The Cookbook Cupboard: Veganomicon

This is a new, potentially permanent, 'thing' I'd like to share with you when you visit Cozy Little Life - an occasional recipe review from my favorites in my own kitchen's cookbook cupboard.  I don't cook from recipes often, in fact it's really rare, maybe four times a year...but my husband likes to use recipes when he cooks now and then, and I like to eat the things he makes me.  I've also been getting into a rut lately, a funk of sorts, and have been needing some new motivations to get me excited about cooking.  I love trying new dishes, but sometimes I can get so controlling (or is it lazy) when it comes to using a recipe, that I end up substituting like crazy, ignoring steps, and turning a dish into my own creation, and it's not always an improvement on the original.  So committing myself to trying out recipes in their original form with whole-hearted conviction will be a great exercise for me and my taste-buds!

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Featuring 

Baja-Style Grilled Tempeh Tacos

from

VEGANOMICON: The Ultimate Vegan Cookbook, 

by Isa Chandra Moskowitz & Terry Hope Romero,

Da Capo Press & Lifelong Books

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The first recipe review I'd like to share (hopefully not the last) is for Baja-Style Grilled Tempeh Tacos.  Yesterday was a hard day for me - I had a combination case of the deep blues and the 'mean reds' - so to help me out and cheer me up, my fantastic husband cooked dinner for me, using our Veganomicon which he bought for me this past Christmas.  

These tacos were just perfect - light, refreshing, fresh-tasting, healthy, tangy, yummy, oh so good...  The recipe didn't seem difficult, and a lot of the cooking time involves marinating.  You can prepare most of it ahead of time.  They went great with a light Mexican beer (in fact, the marinade is a spiced up beer-base) and would be perfect eaten on a warm summer evening.  Though we were stuffed, just the two of us having eaten the suggested 4 to 6 servings (do we just eat a lot, or what's the deal?), we didn't feel gross afterward.  The recipe made 8 tacos for us.

C'es La Vegan tried this recipe and gave it a rave review, as well.  I love her photo.  Her taco is topped with avocado, something I really wanted to try, but they were too pricey.   

If you're interested in giving this recipe a try, I recommend that you pick up a copy of Veganomicon - this cookbook has so many tasty-sounding dishes, some that we have tried and I'll soon blog about, some that I look forward to testing out in the future - I don't think you'll be disappointed!