stevegattuso
Hi, I'm Steve! This site is an always-in-progress repository for my thoughts and ideas. You'll generally find me writing about sustainability šŸƒ, urbanism šŸ™ļø, programming šŸ’¾, vegan cooking šŸ›, and whatever else pops into my mind ✨.
Cooking

When I’m cooking at home I stick to a vegan diet, therefore all of the links and resources you’ll find below will be plant-based. If you’re not vegan don’t hit the back button yet. A lot of these recipes and resources are very solid and things I’d recommend to people even if they don’t care much for vegetarianism/veganism.

Also many thanks to the friends who found some of these recipes that I’m now taking credit for digging up- you know who you are and I hope you continue sending me good recipes that I can take credit for finding.

My Remixes

Occasionally I go off script enough with a recipe that it merits writing up on its own rather than just linking out to the source. As a warning to those who like precise instructions and quantities: I tend to be pretty willy nilly about these things and this is reflected in the recipes.

Weeknight Staples

One-Pan Tuscan White Beans by Vegan Risha

I love Risha’s recipes but this one had a greater than usual effort-to-tastiness ratio. An excellent quick, low-ingredient weeknight recipe. I ommitted the vegan Parmesan and still got great results.

Arroz a la Mexicana by Mely Martinez

Click here for an English translation. It’s a slightly more involved recipe than what you may want for a weeknight meal, but it’s effort that will be rewarded.

Crispy Cabbage and Tofu Stir-Fry

Incredibly simple recipe that yields good results. The commenters are correct in mentioning the amount of oil is a bit gratuitous and can be reduced without affecting the flavor too much. Serve with rice or noodles to add some oomph.

Books

The signal-to-noise ratio of online recipes can be very low. All of the books below are far more curated resources with a solid assortment of bangers to choose from. Yes, they cost money, but you’ll more than make up for the cost with the amount of time saved from searching through bad recipes that don’t yield yummy results.

Vegan For Everybody by America’s Test Kitchen

This book has a great mix of weeknight staples and more special occasion dishes. The ingredient lists for most of the recipes have common pantry staples rather than a long list of very specific or hard-to-find items which make it a very approachable book. Some favorites include the Chickpea Noodle Soup, Chickpea Salad, Tortilla Soup and the Quinoa, Black Bean, and Mango salad.

Vegan Richa’s Instant Pot Cookbook by Vegan Richa

Highly recommend if you have an electric pressure cooker. The first half or so consists of Indian recipes and the remaining half has more western dishes. While I haven’t explored the first half because of laziness in buying some of the spices I’d need, the western half has some very solid weeknight staple recipes. Some of my favorites include the Mushroom Bourguignon, the Lentil Quinoa Loaf (repurposed for the pressure cooker), and a few of her ā€œDump ā€˜n Doneā€ recipes which have a shockingly high quality-to-effort ratio.