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annieb123's review
4.0
Originally published on my blog: Nonstop Reader.
Epic Air Fryer Plant-Powered Cookbook is a tutorial and recipe collection written and developed by Michelle Anderson. Due out 12th Jan 2021 from Quarto on their Harvard Common Press imprint, it's 176 pages and will be available in paperback format.
This is a beautifully styled and formatted book full of tasty plant based recipes developed to utilize the air fryer. The introduction covers the basics of cooking with the air-fryer and essential accessories as well as tips, tools, supplies, and how-to. The following chapters include the recipes arranged roughly by category: breakfast, soups & sandwiches, lunch, snacks & appetizers, sides, mains, and desserts and baked things.
Ingredient measurements are supplied in American standard measurements with metric measures in parentheses (yay!). The nutritional information is not included. Extra tips or recipe alternatives are listed in the recipes. The recipes themselves are fairly straightforward and are made for the most part with easily sourced ingredients (not all though, some of the recipe ingredients are vegan substitutions for other products (butter, cheese, chorizo, etc)). Many are very simple, none of them are overly complex and they represent a refreshingly wide variety of world cuisines.
The photography is not abundant; most of the recipes are not illustrated, but the photographs which are included are clear and beautifully well done. I wish there had been more photographs and serving suggestions, but I do understand that extra photography increases the price of book projects very quickly and the lack is not crippling.
This is an interesting collection of recipes. It struck me however, that many of the recipes were really things which could more easily be made (and in larger volume) *without* the air-fryer. The recipes also rely very much on store-bought ingredients. Cooks who prefer to cook completely from scratch will have to do some pre-cooking to make the necessary ingredients.
Four stars.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes
Epic Air Fryer Plant-Powered Cookbook is a tutorial and recipe collection written and developed by Michelle Anderson. Due out 12th Jan 2021 from Quarto on their Harvard Common Press imprint, it's 176 pages and will be available in paperback format.
This is a beautifully styled and formatted book full of tasty plant based recipes developed to utilize the air fryer. The introduction covers the basics of cooking with the air-fryer and essential accessories as well as tips, tools, supplies, and how-to. The following chapters include the recipes arranged roughly by category: breakfast, soups & sandwiches, lunch, snacks & appetizers, sides, mains, and desserts and baked things.
Ingredient measurements are supplied in American standard measurements with metric measures in parentheses (yay!). The nutritional information is not included. Extra tips or recipe alternatives are listed in the recipes. The recipes themselves are fairly straightforward and are made for the most part with easily sourced ingredients (not all though, some of the recipe ingredients are vegan substitutions for other products (butter, cheese, chorizo, etc)). Many are very simple, none of them are overly complex and they represent a refreshingly wide variety of world cuisines.
The photography is not abundant; most of the recipes are not illustrated, but the photographs which are included are clear and beautifully well done. I wish there had been more photographs and serving suggestions, but I do understand that extra photography increases the price of book projects very quickly and the lack is not crippling.
This is an interesting collection of recipes. It struck me however, that many of the recipes were really things which could more easily be made (and in larger volume) *without* the air-fryer. The recipes also rely very much on store-bought ingredients. Cooks who prefer to cook completely from scratch will have to do some pre-cooking to make the necessary ingredients.
Four stars.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes
leahsbooks's review
2.0
I received a copy of this book through NetGalley. I am providing my honest opinion voluntarily.
I've had an air fryer for a while, and was really looking forward to getting some mileage out of it. However, I was rather disappointed in this cookbook, and my air fryer will continue to gather dust.
As someone who has recently transitioned to a vegan way of eating, I was excited to find a plant-based cookbook that centered around the air fryer. To me, this sounded like the perfect book, and I was hoping to find it full of healthy recipes that I'd actually be able to use. Unfortunately, more than half of the recipes were not suitable for me, since they incorporated items like eggs, cheese, milk, and heavy cream. This meant I couldn't even think about cooking more than half of the recipes.
If you think that being plant-based automatically means eating healthy, this book will quickly fix you of that myth. The appeal that led me to get an air fryer in the first place was two-fold. It allowed me to cook unhealthy, fried recipes in a healthier way, and it saved me the mess of clean up. However, a lot of the recipes I could actually prepare required more than just the air fryer. Most of the vegan-friendly recipes in this book were soups, which required not just the air fryer, but other forms of cooking. Which to someone like me, means having to do twice as much work and twice as much clean up. For soups, my air fryer isn't the first appliance that comes to mind (that would be my all-time favorite appliance, the instant pot).
This would probably be a better fit for vegetarians who don't mind making more complex recipes, and aren't planning to use their air fryer to prepare healthy recipes. While some of the recipes sound interesting, they're mainly full of eggs and dairy. I wish I could have said I'd tried at least one of the recipes, but tofu fries just don't sound very appealing when I can just make regular fries in my air fryer.
I've had an air fryer for a while, and was really looking forward to getting some mileage out of it. However, I was rather disappointed in this cookbook, and my air fryer will continue to gather dust.
As someone who has recently transitioned to a vegan way of eating, I was excited to find a plant-based cookbook that centered around the air fryer. To me, this sounded like the perfect book, and I was hoping to find it full of healthy recipes that I'd actually be able to use. Unfortunately, more than half of the recipes were not suitable for me, since they incorporated items like eggs, cheese, milk, and heavy cream. This meant I couldn't even think about cooking more than half of the recipes.
If you think that being plant-based automatically means eating healthy, this book will quickly fix you of that myth. The appeal that led me to get an air fryer in the first place was two-fold. It allowed me to cook unhealthy, fried recipes in a healthier way, and it saved me the mess of clean up. However, a lot of the recipes I could actually prepare required more than just the air fryer. Most of the vegan-friendly recipes in this book were soups, which required not just the air fryer, but other forms of cooking. Which to someone like me, means having to do twice as much work and twice as much clean up. For soups, my air fryer isn't the first appliance that comes to mind (that would be my all-time favorite appliance, the instant pot).
This would probably be a better fit for vegetarians who don't mind making more complex recipes, and aren't planning to use their air fryer to prepare healthy recipes. While some of the recipes sound interesting, they're mainly full of eggs and dairy. I wish I could have said I'd tried at least one of the recipes, but tofu fries just don't sound very appealing when I can just make regular fries in my air fryer.
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