Viva Vegan mini review

Let me just get this out of the way - I know I was gonna do recipes from Quick and Easy Vegan Comfort Food this week. But I didn't spend enough time looking at it and ended up feeling overwhelmed and couldn't think of anything to make other than what I'd already made during testing, so I'll maybe look at it later in the week. There are, of course, recipes I want to make, but they're mostly cakes.

So, rather than try to dig up the tester forum and copy and paste my reviews from there, I decided to make something from Viva Vegan!

A word about VV - this is one of the best cookbooks I've ever owned. I've probably cooked as many recipes from VV in the 6ish months that it's been out as most of my other cookbooks that I've had for years. It's comparable to how much I made from Vegan Brunch including the cookbook challenge last year. I even bought copies for my sister and my best good friend. If you like Latin food, even if you aren't vegan, you should pick up this book.

Tonight I made the Drunken Beans with Seitan Chorizo and the Yellow Garlic Rice:


The Yellow Garlic Rice is my favourite rice dish ever. Of. All. Time. Seriously - it's amazing. I can't even bring myself to make the other types of rice because I just know they can't compare. And it's so easy! It has about 7 ingredients and takes less than 30 minutes.

This is the second time I've made the drunken beans. I kinda screwed up - I couldn't get my hands on Mexican cerveza, so I bought what I assumed to be a close enough approximation. Turns out, not so much. My beans were super bitter. Mike liked them, but I had a hard time eating them, and they made me sad. It is in no way the fault of the recipe - I loved them the first time I ate them. If I hadn't already had the beans on the stove cooking, I would have waited to make these when I realised I couldn't get the right kind of beer. I'm gonna try to doctor them and see if I can decrease the bitterness. Wish me luck!