Salivating over the various bakery finds – from oversized carrot-cake muffins heavy with icing and thick slices of flourless chocolate cake, I came across an intriguing find: vegan chocolate mouse. Packaged in a nondescript plastic cup with a gold "VEGAN" label, I thought at best it would satisfy my sweet tooth and at worst it would taste a bit like chocolate-imbued gritty pudding.

Did you have a New Year’s resolution to start eating healthier and making more dishes from scratch in 2016? Cookbook authors Nicole Axworthy and Lisa Pitman, both contributing photography and food editors for VegNews magazine, understand. The Toronto pair recently published DIY vegan: More Than 100 Easy Recipes to Create an Awesome Plant-Based Pantry (St. Martin’s Press, 2015) to help guide readers toward making more food at home.