Customer Reviews

How It All Vegan! Irresistible Recipes for an Animal-Free Diet

5 star:		(77)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Self-described "lazy vegetarians" Sarah Barnard and Sarah Kramer are two long-time friends who decided to "go vegan" as a result of their love of animals. Together they have collaborated to bring aspiring vegetarians How It All Vegan!: Irresistible Recipes For An Animal-Free Diet in order to help them make the transition from a meat-based to a meatless diet. The recipes include entrees, soups, sauces, breads, salads, and desserts which can provide the makings of terrific menus for any and all occasions. From Sparkling Homemade Ginger Ale; Garlic Dill Cream Cheese; and Stuffed Spaghetti Squash; to Maple Buttersque Icing; Zesty Cheese Spread; and Spiced Chai Tea, How It All Began is completely "kitchen cook friendly" and is additionally enhanced with vegan friendly recipes for cosmetics, hair products, pet treats, and even household cleaners.

How highly you will rate this book depends on where you are coming from. I bought this book because having tried to be vegetarian twice I knew that I become overly dependent on cheese and eggs when I stop eating meat. My husband once said that he never knew a vegetarian that never ate vegetables! So this time I thought I'd try finding whole meals that were based on real food and seeing if I couldn't crowd out my SAD diet with better meals. Overall, I find the recepies easy, inexpensive (although I think Braggs is pricy), and interesting enough that I plan on trying many of them, though I don't think there are enough main dish meals for this to be an only cookbook. Those that are long time vegans will not be surprised by most of the content but those that are new and looking for something a bit more introductory may enjoy this as much as I do. I always adjust recepies to my taste anyway so if some of these are not spicy enough, that's fine with me because it leaves room for improv. I don't understand why there are recepies for "milks" that only make two cups, who would go though all that bother to make two cups of milk? At the same time, as a egg replacer the flax eggs in the back of the book tells you how to make up 6 eggs worth at once but in the front mentions what it takes to make just one egg's worth but not how (that info should be together). It is so quick and easy to make up just one or two "eggs" from flax, I would never make them days in advance. As far as the design of the book, it is cute and there is great value to the idea of displaying vegan dishes in a 50's syle pearls and shirtwaist dress way, it promotes vegan dishes as being, well, non-weird and wholesome (which they are, of course.) However, if they wouldn't have used any of the photos of women cooking for men since there weren't any of men cooking for women it would have been much better. Also the typeface chosen for the recepie titles is hard to read (k's look like h's). The lack of an index is bad too, but I'm not the first to say it. And does the photo of the lovely authors with their piercings "go with" that 50's theme? Not quite (but they do look so friendly.) Really though, I think the book is extremely helpful, useful, and I will get much more of my money out of it than many other cookbooks. Thank you Ms. Barnard and Ms. Kramer!

I have never been very skilled in the kitchen. I have picked up any number of cookbooks, and been immediately overwhelmed by the crazy-long lists of ingredients, oddball ingredients I knew I'd never use again, skipped steps where they just assume you know how to poach things or similar, and complex and involved directions. For more years than I care to admit (I'm in my 30's), this has caused me to put the book down and once again postpone learning to cook. And the times when I tried anyway I have cooked up some serious disasters. I can't even express how embarrassing this all is.

After going vegan, I thought I was first going to have to learn how to do all the cooking processes I never learned, and then learn how to modify everything to make it vegan. So I knew I should do it but dreaded the process even more.

This book is full of simple but delicious recipes. It assumes nothing and gives you detailed instructions starting with the very basics. The ingredients are mostly common stuff like baking powder, apple sauce, and similar... the only exception I can think of being nutritional yeast, which is still a common ingredient when it comes to vegan dishes and easily found at most health food stores. There's a wide variety of recipes in there but I found that if I stocked up on some core ingredients, I had a base from which I could make a good portion of the dishes on a whim, without making a special trip to the market for needed items.

For the first time in my life, I am making yummy food at home, from scratch, without assistance! I am proving to myself and others that I can cook after all. And I've learned that you don't need prior cooking knowledge - you can learn to cook vegan to begin with, and then you won't have to un-learn anything else.

This book has helped me immensely, and really changed the way I think about cooking and being vegan.

I now have the whole trilogy of Sarah Kramer's books (and consequently the duo that Tanya Barnard co-wrote) and this one is the cookbook of the three that I always go back to. The chili recipe is to die for! If you only want to get one of the trilogy (though I recommend you get them all!), this is the one you should get.

This book is great!!It has tons of great recipes for making everything!!!It makes it so much easier to be a vegetarian or vegan for sure!! Sarah ROCKS!!!

Sarah Kramer's vegan cookbooks are the best darn cookbooks ever.. period. This will make living vegan easy, fun and rewarding. The recipes are practical, creative and yummy!! Please buy this book and take the next step to becoming vegan. You will detoxify your body and help the earth and animals greatly, and be all around happier and healthier!

A real breakthough of a cookbook. It is simple and fun! I hope Sarah Kramer's book convinces lots of people to go vegan (who wouldn't.. you are detoxifying your body and helping the earth and animals, especially now that there are amazing guides like this!!) The recipes are both practical and creative.. and very yummy!! Please, get all the cookbooks by this author (The third is out now!) and take the next step to healthiness!

I found this book incredibly helpful. I have tried the vegan diet before and was always unsuccessful, but this book has made it so much easier. The zucchini bread rocks, as does the mashed potatoes with kale and pasta with garlic and parsley. The pancakes were difficult to make at first, but im confident that with a second try they will be perfect. I needed to change my diet for health reasons, and this book has made the transition significantly easier. Some of the items are expensive as a previous reviewer mentioned, but in my opinion, its worth the money if you're really ready to change your diet. Aslo, the other benefit to these recipes is that you could very easily substitute real eggs instead of egg substitute or milk instead of soy milk if you were having company and didnt want to serve vegan food. Truly a wonderful book!

This is one of the first books I bought about Vegan Cooking. I like that the authors are local but I have to admit that the recipes were boring and bland. Sorry! Try the Vegetarian Manifesto by Jay Fothergill!!! It's the best!! Simple and tasty!

this book was quite helpful to me when i first became vegan seven months ago. it was very nice to have something to read through to get the basic idea of how to make vegan food, when i have always been just making vegetarian food previously. it was very beneficial in getting over the initial frozenness of not knowing where to start. truthfully, though, i believe i have only used one or two recipies in this book. granted, i don't cook much and like to improvise when i do, but it has been mainly gathering dust on my shelf ever since.

the recipies often seem too simple for my more sophisticated adult tastes. however, when my boyfriend picked it up he was extremely excited and planning on using it very often (although that hasn't happened yet). i would say that the recipies are great for people who would rather put fewer ingredients into something, good for those with naturally simpler tastes, great for many younger or single guys, and probably great for those with kids. however, truthfully whenever i ponder using a recipie from this book, i find myself deciding that it just looks like it wouldn't be as interesting to my palette. don't get me wrong, i'm not a chef and don't even enjoy cooking much, i just like to have interesting and different things when i cook for myself (yes, i love gourmet food), and i'd rather cut up and throw in one or two more items real quick than call it quits when i've done the minimum to make the recipie work.

however!
this book is a great resource for ideas on how to make natural homemade house cleaning and body products, etc. that are simple and vegan. there is a surprising variety of recipies for a wide variety of items, such as lotions, shampoo, facial masks, deodorant, bug repellant, etc. the book also contains a few animal treat recipies, and a list of 45 household and health things to do with vinegar. it has 9 pages of vegan no-nos to look for in products, things that we wouldn't necessarily recognize otherwise, along with what they are normally in and alternatives.

i really didn't like the staged old-timey pictures...they generally depicted a woman doing the household work with a smiling male counterpoint standing by and watching. however, i'm sure it was more in the spirit of trying to be old-fashioned than anything.

a book i have used more (and which i have found to be wonderful and invaluable--i am never concerned about not finding something i'd want to make) is vegan planet by robin robertson. however, how it all vegan is a really good thing to have around, too.