Sunday, March 2, 2014

The Sexy Vegan ~ March & April 2014



For March and April of 2014, the cookbook I have chosen to cook from is The Sexy Vegan: Extraordinary Food from an Ordinary Dude by Brian L. Patton.

I first heard of his work while listening to a podcast. I can't recall if it was Our Hen House or Red Radio...mmmm...Red Radio! It came out just in 2012, and I bought it right away.
I'm embarrassed to say I cooked from it only once, and it wasn't long ago. About a month ago, we had "Food Day" where I work. People were encouraged to bring food to share. A bunch of people were on a diet (after Christmas tradition), so I thought I'd bring something (absolutely vegan) that wasn't cupcakes or doughnuts. I wanted something without gluten (co-workers are gluten-sensitive), and without soy because I don't like how non-vegans often assume that all vegans eat is sprouts and soy.

I perused my cookbook collection. I wanted to see what The Sexy Vegan had to offer. All sorts of dishes I wanted to make! I decided on the Marinated Eggplant Pasta Salad. I've never cooked with eggplant before, and I was excited to try something new! In my pre-vegan days I never ate eggplant. But it's really good! Now, as a vegan,  I've eaten it in a few dishes offered in restaurants in Regina, but never cooked it on my own.

Everyone at work loved the salad! One woman even remarked that she normally doesn't care for eggplant, but she really loved it in this dish. I was so happy. In fact, my container of salad went 'missing' when I came to work the next day. I still don't really know what happened to it, but the container was empty and clean on my desk the following week. I won't ask questions.

Brian L. Patton, the author, has a YouTube cooking show. It's hilariously awesome. My understanding is that he started with the cooking videos, then got a book deal. He named the YouTube videos, "The Sexy Vegan" so that people (namely men) would click on his videos. Well, it worked. His cooking show has loads of episodes, and he now has two cookbooks published.
Nicely done Brian!