Looking For A Cookery Book & Stuff

Hiya Folks

I've got several cook books and I suppose like most people (?) I do more reading and drooling rather than actually making stuff! i make the mistake of buying books and then on closer inspection find that I can't get many of the ingredients as I live in the Channel Islands (UK). There are only 2 health food shops I can visit - only one of them has a chilled/frozen section and I can't get lots of other things. I tend to buy some things just now and again (like nut milks and cheese) and use a bit then waste the rest) tch!! my own fault I know, so I have decided to start making my own milks (mylks!). I have a vitamix so I should just do it instead of being lazy I guess. I found a nice easy recipe for Rejuvelac made with quinoa, that's my next job. So far so good.

I was watching youtubes of gourmet vegan fine dining restaurants like candle 79 and getting quite excited about how amazing the food is. So i started looking for decent fine dining type vegan uk restaurants so I could see if they do any of their own cook books with ingredients that I can get easily. Any ideas??

I really like the Vegan Zombie also, It's a lot of hearty comfort food that looks appealing as well, I wouldn't mind cooking some of his stuff but all his dairy substitutes and a few other ingredients are not available here. I wonder can anyone recommend a few decent cheeses and other substitutes for dairy products. I know there are some decent fake cheese recipes out there, I just don't know which book to buy and whether or not I can get the ingredients easily???? I recently bought a breville toastie maker so I'm dreaming of making an occasional fat cheese and onion thing. Nom nom.

I'm also trying to go more high carb low fat for some recipes (McDougall Styley) and am looking for a good book like that if anyone knows of one??? Also, over here I pay over the odds for nuts, grains and beans etc. I'd like to buy in bulk so am looking for a shop online that delivers to the Channel Islands but doesn't cost a fortune in shipping charges.

Phew! If any of you out there could help with some recommendations I'd really appreciate it. Thanks in advance, my monkey mind is in full flow, i sound a bit garbled! your ears must have melted by now
Cheers, Sandy:-)

Hello Sandy - here's a recipe for cheese - http://theveganword.com/butternut-sq...-cheese-pizza/ (page down) - it's a friend's recipe and the results are delicious (must admit I haven't actually made it myself!).

I have this book, or an earlier edition of it, http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ultimate-Unc.../dp/1570671516 and have made some of the things from that. As far as I remember it used ordinary ingredients such as oats and nuts - you do need nutritional yeast for most of them though.

The only UK vegan restaurant that I associate with fine dining is Manna, and they don't seem to have a cookbook unfortunately. Millennium (in the US) comes into that category and has one http://www.amazon.co.uk/Millennium-C...nnium+cookbook but I don't know if it would involve hard-to-get ingredients - you might be able to find out by reading reviews. The Gate and Terre a Terre are posh UK vegetarian restaurants that both have cookbooks so you could investigate those - the restaurants have a lot of vegan stuff so I would imagine the books do too, but they do use some harder-to-get ingredients in the restaurants I think.

Looking online for recipes on blogs etc first might be an idea, if you haven't already - some of the authors have books as well but the blogs give you a taste of what's in them. e.g. the Vegan Word one above and http://mouthwateringvegan.com/

Suma sells in bulk but I don't know if they deliver to the Channel Islands or what they charge http://www.suma.coop/products/vegan-products/

Hope some of that is helpful

This is a really easy cheese recipe that I make a lot and no fancy ingredients http://www.maplespice.com/2011/04/ba...-dill-oil.html

I do find most of my recipes online now as there are so many available and I find with cookery books I only really keep using a few recipes from each.