Those of you who have been following my blog will know that I’m cooking my way through my extensive cookbook collection. Each week I pick a different book and I make at least three dishes from it.

This week’s cookbook is Robin Robertson’s Vegan on the Cheap. I can’t really say if I saved any money on groceries this week, but I do most of my shopping at Whole Foods and I usually buy organic ingredients so I expect to pay a little more than the average shopper. I also bought cleaning supplies and some toiletries so I don’t really know how much my food cost. I added extra veggies to a few of the dishes so I bought more ingredients than the recipes required.

This book has a nice clean layout and each recipe tells how much each serving costs. There are also notes after each recipe on how to splurge if you want to spend a little more. The recipes all seem easy to make, and they’re creative and flavorful. My only complaint is that some of the dishes needed a little more vegetables, but they’re easy enough to add.

I started out with Chili Mac. It’s essentially mac and cheese mixed with chili. I bought pre-made chili to save time, and I served the dish with steamed broccoli. This was delicious and it was the perfect meal for a cold winter’s night. There was some mac and cheese leftover after I made it too!

Next I made a Tortilla Strata which is kind of like a lasagna. Tortillas are layered in a spring form pan with layers of rice, beans, veggies and cheezee sauce. I added a layer extra vegetables (tomatoes, peppers, onion and spinach). I wanted to add two layers of veggies, but the layers were in danger of overflowing from the pan. I also threw a few olives on top.

This is what the Tortilla Strata looks like from the side! It got a little messy while trying to remove it from the baking dish. It was really, really tasty, but I will have to admit that it didn’t reheat well. The tortillas got really soft and almost paste-like. It might be because I used spelt tortillas. I think corn would have worked nicely.

This is Polenta Pizza with Roasted Vegetables. I added kale pesto and sliced green tomatoes. Yum!

Okay, I also added Daiya and olives. Super yum!

Of course I had to make Penne Wise Peanuty Pasta. Spicy peanut sauce. ‘Nuff said.

The Cacciatore Noodle bake appealed to me because I loved chicken cacciatore when I was little. At least I think I loved it. I don’t remember eating it all. I remember hearing the words “chicken cacciatore” and getting excited, but I don’t remember anything else. I’m sure it was a frozen chicken patty with a jarred cacciatore sauce but apparently I liked it.

But this was quite delicious and this was my first time eating seitan in I-don’t-know-how-long. I had thought about subbing the seitan out for something else, but I’ve really been craving it lately. I also wanted to see what sort of reaction I would have after going without it for so long. I don’t think I had any reaction to be honest! Yay! And yum!