Vegetarian Books

I have to admit, when I first got this cookbook, I wasn't entirely sure I was going to like it. Some of the ingredients seemed a little too American homestyle to really taste good, and I was also surprised that the author had collected these recipes from friends and readers. But recently I decided to try a bunch of her recipes and even when I second guessed the ingredients- I found that the recipes (Wulfie's including) resulted in yummy and satisfying home-cooked dishes perfect for a relatively fast meal. I do a lot of elaborate cooking, vegan and otherwise, and sometimes it's nice to find a collection of recipes that are healthy and nutritious, fast AND *gasp* taste good. On the few nights I don't cook elaborate dinners, I have been guilty of reaching for a box meal or making plain pasta... now, with this collection, I can whip up a fast and tasty meal in the same amount of time. They also went over surprisingly well with my non-vegetarian husband, which is rare for a vegan cookbook. I'll be hanging on to this cookbook for a long time, and giving many more of these recipes a try in the future! I also can't eat wheat or gluten, and found plenty of recipes in here that i could either adapt or were already gluten-free. Yay!

I love this cookbook. Every recipe I've tried has been fantastic. The recipes are so easy to shop for and can usually be prepared pretty fast. I am a married college student, and it works so well with my time and budget.
My omni husband has loved all the recipes, too!

The BEST cookbook I have ever owned! I also have never been this experimental before with recipes, but when everything I make is so mouth-watering tasty I have to try more! My husband has also loved everything out of Sarah's book, and he can be pretty "picky". It has never been this FUN to be vegan! :)

I have all the cookbooks Kramer has worked on. They are all quite fab. La Dolce Vegan is my favorite though and I use it A LOT! It's wonderful because she generally keeps the recipes between 2-4 servings and about 30 minutes...but tells you with a clock symbol if it takes longer.

I have recommended this book to two other friends that are taking a journey down vegan road. They like it too!

Thus, if your interested in vegan meals and such I definitely suggest this be the first vegan cookbook you buy!

If you weren't thinking about becoming a vegan before reading this cookbook then you will after! Yes, I said "reading" this cookbook. This is not just a cookbook that you will look up a recipe and put down (though you will do that from time to time) it is more like an inspirational book that you bring to bed with you or on the plane or curl up under a blanket by the fire with.

I cannot think of another text that has inspired me as much! Though there are minor mistakes - aren't we all a little fallible at times? That is the point - make mistakes, learn from them, and move on. Sarah is an inspiration for her small carbon footprint and huge compassion - Thank you!

Can't wait to try all of the recipes in here.
I'm a meat-cutter's daughter with very little natural inclination with vegetables other than good ol' broccoli and brussel sprouts. I'm looking forward to really making vegetables the center focus, with Mollie (my grandmother's and daughter's name) the teacher!

Mollie Katzen's Vegetable Heaven has many interesting recipes but the recipe I like best is the Mexican Chocolate Cake with Mocha Buttercream. I used Ghiradelli chocolate chips for the chocolate and used Saigon cinnamon.

The recipe didn't say whether the butter was salted or unsalted so I took my chances and used unsalted butter for the cake and the buttercream. To make the buttercream even more delicious brew the coffee three times to get a rich deep flavor. I used ¼ cup ground coffee with ½ cup water. In this way you get a much more intense coffee flavor that blends well with the cocoa powder.

In this book you will also find delicious recipes for appetizers, salads, beans, grains, pasta, condiments and sauces. Some of the recipes that look especially interesting include:

Watermelon Sparkler
Lentil Soup
Mushroom-Barley Risotto
Pizzettas
Summer Fruit Salsa
Cherry Upside-Down Gingerbread

To be honest, making the chocolate cake trashed my entire kitchen. However I was so happy to have found such a delicious recipe I didn't mind the clean-up. The cake also freezes well.

~The Rebecca Review

This book is a delight, introducing new and exciting ingredients e.g. Quinoa and unusual vege's to my cooking. Mollie has changed her cooking format (I think it comes with age) since the days of "Enchanted Broccoli Forest" and "Moosewood Cook Book", she displays more of a purest cooking form today. It is certainly packed with receipes to test any vegetable's limited, and as always the flavours are exciting and suprising to the pallet. Mollie has made me receive many compliments from friends and family over the years using her receipes and I will continue to do so.

In this book's introduction, Mollie Katzen explains how she has evolved as a chef to cook and eat lighter, vegetable based meals. As a huge fan of the original moosewood cookbook, I have likewise evolved in my eating and cooking habits and find Vegetable Heaven to be a delightful and essential compliment to her previous books. As always, the majority of recipes I have tried from this book are delicious - my favorite being the lentils with carmelized onions! The book also includes time tables for cooking and preparation time which are very useful in recipe selection. Many of the recipes are easy and quick to prepare, and have few ingredients. Katzen continues to deliver the best vegetarian recipes around. Vegans will find this book more useful than other, more dairy heavy books of Katzen's (although only roughly four dessert recipes are vegan).

I love Mollie Katzen's earliest cookbooks - Moosewood and Enchanted Broccoli Forest. Dishes I make from those are relatively easy and very tasty. I have tried a lot of recipes in this cookbook and I have been very disappointed. They just...don't taste as good. I have served some dishes from this cookbook which have remained uneaten on the table. On the other hand, when I use the other two, people usually enjoy the food, and ask me for the recipes. I have learned my lesson, and I don't use it anymore. If you actually want to buy a cookbook which is a useful source of recipes, I do not recommend this one.

I bought this book a few weeks ago and really enjoyed reading it. I think it was thought-provoking. I really liked the way the authors looked at what the families purchased and then discussed the items and their origins. I think that helps the average person to relate to the information. I highly recommend the book to all people that care and are curious about where their food comes from and if there are ethical implications that they should consider before making the purchase (e.g., environmental considerations, animal concerns, etc.). Two thumbs up for this book!

Throughly researched, this book provides an insightful and provocative look into the ethical/environmental concerns revolving around our meat eating culture. What Singer and Mason are able to avoid is taking on a holier-than-thou tone, while they come to the sensible conclusion that a vegan lifestyle is preferable to an omnivorous one. However, they also investigate the truth behind food labels, and the issues of organic and local food. Very thoughtful, and hopefully this book will instigate further change in people who wish to make a positive change for the sake of the world.

This book offers a very thought-provoking view into the world of food. Forget restaurant hygiene and other crazes, this book portrays the alarming state of the food industry as it operates in the USA today (with a slight glimpse into Europe as well). The authors do a very good job at presenting facts and issues surrounding the ethics (obviously) of the food industry, with a focus on farming. Unlike many other similar discussions, I felt the authors' approach was very easy to read (or digest, heh), with a seemingly open-minded view on the world.

Since finishing the read, I have altered my personal food buying decisions. I'm not perfect by any means, but I feel learning about the "what goes on behind closed doors" has helped me find a new appreciation for awareness and conscientiousness about food. I've given up some foods entirely, and am doing much more research in my buying decisions. I appreciate the education the book provided me, and already feel like a better person for the decisions it's helped me made.

Note: I'm an omnivore, and I *love* steaks. I'm just a bit more thoughtful than I was before about them.

I really thought this was a great book. It is well written (believe it or not it is a "page turner") and it covers a broad range of topics in an open minded and sober manner. It deals with ethical, envirnomental and economic political side of what we eat, as well as other topics and uses a narrative thread following 3 different families with different lifestyles. I got a lot out of it.

This is a superb book. Everyone should read this to know what they are truly consuming and how it effects our planet and its inhabitants. It's time that we are aware of the consequences of our food choices so that we may hopefully make better choices and decrease our impact on the planet.

Courtney Von Dragen Smith thought everything was going well for her. She had a great boyfriend, a job at a cool cafe with her best friend, and a family that was somewhat average, somewhat odd (depending on the family member). Senior year was about to begin, with great promise.

Then her boyfriend went to college and broke up with her. Then her dog ran away. Repeatedly. In an effort to minimize the chaos surrounding her, she makes two huge decisions: she will stop dating and become vegan.

Easier said than done. She falls on and off the vegan wagon on a fairly regular basis, temped by tasty treats at the Truth or Dairy cafe. Her dog runs away again. Her classmates give her grief. Her brother sets his sights on her best friend.

Courtney chronicles these and other melodramas in her diary, making for an easy-to-follow laugh-out-loud comedy. Fans of The Princess Diaries and the Confessions of Georgia Nicolson series will lap Truth or Dairy right up. The follow-up, Wurst Case Scenario, is just as good if not better.

This book is about a girl named Courtney who has some boy troubles. Well, I'm sure you've read about a girl who's had boy troubles, but the author, Catherine Clark, inserts fresh air into this very funny novel. Courtney is determined not to go on a date with another boy for the rest of the school year, when her beloved boyfriend breaks up with her just before school starts. Because of this decision, the relationship with a few guy friends and girl friends become endangered, and she is forced to make the ultimate decision. Courtney learns how to stay true with all her relationships, and along the way, strengthens her bond with her mother, brother, father, stepmom, stepsister, and her stepsister's daughter. She learns to stay true to her friends and family, and matures greatly by the end of the book. This book is a funny yet powerful novel.

So, now I've read "Truth or Dairy" and find myself none the better but none the worse either for this read. It's not always entirely easy to follow because it is written in diary form, I mean really DIARY form, just as disjointed and random as a real diary would be but it was kind of fun that way y'know you really felt like you are the naughty little sister who had stolen your big sisters diary, not just you sitting there reading a book `cause you're bored... It was funny sometimes and just plain frustrating other times, where you find yourself tearing out you're hair thinking "my god she's soooo stupid, no one in their right mind would do that!" but it was enjoyable, if a little pointless...

Truth or Dairy is a good book about a teenage girl, Courtney, and her struggles with school, work, family and boyfriends. Dave had been going out with Courtney for a few years and decided to break up with her before he headed off to college. Grant Superior started hanging out with Courtney and asking her to go places with him. After Dave broke up with Courtney, she made a pledge to go her entire senior year without a boyfriend. Grant kept coming in Truth or Dairy, the smoothie shop where Courtney works, but Courtney kept trying to ignore him. Trying to stay out of trouble, Courtney decided to run for student council. Instead of getting the vice principal spot, Courtney got the principal of student council spot because the principal was stealing money from the student council jar. Will Courtney keep her pledge and not have a boyfriend her senior year?
One thing I really like about this book was it was written like a journal, so I didn't have to read for a half hour to get to the end of a chapter. One thing that got me hooked on this book was it was really funny. Catherine Clark wrote this book to make it sound like a teenager wrote it. One thing I didn't like about this book is that at the end it just sort of leaves you hanging and doesn't tell you what happens.
I would recommend this book to girls from ages eleven through fourteen. This book would be best for girls looking for a fast read about just about everything in life.

...like a woman scorned or a teenage girl dumped by her college bound boyfriend just as her senior year begins. Heartbreak and humor make for a winning combination, told in diary form. I particularly enjoyed main character Courtney's independence, despite her boy troubles (Dumper Dave, Sleazer the Tom, and Friends first Grant), and that she is a thinker and a problem-solver. Compulsively readable!

I have wanted this book for some time and finally purchased it. It is exquisite. The photographs are magnificent and the recipes look wonderful. I have yet to try it and yes, some of the recipes (like most raw preparation) can take time, effort and love to complete, however, the efforts are worth the results when/if you have the time, desire and ability to do it.

I have other raw books that are simple and fast. But like any cooking raw or otherwise, sometimes good things are in store for those with patience and ability to wait to create a result.

I look forward to making some of the dishes in this book. And if able, I will report back here with results and rapture!

A stunning presentation, even in paperback.

I love this book but keep in mind it is for Raw gourmet food so some of the recipes can be time consuming, but well worth the wait.

After working in Relais Chateaus and fine french, Italian and Fine Eclectic fare restaurants, it was apparent that there were very high expectations to be met when presenting a plated item. Charlie Trotter and Roseann Klein have created a beautifully bound version of "Raw" food, Relais Gormand style. Fabulous photos of the finished plates and really detailed recipes, right down to the appendix of savory and succulent sauces, creams, cheeses and cracker recipes. I have created nearly everything in this book and the recipes are true to the photos, flavors are fabulous. If you want to create show stopping, 5 star cuisine that will keep your guests amazed, satiated with libations to salivate over, this is the book for you. Elegant and sophisticated. I just LOVE this book!.

I bought this book when it was first released. I was also lucky to try Roxanne's restaurant in Larkspur couple of times. The recipes are absolutely wonderful and most of them are easy to prepare. The key of course is to get the freshest produce. Since it is raw food the ingredients have to be fresh so don't try to make tomato soup in the middle of winter. It just won't taste good at all.

During peak summer season, try Watermelon or Pineapple gazpacho. Extremely refreshing and chilling for a hot summer day. Soups are extremely easy and flavorful. Cauliflower soup in season is amazing. Desserts are fantastic but do take sometime except for Cashew truffles and the soups. I am not too fond of the ice-creams as is because they have too much coconut flavor and not enough creaminess even after making them in Ice-cream machine. Drinks are absolutely fantastic. Don't worry if you don't have every ingredient called in the recipe. Use your imagination and subsitute.

I am not a raw foodist but have enjoyed making just about everything from this book. I also don't strictly follow the raw recipe but rather use the ideas. For example, I don't make raw taco shells instead I use regular shells and make the raw filling.

I consider myself pretty good cook and do think some of the recipes in the book do take sometime to make/prepare but of course you save the cooking time:-) Overall, I highly recommend the book. Just remember to get good, fresh fruits and vegetables, good ingredients such as oil and vinegar. Remember since it is raw food, the better the ingredients the better it will taste.

A word about the equipment:

I am sure you can make most of the recipes with general blender etc. but it will take extra work to strain/process to get the same consistency.

If you can afford it definitely buy Vita Mix (high-speed blender) you will use it not only for recipes in the book but for just about everything else you use blenders, juicers, and food processor for.

I don't have a dehydrator but I generally put the stuff in the regular oven at a very low temperature and just watch them often to get the right crispiness.

Any food enthusiast would love to have this book and play with the recipes.

This book has beautiful food photography and of course Charlie Trotter is a Chicago treasure, however, the recipies are not for your in-a-hurry working person. Preparation is too elaborate. I need every day recipies, readily available ingredients and simple presentation. It's a bit intimidating.

I only got to page 3 because I saw something that was completely non-vegetarian listed in a vegan recipe! "Chili Bonzos" call for Worcestershire Sauce. I don't know if the author knew, but one of the main ingredients in Worcestershire Sauce is ANCHOVIES! If one were to assume that the author meant Vegetarian Worcestershire Sauce, then shouldn't that have been covered in the Ingredient Information section at the beginning of the book?

I'm already turned off of it and I don't know if I'll read past page 3 unless it's just to look for more errors.

This is just a good, basic vegetarian cookbook with lots of variety. One may not use every recipe in it, but I rarely use every recipe in any cookbook, so I don't think that is unusual. And, it IS 1001 recipes to work with. A nice addition to vegetarian cooking, and really nice to have. It is not a how to be vegetarian book, I would recommend Becoming Vegetarian for that, or The Vegetarian Way.

I'm not even vegetarian and this is one of my most used books, especially in the summer when fresh fruits and vegtables are abundant. Very tasty and adaptable recipes.

I bought this because my friend has this and made so many great recipies from here. It's huge with many great recipies that I use very often. My only complaint would be it's no frills without photos. Everything I've made is great... hard to believe it's all healthy!

Having gone veggie a few years ago, this was my first non-introductory style vegetarian cookbook, and although I commend Spitler and company for the sheer quantity of recipes here, I've found the recipes to be very hit or miss. I think this is partly due to the often non-intuitive combinations of ingredients found in many of the recipes. While sometimes these out-of-place ingredients are genius (i.e. the black -not adzuki- beans in the egg rolls, or the more than liberal use of celery seed in the bleu cheese dressing), sometimes these combinations can turn what seemed like a tasty dinner into something even my dog looks askance at (like the orange juice and zest in the hummus or the cream cheese and cranberries in the savory wontons). The dishes err more on the sweet side of the palate than on the spicy side. That said, all of the dessert type foods I have tried so far have been solidly good, while the majority of the entrees required a healthy dose of crushed red pepper. My suspicion is that these recipes were generated by a crew less than adequately familiar with vegetarianism, as many of the recipes attempt to make use of meat substitutes (i.e. Mexi "meatball" soup, rigatoni with italian "sausage" and fennel pesto, "burgers" provencal, swedish "meatball" and dilled potato cassarole, etc, etc)with less than appetizing results. There are a least two problems here: first, there are plenty of amazing veggie dishes that don't try to imitate the "meat and potato" style meal (there are almost NO Indian entrees in this book), and second, nothing makes one miss the real thing more than a poor substitute. Yes, those tvp crumbles look innocent enough in the grocery aisle and are easy enough to throw into the pasta sauce, but unless you want to spend you're evening sobbing over your half eaten plate of "sausage" lasagna for your momma's home cooking, then PLEASE skip the phoneys and throw in some chopped baby bellas instead. To summarize, this book is like the bargain basement of vegetarian recipes: over-stuffed with so-so items, but amidst the bland and the out-and-out bad, there are a few gems that make this book deserving of a place on your shelf.

As a bonus for those tracking diet information: each recipe is tagged as vegan, lacto-ovo, lacto, or ovo, to make finding appropriate recipes easy, and all recipes come with calorie counts, basic nutrition information, and the exchange listings for the ADA.

The old saying "you are what you eat" rings true. This book is highly recommended for anyone who EATS, as it brings greater awareness to what we are putting into our body temple when we have a meal or snack. Included are tasty recipes along with much valuable information. Also highly recommended would be Spiritual Nutrition by Gabriel Cousens.

Dr. Cousens book is filed to the brim with lots of quality info on eating and living a good, pure, spiritual life. There is a great deal to absorb in this book. Highly recommended.

i'm studying to be a naturopathic doctor and this was a required text.

i was already vegan when i read this book and i was considering moving to a raw-food diet. this book did further convince me of that choice, and my family is transitioning now.

however, i did have a few problems with the book. they are certainly easy enough to gloss over in favor of the solid knowledge that it does in fact contain, but they were there nonetheless.

first of all, there was one GLARING error in his discussion of breastfeeding toward the end of the book. he says that the two circumstances under which a woman should not breastfeed are in the case of certain medically-necessary medications, and if the baby is jaundiced. sadly, cousens is extremely misinformed about jaundice and gives very bad, completely false information in this case. i was a student midwife for three years and i am a certified lactation educator now. if a baby has jaundice two things are most important to help it pass: to expose the baby to natural light and to NURSE NURSE NURSE. fluid will help the bilirubin pass faster and if a baby is given water or formula instead, it can cause health problems and interfere with breastfeeding. one potential problem resulting from jaundice is lethargy. if jaundice isn't caught early and breastfeeding isn't established well, then serious problems can occur because the baby is not awake enough to take in the necessary fluid to help the bilirubin pass. as a result, jaundice may persist and bilirubin levels may raise to dangerous levels. this is why it is of paramount importance that breastfeeding is established early and babies are breastfed exclusively, on-demand from birth. breastmilk is absolutely the best healer for jaundice; if breastfeeding is not established and the baby is deprived of the breast, jaundice is much more likely to occur and to persist to a critical level. while every breastfeeding expert and supportive organization in the world says that breastfeeding is the best thing you can do to prevent and correct jaundice, cousens claims that breastmilk contains "substances" that supposedly prevent bilirubin from passing. but he doesn't say what these substances are, and he gives no references, and i have not been able to find a single piece of scientific literature supporting his assertion. universally, the fact stated by experts is that except in the case of a few extremely rare metabolic diseases, breastfeeding can and should continue when a baby is jaundiced. please overlook cousens' inaccuracy and look to your midwife, lactation consultant, LLL leader, or BREASTFEEDING-FRIENDLY doctor for more accurate information if your baby is jaundiced.

with that long diatribe aside... :)

i found some of his spiritual commentary off-putting. as a casual pagan who is vegan in part due to spiritual reasons, i am certainly open to considerations of spirituality in diet, and i consider myself very tolerant of religious beliefs. but in this case i found most of his comments irrelevent and even somewhat nonsensical. again, this is easy enough to overlook, but it might be a serious bother to some people. the sections on jesus, the apostles, and the bible, while interesting, were especially confusing in context.

this book is dense with intense information. it is really a scholarly work and was quite difficult for me to get through in a timely manner with a toddler and a newborn. but i did come away with a ton of really excellent insight and understanding. some parts i discarded, but other parts i found surprisingly enlightening. i went in very skeptical about the ayurvedic diet system that he describes, but i was amazed at how specifically true, and positive, it ended up being when i adjusted my eating habits to fit his recommendations for my "dosha."

i didn't feel that the book was laid out very well. i felt that many chapters were stuck in at random. and i found a lot of his commentary saccharine and condescending - such as looking at food as "love messages from god." gag.

he also plugs his own health resort regularly, which is a great option for the rich who have money to burn on such luxuries.

i was also thoroughly disappointed that he didn't have any advice whatsoever for applying a live/raw-food diet to babies or children.

i did find the book basically informative and enlightening and i found most of his principles easy to apply, despite the aforementioned problems.

-chandelle

Conscious Eating was required reading for me when I was studying for my Bachelors Degree in Holistic Nutrition. Up until that time I had never heard of the book or the author. How grateful I am in retrospect that this was a book I studied. The approach taken is varied and diverse. I particularly enjoyed the chapters on Enzymes and the importance of maintaining a proper pH. The information in these chapters has influenced several nutritional supplement products that I have had the privilege to formulate (Enzymedica). Of special interest to me was the research the author did through his clinic on vegetarian and non vegetarian diets and the surprising results he discovered when measuring the individuals pH. It was not what I expected and so it has given me greater insight on the topic.

I always recommend this book to individuals looking for an well balanced approach to overall health.

If you like this book, you might also enjoy:
Everything You Need to Know About Enzymes: A Simple Guide to Using Enzymes to Treat Everything from Digestive Problems and Allergies to Migraines and Arthritis

I've had this book for a few years and regularly refer to it. After reading the reviews I decided to post.

First of all, I think this book would be difficult to swallow if you don't have raw food experience. Primarily because this book is about adjusting the dials. Most of us have little knowledge of how our own unique bodies function, or what's required to funciton optimally. One may have a lot of knowledge about the body, but experience trumps info. Apply what you know to your own body and see how much it bears out in experience. It is then we realize that much of our knowledge is theoretical, no matter how sound, and doesn't necessarily bear out in reality.

This book, then, is a manual for the experience of one's own body and is based on decades of experience, study and practice with hundreds of people. The information is astoundingly refined. If you are just begining raw not only will the information be too complex, it won't be all that relevant - even though it's good. It's important to have refined information when you need refined information and to have more general information when you need that.

I say take what's useful and stay raw. Keep the book as a resource. Don't make up your mind in one or two reads. You'll come back again and again and gain new insight or new persepctive. This book will grow with you.

On a personal note: I often hear or read comments about Dr. Cousens' arrogance or that he's condescending. I'm not a "fan" but I do respect his work. He has an educational background that is astounding, a spiritual background that is shockingly diverse, feeds people, houses people, heals people, educates people and is utterly commited to helping save our planet. Dr. Cousens couldn't be self-serving or self-absorbed - or he wouldn't be willing/able to do the huge amount of work he does, tirelessy, for others. (there are MUCH easier ways to stroke one's ego) I think it's important to view him in the context of his work and his life to gain an understanding of his language and tone. Plus, he's human. Just please don't throw out the baby with the bathwater. This really is a great book.

You don't need any weird ingredients to follow the recipes in this book. I have a slow cooker with stoneware that I can use on stove-top, in the microwave and in the oven. Therefore I do not mind that the recipes include prep steps. I put my onions in my stoneware, place it on the stove and then I place it in the slow cooker and I'm done. And the food tastes so much better when you follow the prep steps. Overall a real good vegetarian slow cooker book.

This is a great book! There is a great variety and everything has been easy to make, but more a slow cooker cookbook for cooks, than one for someone that wants to plop some food in and have it cooked when they get home from work. The effort is worth it, and the book suggests ways to prepare ahead so you aren't doing everything in the morning.

Great book for working parents who want healthy families! True, there is some precooking required for recipes, but every good slow-cooker recipe out there requires SOME preparation...I usually do the prep while I'm getting dinner ready the night before, then refrigerate overnight and pop it in the slow cooker as I'm walking out the door (most recipes work this way). It's great to come home to the smell of dinner cooking, and knowing you have very little left to do to get dinner on the table!

For those with the larger cookers, like my oval Corning, get a timer to get it right. My first attempt at the mushroom lasagne was overcooked. Got it right the next time with the timer. Lesson learned. The kids LOVED it!

I'll admit, any vegetarian cookbook with "slow cooker" in the title is a must for me; however, this cookbook was disappointing. Most receipes require "pre cooking" and there were but a handful of actually delicious items. It's not that crucial to have, and for goodness sake don't pay full price for it.

This book requires lot of pre-prepration and ingredients. This book is not for regular use. I did try some of the recipes and they were good, just baked them instead of using slow cooker.

This is the cookbook that taught me how to balance my proteins and make my vegetarian meals filling and satisfying. A classic that I intend to always keep on hand. There are some great recipes in this book, but there are also some real duds.

Well I'm not american nor a woman but found this book great - I actualy discovered my copy in an aprtment in Boston near Notheatern when I lived there for a summer. the recipies were pretty crap (insert mick dundee quote here) but some of the ideas on protein complementarity were interesting

I grew up on the recipes from this book, so I admit that my opinion may be biased by the fact that, to me, many of the recipes in here are comfort foods. Still, this book remains simply one of the best basic vegetarian cookbooks out there. I agree that the preaching at the front gets a little old, and I have honestly never gotten through all of it, but the intention of this book is to teach new and beginning vegetarians how to cook healthy, protein filled vegetarian meals. Yes, the front matter is outdated and yes, she does stand on her soapbox for a long time, but this is easily skipped and reading this part has little to nothing to do with cooking the recipes that come after. And, in that capacity it works well. It provides easy, fully developed recipes that are simple to follow even for the unexperienced cook and have complete protein included. Like any cookbook there are recipes in here that are horrible, and then there are some that are amazing. I have brought the book to the attention of many friends who were new vegetarians over the years, and they have all been increadibly thankful for some guidence on how to cook something other than plain tofu. If you are just starting out, this is a great book to start with.

well worth the eye opening explanations it provides on how to fight world hunger and preserve our limited resources efficiently.

This is still a great cookbook with helpful ideas for creating delicious and nutritious meals. I love their blueberry cobbler recipe and still use it at least once a month.

I purchased this book shortly after switching to a vegetarian diet. What a life saver, especially to the novice vegetarian!

Most vegetarian cookbooks I had found relied upon excess cheese for protien. Or worse yet, many books that claim to be vegetarian use such things as chicken broth, fish, shellfish, and other products which contain animal products (which in my book is NOT vegetarian).

This book is different from the others. It shows many ways to use soy products; not relying just upon tofu, but introducing tempeh, soy milk, and soy cheese. Yes! There is more to a vegetarian diet that just tofu (which is quite good when prepared correctly). And the variety of recipes are quite nice. The recipes cover salads, main dishes, and even some desserts. You can prepare an entire meal just from this book.

The instructions are easy to follow and the resulting food is quite tasty!

This book makes some pretty false assumptions based on hyped, unscientific claims. Go to the reviews for "The Whole Soy Story," by Kaayla T. Daniel, and you will get previews of a book that alarmingly shows soy products to be a danger to health. Evidence is mounting that soy is an anti-nutrient, that in fact it is an extremely unhealthy substance. The way soy is manufactured, processed, and chemically altered, it has no remaining "food" value to speak of.

I bought this cookbook a few years ago when I had just decided to eliminate eating meat/fish etc from my diet. At the time I wasn't "ready" for all the tofu etc but I gradually grew to love it and I'm so glad I keptthis cookbook around. It has so many tasty recipes - there are nice bean salads, hearty stews, a paella, desserts etc. Each recipe has nutritional contents too. One thing that turns some people off is that many of the recipes that are take-offs on previously meat-laden recipes are called by their meat names (e.g. Soy Sausage Potato Chowder or the Soy Meat Loaf). It doesn't phase me though and sometimes helps me to get my husband to try it. Lots of interesting recipes for tempeh. Some recipes (like the curried eggplant) use soy yogurt too. Its a fun cookbook and so far so good in terms of being tasty. Definitely recommend this one!

Far too many of the tofu recipes in this book consist of taking a block of tofu, slicing it, frying the slices and then covering them with sauce. (Tofu with Mole Sauce, I'm looking at you!)

Other recipes fail because they simply try to replace meat with tofu or tempeh, rather than trying to be completely new recipes in which the soy product can shine on its own, rather than as a substitute.

So far, there are only 2 recipes that I would recommend - the Spinach Burgers and the Brown Rice Pilaf. The rest? Meh. I'm still looking for a really good tofu cookbook.

What a pleasure! -- a creative, easy-to-follow, healthy cookbook with recipes that TASTE GREAT! Greenberg leaves no soy question unanswered, from Soy Split Pea Soup to Tofu Tiramisu. The recipes are clear and very innovative, covering ethnic foods from all over the world, like Pumpkin Tofu Cheesecake and Soy Potstickers. Every recipe also provides nutrition information on calories, carbs, cholesterol, fiber, sodium, etc. As a food historian, I appreciate the intelligence and attention to detail in this book and what must have been years coming up with and testing all these creative recipes. An appendix on where to get soy products and information is also very helpful, as are the comparisons between soy products and dairy, other beans, etc. It's a great book for when you want to eat healthy but don't want to compromise on flavor. Mangia!