Cookbook review 2: Vegan Yum Yum

Decadent (But Doable) Animal-Free Recipes for Entertaining & Every Day
by Lauren Ulm

Background: Vegan Yum Yum was a wildly popular and gorgeous blog (veganyumyum.com) that unfortunately hasn't been updated for over a year. The author, Lauren Ulm, was even featured on Martha Stewart for her 'knit night' cupcakes. This cookbook is a compilation of recipes from her blog.

Tone: The tone is straight-forward and all her recipes are easy to follow. In addition, her introductions often include substitutions in case you don't have a certain ingredient and other useful tips.

Recipes tested: I used this book quite a bit. My favorites are her Hurry Up Alredo, which is a delicious, creamy decadent (but still healthier!) alfredo pasta recipe, her Caesar Salad recipe, which might be one of the my favorite vegan caesar salad recipes so far, and finally her 'Weekend Pancakes Made Easy'. What's great about her pancake recipe is that she recommends leaving the batter in the fridge overnight, which I did; this results in thicker, heartier pancakes.

Accessibility: While she does have a few recipes that feature harder to find ingredients such as nutritional yeast and seitan, on the whole, her recipes are pretty accessible. There are easier dishes such as the Rainbow Rice and Beans, which even a beginner could make, but also more challenging ones, such as the Onigiri. However, I like that there is variety, as the book is fit both for beginner cooks and more advanced level chefs, too.

Rating: 4.5/5. All in all, this is a great vegan cookbook- one of my favorites, in fact, that I turn to time and again. Oh! And I must mention that every- single- recipe- has a photograph! Which is a huge plus in my book.