Most Austinites know sisters Reyna and Maritza Vázquez for their tacos at Veracruz All Natural, but now they can learn more of the story in the new cookbook Veracruz All Natural: Fresh Mexican Recipes from our American Home. The new book was published June 16, and the public is invited to celebrate at a launch party at Leona, the latest location in the Veracruz family, on June 23.

As the title promises, this cookbook is all about using fresh ingredients and home techniques. Some of the recipes will be familiar to fans of the taco truck, while others — like the calabacitas con queso (zucchini and cheese) — come from Veracruz Fonda & Bar, the full-service restaurant, uniting the sister concepts. It also means there's much more variety than some readers might expect, across nine chapters including pantry recommendations, breakfast, comfort soups and stews, and desserts.

Home cooks will find a practical mix of recipes that are easy to memorize and eyeball. They also offer lots of nutritional balance, with entire chapters focused specifically on vegetables and seafood, two food groups the sisters write they were confused not to see more of when they arrived in the Tex-Mex haven of Austin.

The book also acknowledges that despite what the family gained in quality of living after moving to the U.S., they lost time to cook for family. These recipes reflect the faster-paced lifestyle of restaurant owners who don't usually have time to stir mole all day at home.

"We don't get tired to be together," says Maritza in a video call between the sisters and CultureMap. They lean into each other in a side hug and smile.

Reyna and Maritza were teenagers when they crossed the Rio Grande perilously at different times in 2008, an emotional experience detailed in both their points of view in the moving introduction. They discuss their parents' restaurant growing up, starting their own snack stand in Austin without public assistance or even bank loans, turning off utilities at home to save money, and ultimately building much of Austin's understanding of regional Mexican food from the ground up.

Veracruz All Natural: Fresh Mexican Recipes from our American Home by Reyna and Maritza Vázquez with Nils BernsteinBook cover courtesy of Simon & Schuster

"I'm so proud of being Mexican and being able to share what I know, and what I learned from my mom to me," Reyna says on the call. "Every every state has their own way to do things, and whatever you find in Mexico City, you're not gonna find in Veracruz, and vice versa.... So for me, being a chef is like sharing something that is authentic to me, with the basis that my mom gave me. I grew up in Mexico, these are my roots, and whatever I present to the table is what is authentic to me."

Just days ago, Reyna says, she and Maritza attended an event focused on cooking from the Mexican states of Guerrero and Morelos. Reyna tried a type of tamal she's never had before and reflected on the diversity of diversity in Mexican cooking.

"I was so impressed that I've never tried something like that before," she says. "I'm still discovering new things, or new ways of cooking things. [When people travel], they see that there's so many dishes and different ways you cook here in Mexico that you never finish exploring, really."

A short section in the introduction lays out some common features of cooking in Veracruz, with an encouragement to use the book as a guide rather than a set of rules. That could mean making some of more than a dozen salsas in the book, pairing each with a protein, and adding a side. It could also mean embracing an accidentally burnt ingredient. (That's "a bonus, not a mistake," the book affirms.)

The cookbook is dedicated in part to Reyna and Maritza's mother, who taught the girls how to cook and thus served as the inspiration to write a cookbook. It's their way of paying her teaching forward, through recipes like her black mole, one of the more complicated dishes included. Reyna recalls waking up to the smell on weekends.

Maritza recalls their mother's cooking philosophy: "She'd always say, 'I'm not gonna leave you money, I'm gonna leave you my recipes.'"

Reyna also highlights the shrimp and scallop aguachile as her favorite recipe in the book, and Maritza says the chicken with pipián rojo (pumpkin seed sauce) is one of her favorites for when she doesn't know what to cook. Both love making breakfast all day, and many readers will be pleased to find the famous migas poblanas, a food truck staple, among the pages.

Other recipes include:

• Veracruz-Style Snapper (Huachinango a la Veracruzana)
• Vegetarian Pozole (Pozole Vegetariano)
• Cauliflower Al Pastor (Coliflor al Pastor)
• Achiote and Citrus-Braised Pork (Cochinita Pibil)
• Cantaloupe-Seed Horchata (Horchata de Semilla de Melón)
• Whole-Wheat Conchas (Conchas Integrales)
• Breakfast Picadas

Make the salsas ahead for easy weeknight meals.Photo courtesy of Simon & Schuster