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VeganMoFo 2012 - Almost No Fat?
When I cook food, I tend to go the route of FatFree Vegan Kitchen, Doctor McDougall, Happy Herbivore or others along the lines of little-to-no-fat added.
I realize this can actually be a divisive issue among vegans, amazingly enough. Some are strongly opposed to omitting oil (that it is healthy and can do you good). Some are strongly opposed to any added oil ever.
Basically my leanings are from doing Weight Watchers for so many years prior. I was on a pretty low fat diet to begin with (because I could eat more of the low fat stuff and be full versus the higher fat foods). I tend to agree that added fats and oils are often unnecessary calories and don’t have a real health benefit. At the same time, I realize that some foods just do better with a little oil in them, so I will sometimes use a little (rarely more than 1/2 a tsp, though).
This brings me to my next selection (finally and at last!):
The book: The (Almost) No Fat Cookbook by Bryanna Clark Grogan
Why do you have it? It’s a low fat vegan cookbook available on Kindle. I think FatFree Vegan Kitchen may have mentioned it once. Finally, being an older cookbook, I (once again) looked for recipes that would involve virtually no pre-processed foods.Well, why hadn’t you cooked from it yet? I’d been enjoying The Starch Solution and Happy Herbivore around when I got it, and then it slipped my mind.Did you have difficulty deciding on a recipe? Not particularly, though my choice was guided by how much time I had. And my affinity towards sweet breakfast pastries.
What did you make? Though I really really really wanted to make Chickpea A La King Casserole, Egg-Free French Toast was the winner!How did the cook go? Ah, Pain Perdu… without being a pain in my patookus! This wasn’t a particularly difficult recipe to make, which is what it had going for it! It was pretty straight forward (“flour” was the only place where I hrm’d to myself, but I chose chickpea flour as it seemed most appropriate for an “eggy” taste). Odd thing, it had instructions for baking it… and I have an awesome cast-iron pan for pizzas and the like, so I thought, why not?!Did you modify? Because we know you can’t help yourself. Nope, I couldn’t! I did include a tiny, tiny pinch of turmeric and kala namak. A slightly more generous portion of cinnamon (up from none? I mean, c’mon!) than the recipe called for.
How did the eat go? Tasty and grand! I used homemade bread I made a few days ago as the toast, and it was gorgeous! I also quick baked some diced apples with maple sugar and cinnamon to toss on top because… well, I love fruit. Had a little pure maple syrup for dippin’ and oh! Lovely!And The Husband? He thought it was very good, and he liked the bread (though he is an Ezekiel bread hater, I don’t know what’s up with him sometime). He said, and I had to agree, it’d been better to let the bread soak. Unfortunately a) recipe doesn’t call for that and b) I had no time, so I did the best I could.Will you cook from this book again? I will, though I do have to note for the wary that this book doesn’t Kindle very well. It’s better than some, but still not entirely Kindle friendly. Further, I don’t know if there is errata for the book, but upon reading other recipes there are a few small errors (instructions referencing ingredients that aren’t there for example). Finally, the strange thing about this book is that the ingredients and instructions are intertwined. While font and format clearly distinguish one from the other, I found it a strange way to organize a book. All that being said… yup, there are a few recipes I want to make!
So, are you an almost no fat vegan? No… I’m plenty fat! (OK, not as fat as I used to be, but not as not-fat as I used to be either… so right now I am working on losing some weight again).I think ultimately whether you use fat (non-animal, mind!) is entirely up to the eater. I do what works for me, because foods cooked with a lot of oil tend to make me unhappy stomach-wise… I’m used to a diet with little added fat. I don’t exclude it entirely, and I’m happy with where I sit on the added fat issue… and I hope you’re happy where you sit, and we’ll leave it at that!Posted on October 17, 2012 with 1 note ()
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bklynheart posted this
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A Brooklyn, NY transplant in her mid-thirties woman who lost 176 pounds, whinges on about not having time to knit, cooks food, became a veganist, loves pizza and hates everything (though now she's trying not to).
