 

I've never been able to make a decent batch of falafel at home. They turn out dry and flavourless, like like chewing on cumin-flavoured hockey pucks. I had always thought that once you became a vegan, you naturally got given the ability to make damn good falafels: like when the fairy godmothers give Sleeping Beauty a series of gifts - wit, beauty, what have you - I assumed then when I went animal-free, I would awaken a falafel maestro, discover a well of patience for the times when asked 'But how do you live without cheese?' and the power to instantly recall which wines are herbivore-friendly on a night out. Not so.

Said other half is a stranger to the kitchen. His idea of cooking is warming a tin of beans on the stove. But his falafels? Sweet as. 

I delved back into 1,000 Vegan Recipes. Turns out, some of those 1,000 are now my favourite all time recipes in their respective categories.

For example, the Mocha Sorbet - made without an ice cream maker - was nothing short of perfect. Granted, it contains two of my favourite things - chocolate and coffee  - but the balance of the two was sweetly wonderful.

An honorable mention also goes to the Spicy Chocolate Cake, which rose astoundingly.

But the gold medal goes to Baked Pasta Shells and Broccoli. Sweet mary jane, they were good - looking-on-the-face-of-your-firstborn-child good.  The cheesey sauce pressed all the right fat-savoury-oniony buttons. Sure, it was a little watery for me, but nothing a small dose of cornflour couldn't fix up.

I will be making this one again. And again. And again.

Do yourself a favour: go and buy 1,000 Vegan Recipes. You might not cook them all, but if you even get through one per cent, it'll have been worth the investment.