The Plant-Based College Cookbook

[annieb123]

Originally published on my blog: Nonstop Reader.

The Plant-Based College Cookbook is a nice tutorial cooking guide and recipe collection for plant based simple cooking on a budget. Due out 18th Aug 2020 from from Simon & Schuster on their Adams Media imprint, it's 240 pages and will be available in paperback and ebook formats.
This is a nice lacto-ovo-vegetarian cookbook for basic/beginning cooks with a busy schedule and a generally tight budget. The layout is very basic and unfussy - easy to understand and accessible. The recipes are arranged by category: breakfast, snacks, sandwiches & salads, soups, main dishes, desserts & drinks, and staple recipes (used in other recipes). Many of these are -hearty- dinner dishes that even my meat loving family really devoured (without complaining).

Ingredient measurements are supplied in American measurements only. There's a conversion chart for metric measures in the appendices along with an abbreviated glossary, and an index. Nutritional information includes calories, fat, sodium, fiber, carbs, sugar, and protein. Extra tips or recipe alternatives are listed in sidebars with the recipes. The recipes themselves are fairly straightforward and are made with easily sourced ingredients. Many are very simple, none of them are overly complex.

The photography is not abundant; most of the recipes are not illustrated, but the photographs which are included are clear and well done. I wish there had been more photographs and serving suggestions, but I do understand that extra photography increases the price of book projects very quickly.

This is a large collection of recipes and even allowing for the fact that some of them are very similar to others in the same category, this will keep vegetarian cooking fans going for ages. These are simple "everyday" recipes which are anything but boring. We tried several dishes and all of them were tasty and well written. (We didn't try any of the bread or dessert recipes, but I found no glaring errors with a quick read-through).

We're definitely going to try more of these recipes. Well written book, tasty recipes.

Four stars. This is a solid recipe book which will be used. It would make a superlative housewarming gift to a friend or family member living on their own - college student, new graduate, newlyweds, kids flying the nest, etc.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.