Lentil Biryani and The Great Vegan Bean Book Review

Hmm, lets see, do I need to eat more legumes, hell yes! and there is a perfect book to help me do that in so many different ways. Kathy Hester’s The Great Vegan Bean Book has a lot of my favorite things, beans, lots of beans, plant-based with options for gluten-free, nut-free, soy-free or oil-free. 

There are beans for breakfast, meals and even dessert(chickpea cookies and black bean fudgesicles). There are usual vegan meals, burgers, dips and then other cuisines and fusion recipes to choose from Indian, Mexican, Jamaican, Asian, French, Moroccan, you name it. If you don’t win a copy at this giveaway, pick The Great Vegan Bean Book at amazon.

Kathy explains all the possible standard beans, along with variations for specialty heirloom beans. She describes which beans are in each family and that can be used interchange-ably in a recipe.

The book has nutrition information with each recipe.
It has Recipes to make your own staples like chorizo and chik-un patties.
Staples to keep food budget in check and also to avoid all the added preservatives.
Allergy friendly, gluten- and soy-free and no added oil and also an index for gluten and soy-free.

I made this Smoky White Bean dip from the book. I added a roasted Red bell pepper to it and spiced it up a bit more for my taste, and sent most of it and fresh veggies, packing with hubbs for his rafting trip. It was a definite hit with everyone. 



I also used another batch of the dip to make sandwiches the next day. They will soon be posted in a separate post. I added some roasted Veggies and greens. 

You can check out many more tried and tested recipes from the book on Kathy’s blog tour, like these Pecan Chickpea Chocolate Chip cookies, butternut Squash Frijoles, These Chickpea Seitan Crispy patties & Coconut Pecan Blondies!