This book was well written and has beautiful pictures. Seems like a good book to inspire someone to try plant-based foods. I didn’t feel that this was that creative or innovative though for the genre. Nice cookbook though.

This is a very accessible vegan cookbook with a nice variety of recipes that cover the familiar and a few less familiar Mexican dishes.

The starters section provides a few yummy classic recipes such as tortilla soup (sopa de tortilla), vegetable soup (sopa de verdura), and black bean salad (ensalada de frijol negra), but also I was pleased to see a recipe for chayote cream soup (crema de chayote) and squash blossom tempura, which added a fun starters that were not quite as well known. The entree section contained the usual beany options that may already be a part of many vegan cooks' repertoires, but also some new and interesting takes on cabbage and poblano flautas and a great looking 10-ingredient mole with plantain. I also loved the many tofu dishes, especially in the tacos section.

Of the dishes that I tried, the cauliflower chorizo tasted quite good as did the seared oyster mushrooms. I also appreciated the very clear instructions for working with masa and making tortillas. The author adds a few deep dives that are quite helpful to new cooks, such as how to work with tofu in the vegan kitchen and how to get that burst of umami into your vegan dishes.

Some ingredients might be slightly challenging to source--such as vegan queso fresco, plant-based cheeses, and non-dairy butter--although these days one can order online if local markets do not carry these items.. I noticed that the author usually recommends oat milk in recipes that call for non-dairy milk, when I would assume that any non-dairy milk would would work fine. I substituted almond milk and it worked great in the recipes I tried.

All in all, i walked away from the book feeling that it was a thoughtful, well-designed, solid cookbook geared to beginner cooks. I would definitely give this as a gift to my vegan kids (who are young adults and comfortable in the kitchen) or to others in the earlier stages of their plant-based journeys.

My thanks to the publisher and to NetGalley for the ARC.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for letting me review this book. I’m trying to eat more plant based and Mexican is one of my favorite cuisines. So this was right up my alley. The pictures with each recipe was nice as well. I can’t wait to try several of these dishes.

This is one in a series of three so far (Southern, Indian, Mexican) and had some interesting Mexican recipe translations. The presentation is meh - hardly inspiring and none of the photographs made me want to run to the kitchen to try the recipe. Especially odd to me is how few recipes relied on beans at all - a staple of the Mexican diet. But the recipes did feel authentic, if surprisingly uninteresting.

The book breaks down as follows: Introduction, Keep your kitchen stacked, Starters, Dinner and Entrees, Masa Based meals, Tacos/tortas/tostadas, Desserts and drinks, Condiments and salsas, resources. The introduction tells you a bit about the author and then provides a list of ingredients you want to keep handy for that type of cooking. Recipes include: shell pasta soup, cabbage and poblano flautas, garbanzo ceviche tostadas, Mexican wedding cookies, crepes and caramel sauce, smoky salsa, refried beans, and many more.

Most, but not all, recipes include a photo. Each recipe breaks down as: title, description, serving size, italicized and bold ingredients, then clunky unnumbered paragraph steps. Tips are given on some recipes as well. There is no nutrition information, storage information, or substitution suggestions for allergies. There are tips for Mexican food cooking interspersed with the recipes.

The presentation is simple and not very inspiring. The photographs as well don't necessarily show the recipes off to advantage and often feel done by an Iphone in indifferent lighting. Admittedly, it created a lot of 'meh' rather than excitement for what was inside which was unfortunate.

Those with health concerns or weight issues would probably want to be careful here - there's a reason no nutrition information is given since you'll get a lot of unhealthy simple carbs and heavy fats. So while the recipes should taste good, the point here is vegan rather than vegan healthy. While reading through, I kept hoping for healthier options rather than what often felt like vegan Mexican comfort food. Reviewed from an advance reader copy provided by the publisher.

There are a few treasures of recipes in here but most are pretty basic. The recipes lean into comfort food and is beginner friendly!