Customer Reviews

The Clueless Vegetarian

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Until I acquired THE CLUELESS VEGETARIAN, I had no luck at all with vegetarian cookbooks. The food combinations were often odd, the prep work was time-consuming, and worst of all, the finished products just didn't taste all that good. I'd spend hours kneading and chopping, only to have my husband and kids turn up their noses when dinner was served. But wow, this cookbook is different. The recipes are refreshingly "normal"-- lasagna, shepherd's pie, spinach pie, crepes, quiches, pancakes, muffins, and moussaka, to name a few. There are some unusual ethnic entries for those with adventurous palates, but plenty of delicious, easy-to-follow recipes for those with more standard American tastes. There's also some helpful info on easing into the vegetarian lifestyle and feeding a "mixed" family, all rendered in light, witty prose (that's another thing about most other vegetarian cookbooks...they're so deadly dull and serious). Best of all, the results are awesome and leave my family asking for more. I'm rooting for a sequel!

This book was incredibly helpful to me as a delved into the vegetarian lifestyle. It does a great job of helping the less-informed understand ingredients that they hadn't encountered prior to experimenting with veggie cooking. (tempeh? what's tempeh?) Many of the recipes are easily converted to vegan and my carnivorous boyfriend even likes some of them. Most of the recipes are also quick and quickly become staples. The Spicy Black Bean Dip is now a common request at all of my parties.

This book is absolutely wonderful for the beginning vegetarian, or for the experimental cook. In addition to fabulous recipes, it also contains little hints to make cooking easier, serving suggestions, as well as a visual guide to whether a recipe is entirely vegan, or if it contains eggs. This book is also completely appropriate for teen cooks. The recipes, while good, are not too complicated, and are explained in detail. I heartily recommend it.

This book was a fantastic find! I first became a vegetarian 6 months ago but gave it up when I found it frusterating to maintain because it seemed I was eating the same thing every day because I didn't know how to properly cook vegetarian dishes. When my meat allergies recently kicked into overdrive I felt it was time to go vegetarian again and stick to it, so I picked up this book feeling exactly like the title describes. Clueless. This book is wonderful, it has fun tasty recipes that make being a vegetarian much easier. It's also great for those who want to have tasty dinners and kick meat off the menu every now and then. A definate keeper.

Great resources for the new and old vegetarian! Love the quiche, chocolate tofu pie, lasagna and lentil soup! I have given this book to a number of friends who all love it!

This is the perfect beginners cookbook for anyone except a diehard carnivore. Usually I like my cookbooks full of shiny full-color photographs, but a reliable collection of tasty, healthy, inexpensive, easy to cook dishes is ultimately way more useful. Unless you eat meat daily, this is the perfect place to start cooking--you can master the basic techniques and flavor combinations without worrying about cross contamination from the chicken. It works with a lot of familiar flavors and ingredients, but has enough "exotic" recipes to get you started on branching out; it's really a great blend. This is an amazing "workhorse" everyday cookbook for anyone who is mostly used to western/american flavors--even if your favorite foods are from far away, it can be a lot easier to cook with the familiar.

The most impressive part is incredibly consistent high quality of the recipes. I've tried about 45 of them. They've all been good; about half have been really, really good, and a handful have been downright amazing. I've been working my way through all of them, because I feel like I'm wasting my time gambling on other cookbooks when I know these are going to be good.


Other than the photography issue, (the illustrations it does have are whimsical and they make me want to color, but photos would still be nice) my only criticism is that it uses shortening in one or two recipes. Boo trans fat.

This was my first vegetarian cookbook. I've since gotten several others with a fancier look and more exotic recipes. This one is still the one I use the most. It has kind of a funky presentation and no glossy photos. The recipes are for just good, basic, easy to fix dishes. And most are pretty healthy without a lot of oils. If you want to impress guests with something fancy, spend time shopping for odd ingredients, slave over a long list of ingredients to prep, or dabble in the exotic, get one of the Moosewood cookbooks or something. If you want an everyday cookbook that will convince you that cooking vegetarian need not be a chore or a severe challenge to the taste buds, you should give this one a try.

I was not a completely clueless vegetarian when I picked up this book. But I got exactly what I was looking for...simple and easy recipes for quick vegetarian meals.

I've had this book for years, and always go back to it. It has many of the well-known vegetarian staples, and the recipes are simple and straight-forward - very few hard-to-find or hard-to-afford ingredients. The book also contains plenty of basic recipes beyond "meat-substitute" dishes (such as pancakes and muffins).

Despite the simplicity of the recipes, I haven't had one turn out bad and have had many turn out wonderfully. They are also easily adaptable and fun to experiment with. A great cookbook to grow with, and a great basic reference.

As a college student, I have very little experience cooking. It's the little things that experienced cooks do automatically that I wouldn't know how to do - how to make a good white sauce for pasta, for example. "The Clueless Vegetarian" offers great & delicious recipes - with a much wider variety of options than most similar vegetarian cookbooks I've seen - along with little tips I've found absolutely essential and would never have known to even think about otherwise (how in the world to deal with defrosting phyllo dough when making a quiche, for example). I've used plenty of vegetarian cookbooks designed to be easy before, but this is the first I've found to be actually accessible with tons of options for really great food.