Hi guys,
Today's cookbook review is for The homemade Vegan Pantry by vegan chef Miyoko Schinner.
She's a superstar in the vegan culinary world and lauched her own cheese company in 2014
which has been getting amazing reviews.
If you're a regular viewer, you know I'm a raving fan of Miyoko and if I ever met her
in real life I think I would probably cry or faint or both.
But don't worry. I'll still give you my super honest and critical opinion.
Even though I have a soy milk tutorial on this channel, Miyoko's version claims to have
no beany taste. Intrigued, I gave it a try.
Where in MY soymilk tutorial, you have to soak the beans. In this recipe, you don't.
You boil the beans, then let them cool.
Then everything is mostly the same. We blend the beans. The book says to not blend the
beans too long so I only blended for 20 seconds as directed. This wasn't enough. The milk
was super thin and didn't work for the next thing I wanted to make. I searched the book
for a mention of needing a high speed blender but didn't see that.
Guys, that was my first oh-no moment from this book. I was literally afraid of having
to give a negative review.
However, when tried this a second time and blended for about a minute and a half, which
is what I normally do anyway, the resulting soy milk was lovely and creamy and I could
relax a bit.
I only simmered the soy milk for about 10 minutes and that was that. The soy milk was
creamy and full bodied but did it taste beany? Well, a little but JUST a little. Much more
neutral than my normal way of making soy milk.
So because of this experience and a few other tips I've learned along the way, I'll be posting
an updated soy milk tutorial soon.
The next thing was classic eggless mayonaise. I used the fresh made soy milk after chilling
it for a few hours, along with vinegar and some flavoring ingredients. Black salt is
included for an egg-y flavour. Then we pour canola oil in a thin stream. This reminds
me of how I used to make regular mayonaise at home. And it's just as easy. I don't know
if it was the fresh soymilk or what but the mixture became thick almost right away, way
more quickly than I expected.
The texture was thick and luscious. I wouldn't fool anyone with this mayo if tasted straight
up; it definately tasted like soy. And the black salt was a tad on the strong side so
it was super egg-y. But on this flavourful mushroom and lentil vegan burger, those qualities
were NOT an issue.
I've actually made this mayo several times since shooting the video and have stopped
buying Vegenaise because it's actually more convenient and less expensive for me to make
this at home rather than sclepping to the store to buy a $6 jar. I feel like this recipe
made the whole book worth it already.
So far, we've made soy milk, then mayo out of that soy milk, and finally, we're going
to use the soy bean pulp leftover, known as okara for the Gold Nuggets recipe which, I
guess, is supposed be vegan chicken nuggets. This mixture contains okara, tofu, and vital
wheat gluten along with lots of seasoning ingredients.
We form the nuggets then, they get the three step breading process with panko.
You can fry or bake them and so I chose to bake since I've been eating lots of indulgent
foods lately.It was a long bake time, about an hour, but it was worth the wait? Yes. These
nuggets were nice and flavourful with a satisfying crunch to them.
I do think that they would be better looking and a bit juicier if fried in oil but you
could say that about pretty much anything...almost. Amirite?
I will surely make these again, perhaps incorporating nuts or mushrooms to make them juicier without
deep-frying. I really appreciated that the ingredients were quite inexpensive.
One item that you guys have seen me mention, was the chocolate ice cream. This was the
Dark Chocolate variation of the basic ice cream base recipe.
I really really really wanted to like this. But I just didn't. The coconut flavour was
just not great and the texture was a bit chalky. I wonder if it would've been nicer if I had
a high speed blender to work with.
Lastly, I tried the Well Crafted Mac n Cheese mix which is the book's alternative to the
powder in boxed mac and cheese.
Because this recipe also called for a whole cup of cashews, I cut all the amounts in half
just in case I didn't like this recipe.
Other than the nutritional yeast, the rest of the ingredients were pretty normal, inexpensive
pantry items.
So after a quick blend, we have the mix.
Time to put it to the test. I mixed the powder soy milk and took it to the stove.
Fairly quickly a beautiful cheese sauce developed.
Poured in some cooked macaroni and, goodness does that ever look like mac n cheese!
But how did it taste? Really good. Yeah, I could taste the cashews and the flavour is
not like the Kraft stuff that I had as a kid, but that stuff always seems a bit plain to
me. This mac n cheese is way better in my opinion. And better than the boxed vegan stuff
that I've tried so far.
Literally 10 minutes after fisnishing this portion, I got up and made a second dinner..this
time with brocolli. And it was awesome.
So overall, I loved this book. Loved loved loved loved loved. That said, I have a few
picky points because I owe it to you guys to be as thorough and honest as possible.
And that's that. I really hope you enjoyed this review and that it gave you some idea
of whether or not this book is right for you. Overall, I do recommend it and all things
Miyoko Schinner, because, let's face it. She's an amazing trailblazing vegan advocate.
Let me know if you've tried any of the other recipes from this book or other recipes from
Miyoko Schinner and what you thought of them! I would love to try your favourites. Thanks
so much for watching. Bye for now!