„Ooh, that's vegan?“

By:
Maya Leinenbach

7.6 / 10

Who wrote it?

Maya Leinenbach is probably best known online as Fitgreenmind. With her appetizing and likeable Instagram videos, the student from Saarland has quickly become Germany’s most successful food blogger and with “Ooh, that’s vegan?” she fulfilled her childhood dream of publishing her own cookbook.

And what is it about?

Maya’s cookbook includes “50 ways to surprise your friends and family with vegan food”. So we find 50 recipes here, whereby Maya’s main dishes always come with matching side dishes. As her online presence, the recipes are a colorful mix of recipes from all over the world. For me personally, there is still a certain break with her Instagram appearance, which is difficult to pin down to something. Her reels on Instagram speak to me a lot more than any recipe in the book.

What does it look like?

The hardcover book in DIN A4 format (US letter) has an attractive design on the outside, with Maya’s portrait and of course an appetizing dish on the cover. The inside of the book is quite colorful and playful, with small illustrations, colored blocks and flashy headlines. You can either like it or not…

Nevertheless, it is clearly structured and the photos that accompany each dish are of high quality and beautifully styled. In addition to the columns for the ingredients and preparation, there is always the nutritional value per serving, as well as the preparation time and the level of difficulty.

What can I expect?

The 50 recipes are divided into the following chapters: “Small snacks”; “Main courses; “Sweets”.

The introductory part contains a small portrait of the author and Maya’s kitchen must-haves for the areas of equipment and ingredients. From my point of view, this part, like the whole book, is aimed primarily at beginners who may also be about as young as the author herself and have little to no kitchen experience.

Can I do that?

Maya specifies a level of difficulty for all recipes, which never goes beyond “Medium”. I can confirm that this assessment worked well for the recipes I tested.

What do I need?

The required equipment can be found clearly in Maya’s must-haves. It includes the usual suspects of good knives and pans, casserole dishes and baking dishes, multi-choppers and blenders. The ingredients aren’t too exotic either, since it’s important to the author, who lives in a rural area herself, that you can get them in the supermarket without too much extra effort.

Substitute products?

…are not used in an inflationary way, but are used selectively: egg substitute in the yeast braid, plant-based yoghurt in yoghurt dip, vegan cheese to gratinate.

Who needs it?

In my opinion, this is a classic beginner’s book, for young (!) kitchen beginners who want to get into vegan cooking at the same time. Admittedly, with my many years of vegan cooking experience, I didn’t feel addressed, which is evident from how long the book sat on the shelf unused. Since Maya’s online audience is much broader, I find this limitation an unexpected break and, in my case, a failure of my expectations. Many fans of Fitgreenmind might be disappointed, especially long-term vegans and those with kitchen experience.

Oh yes, and does it taste good?

Here, too, I unfortunately have to do without storms of enthusiasm. I’ve tested 8 of the 50 recipes and would repeat little (see recipe tips in next section). I didn’t feel like doing further tests either.

You can find all the recipes tested and my recipe reviews on Instagram under the hashtag #VCRoohthatsvegan.

Recipe tips to get cooking:

Pretzel tofu bites
Mamas pasta casserole
Hefezopf – German brioche braid (find the recipe here)

Conclusion

As much as I appreciate Maya aka Fitgreenmind and am happy about how many (young) people she can get enthusiastic about vegan food, I am unfortunately unimpressed by this cookbook. The outer appearance, i.e. less the cover than the design inside, is certainly a matter of taste, but it doesn’t correspond to my taste at all. The youthfulness of the author should certainly also be conveyed here. It’s ok, but I don’t have to like it. However, what is more decisive for my not so positive conclusion is that I am simply not enthusiastic about the dishes that we tested. I would definitely repeat the vegan yeast braid or Mayas Kaiserschmarrn, but I probably wouldn’t really need a cookbook for that…

The book goes on the resell pile. Get in touch if you’re interested ;-).