The Dirty Vegan Cookbook sm

The Dirty Vegan cookbook review

*Disclaimer* I was given a free copy of this book from the author for a honest review of the book.

I have been following Cathrine Gill on Instagram and Twitter for a while and I was given the opportunity to review her new book; The Dirty Vegan.

The Dirty Vegan cookbook.
The Dirty Vegan cookbook.
I spent some time reading through her book and decided to make three of her recipes. The recipes I decided to make were her spinach and artichoke dip, meatloaf, and no tuna salad sandwich.

The recipes seemed simple enough, and I went out and bought the ingredients I needed and throughout the week I made the recipes.

Let’s start with the no tuna sandwich. Only 6 ingredients and easy to find ingredients. This was really quick to make, the hardest part was mashing up the chickpeas.

The Dirty Vegan tunaless salad.
The Dirty Vegan tunaless salad.

I put the mixture in between a couple of pieces of toasted multigrain bread and dug in. The flavor and texture was great, I didn’t use as much onion as called for because I am not a huge fan of a bunch of raw onion. These made great midnight snacks for me. I am sure that this will make great picnic food as well. It was quick and easy to make and stores for a long time in the fridgafrator. This is no problem of the author, but one thing I have never seen a vegan recipe do is try to recreate the “fishiness” of tuna, something I have thought about trying to recreate myself using seaweed in some way. This was definitely something good to make if you didn’t want to go through the work to try to completely recreate the fishy flavor.
The Dirty Vegan tunaless salad sandwich.
The Dirty Vegan tunaless salad sandwich.

The second recipe I made was the spinach and artichoke dip and I also made my own toast points to dip with. This was super easy to make. Just toss the ingredients in a bowl, mix, until combined and throw into a greased crock pot.

The Dirty Vegan spinach and artichoke dip ready to cook.
The Dirty Vegan spinach and artichoke dip ready to cook.

Cook for a few hours and go off and do something whilst it cooks. The best part about this recipe being put in in a crock pot I think is that if you are having a party or going to a family gathering you can make this ahead of time, and when it is ready keep it warm and people can serve themselves. You could even double or triple this recipe if need be. The hardest part of this is not burning your toast points if that is what you choose to serve them with. The dip was nice and creamy and oh so good. You would never tell it is vegan and I bet the omnis won’t either. I was going to take some and share it with my omni friend who likes spinach and artichoke dip, but I ate it all before I knew it.
The Dirty Vegan tunaless salad sandwich.
The Dirty Vegan tunaless salad sandwich.

And lastly I made the meatloaf. I made one change with the permission of Catherine. I am not much of a fan of maple, so I used amber agave syrup instead for the sauce. Again this was a really simple recipe to make. I did go the extra step and made my own breadcrumbs for it.

I think I made a mistake somewhere because the mixture was crumbly, I think I should have chopped the onion finer or the onion was not juicy enough probably. I pressed the loaf in the pan but may have needed to press it firmer because it kind of fell apart when I removed some pieces out of the pan right after I cooked it. However, however when I ate the leftovers, the loaf held its shape. So, if you are going to make this, possibly make it ahead of time and then reheat.

The Dirty Vegan Meatloaf out of the oven.
The Dirty Vegan Meatloaf out of the oven.

The loaf and sauce on top tasted really good, and reminded me of something from my childhood. I ate the leftovers either by itself or as a sandwich, both ways were really good, especially with some melted smoked gouda cheeze. I am going to have to try to make this one again and figure out what I did wrong. I really think I need to almost puree the onion next time if that was the real issue with the recipe.
The Dirty Vegan Meatloaf.
The Dirty Vegan Meatloaf.

I like this cookbook, the recipes and the mission of the author is closely aligned to my veganism and the recipes I create for you, except her recipes are generally a lot less complicated than mine. They are good recipes, not necessarily healthy, and use a lot of the premade products out there. I really think you will get good use out of this book, especially if you don’t necessarily are vegan for health. You can buy this book on Amazon here: The Dirty Vegan I for one can’t wait to make more recipes from Cathrine’s book.

I also let my omni friend borrow the book to see if there were any recipes in there that she wanted to make. If and when she makes a recipe I will update you here, however I hope she is quick because there are more recipes that I would like to make, and honestly I want some more of that spinach and artichoke dip too..

Follow Catherine Gill (The Dirty Vegan):
https://www.thedirtyvegan.com/
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/theDirtyVegan
Twitter: @theDirtyVegan
Instagram: @theDirtyVegan_official
Youtube: http://youtube.com/theDirtyVegan
Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/theDirtyVegan

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