My sister bought me the Thug Kitchen Cookbook! It’s by the authors of the wildly popular Thug Kitchen blog, and filled with delicious plant-based recipes. Their approach is whole foods oriented, with lots of fresh produce leading to recipes that are as healthy as they are delicious.
A word of caution: as you might expect from a cookbook with the slogan “eat like you give a f*ck”, there’s a [more than healthy] dose of profanity on each page. The casual, no-nonsense vibe complements my mood at the end of a long day when I’d like to be swearing myself, but its appropriation of the word “thug” has been controversial. I worry that repeated exposure to the f-bomb is going to cause me to swear in front of my impressionable young children next time I drop something on my foot. I went through a rather pirate-esque phase in college, and would prefer not to have a relapse.
If you can’t handle having someone tell you to “puree the f*ck” out of the pumpkin or “pour it into a dish pan or some sh*t”, then the Thug Kitchen cookbook isn’t for you. Head on over to Oh She Glows where the sweet and talented Angela Liddon is creating recipes titled “Life-Affirming Warm Nacho Dip”. Her work is so delicious that I can almost say life-affirming with a straight face.
From a recipe standpoint, the Thug Kitchen cookbook is a welcome addition to my shelves because the recipes have a different feel to them than many of my other cookbooks. There’s a lot of diverse food like pad thai, pozole rojo, and roasted sriracha cauliflower bites with peanut dipping sauce. I like having more recipes with a mexican or asian flare to them, and the cookbook contains lots of food choices that would pair better with beer than with wine. If I were serving a bunch of college guys dinner, this cookbook would nail it. Since I like to eat like a college guy, I’m pretty in love with half these recipes already.
I will say that the flavor profiles aren’t as kid-friendly as some of my other cookbooks. Heaven forbid you try to feed your kid something spicy that actually has different textures in it and a complex flavor profile. That’s on them.
If you want healthy food with fantastic flavor and an urban feel to it, Thug Kitchen is a great option. Make yourself some cumin spiked pinto bean dip (pg 108), grab a cold beer, and wait for your pumpkin chili (pg 97) to cook while you pat yourself on the back for caring about what you’re eating.
