Veganmofo 2009 – Cozy Inside

This book is a bit different to most others in that it’s self published. This means that it doesn’t have a publisher or editor; the author has decided to write a book themselves and make it available for download or purchase. I downloaded it and printed it out myself and ringbound it. Because of that, it’s got no spine, so I often don’t notice it on my bookshelves. I have to be honest and say that there are mistakes in it – but you do see mistakes in books produced by big publishers, so that’s not necessarily unique to self published books. My other criticism would be the quality of the photos; I’m not sure they’d have got past a picky publisher.

The book is all about comfort food. It does use some bought products such as vegan cream cheese and cream and doesn’t make any apologies for it. I don’t think you’d want to eat the food everyday, healthwise, but it’s full of tasty food for weekends or cold miserable rainy days.

Joni, the author, has moved on a lot since her Cozy Inside days. She wrote the burger book, which I loved testing for, but before she could self publish it, she got a “real” publishing deal, and her book is due out after Christmas. I tested for it, and its a mixture of foods, but you can still detect Joni’s underlying love of comfort foods and her love getting a hug from her food.

Things I’ve loved from this book:

Chicken fried seitan
Mushroom gravy
Meetloaf
Nacho cheezy sauce
50/50 flatbreads

Things I need to try before too long:

Sausage and egg breakfast burritos
Tofu fingers
Stuffed tofu cordon bleu

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