Throw a Killer Vegan New Year’s Eve Party With ‘Thug Kitchen Party Grub’
Yahoo Food’s Cookbook of the Week is Thug Kitchen Party Grub by Matt Holloway and Michelle Davis (Rodale Books), authors of the bestselling Thug Kitchen: The Official Cookbook.
The cover of Thug Kitchen Party Grub. (Rodale Books)
In just three short years, Matt Holloway and Michelle Davis, the Los Angeles-based team behind Thug Kitchen, have created a mini vegan publishing empire. Following the overnight success of their Thug Kitchen blog, Holloway and Davis wrote Thug Kitchen: The Official Cookbook. That was a little over a year ago, and the book is still holding strong on Amazon and The New York Times’ bestseller lists. Thug Kitchen’s follow-up, the recently published Thug Kitchen Party Grub, is already an Amazon bestseller, and appears poised to be just as successful.
The Thug Kitchen approach definitely isn’t for everyone and Holloway and Davis have seen their share of controversy, but one thing is for sure: Thug Kitchen is a unique voice in a crowded culinary landscape and people — vegans and non-vegans alike — are listening. While plant-based eating is often derided as elitist, precious, and impractical, Thug Kitchen is different. Holloway and Davis believe plant-based eating can and should be easy, accessible, affordable, and fun. They’re also completely unapologetic about their vegan diet, and write in an aggressive, in-your-face style that’s sprinkled with expletives.
“We were tired of apologizing for giving a f— about what we ate,” explains Thug Kitchen. “We think the brashness makes eating healthy more relatable, because it lets people know caring about yourself doesn’t make you pretentious.”
Their profanity-heavy prose is attention getting, but it’s Thug Kitchen’s recipes that really prove their point. While Thug Kitchen: The Official Cookbook was about making vegan food for yourself, Thug Kitchen Party Grub focuses on dishes to share with your friends and family. The book is filled with crowd-pleasers like nachos, potato salad, and tacos, as well as vegan takes on traditionally non-vegan favorites, such as Landlocked Ceviche, a cauliflower-based version of the Latin American seafood classic, and Worth-the-Mess Sloppy Joes, which forego beef in favor of a hearty mixture of onions, bell peppers, carrots, mushrooms, lentils, and beans. You’ll also find vegan pies, cakes, and brownies.
Deviled Chickpea Bites (Photograph: Matt Holloway/Thug Kitchen)
Thug Kitchen says they “hustled to make plant-based dishes that look and taste delicious, so even your pickiest family members will try it.” Recipes enticing enough to pull in skeptics is important to Thug Kitchen, but their main concern is creating real food for real people, regardless of income or background.
“Accessibility and affordability are critical to what we do,” says Holloway and Davis. “Plenty of healthy eating and vegan bloggers seem to have endless time and money, and talk about their seemingly perfect f—— lives, but that’s not our life experience.”
This practical approach means that Thug Kitchen sticks to a pretty basic pantry. Even the few slightly more unusual ingredients — think panko breadcrumbs and nutritional yeast — can be found at most supermarkets. A handful of recipes are longer and more time-consuming, including Baked Spring Rolls and Apple-Onion Focaccia, but most are limited to one page and are the kind of thing you can throw together without much advance prep. And that’s one more way Thug Kitchen makes the case for veganism being easy.
Apple-Onion Focaccia (Photograph: Matt Holloway/Thug Kitchen)
These recipes don’t have to be made for a party, though that is the theme of the book, and if you are planning a vegan soirée, Thug Kitchen has some advice. First, throw out “the mold of what dinner should be in your head.” Instead of trying to find vegan replacements for whatever non-vegan dish you might serve or expect to find at a party, “expand your culinary horizons,” and focus on all the exciting new dishes you get to try.
Holloway and Davis also stress the importance of visual appeal. “Make sure you have a bunch of different colored ingredients in your dishes,” says Thug Kitchen. “If it’s all brown and beige, it looks bland as h—.” But there’s an easy fix: “Sometimes a little grated carrot and greens mixed in or some fresh herbs or spices sprinkled on top are all you need to make something look way more enticing.” They also suggest adding a drizzle of olive oil, especially on pastas and casseroles, to give food a beautiful glisten and an extra hit of flavor. And if all that fails and your friends and family still resist your veggie-loving lifestyle, Thug Kitchen offers one more piece of advice: get better friends.
Visit Yahoo Food throughout the week for recipes from Thug Kitchen Party Grub (Rodale Books).
Check out other books from Yahoo Food’s Cookbook of the Week:
Lucky Peach Presents: 101 Easy Asian Recipes
My Kitchen Year by Ruth Reichl
