Customer Reviews

Intimate Vegetarian: Delicious Practical Recipes for Singles and Couples

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

 

 

Aside from the delicious and easy recipes, I love the tips on how to prepare dishes without worrying about leftovers!! As a single woman who can't afford to go out to eat or spend a lot of money on groceries, this book is a lifesaver!!!!

This cookbook would be a good buy for someone newly cooking for him or her self - a good gift for a college student. It has a range of easy vegetarian dishes, shopping and vegetable prep tips, and recipes scaled to serve one or two people. It's really a book for the neophyte cook, someone looking to save money, make themselves dinner, and not go to extra trouble or expense.

More experienced folks looking for innovation will likely find it too basic and repetitive. Someone looking for an encyclopedic vegetarian equivalent to "The Joy of Cooking" would do well to seek out Deborah Madison's "Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone."

Since I'm not the greatest cook, I was so excited when I stumbled across this book and found practical recipes that any guy can follow. They are simple and really tasty, with easy-to-follow directions and helpful hints. Plus, the recipes are just the right size for when I'm either eating on my own or entertaining a friend for dinner. This book is a great resource for every kitchen.

Yes, this book is simple like some of the other reviews wrote, but it is great for during the week with work and being busy with other activities. Also the recipes are good and no left-overs. I love this book!!

I purchased this book from ... and then returned it. It wasn't that I felt the recipes were bad, just not imaginative. The author spent many pages on very basic things like things to add to a green salad, but nothing seemed all that diferent or inventive. I was hoping for a few more recipes that showed some unique touches and instead got scaled back basics. In the future I will just make 1/2 of my favorite recipes from other vegetarian cookbooks I own.

This book may be good for a new vegetarian or someone trying to become vegetarian since the smaller recipes let you try different things with fewer leftovers (in case you don't like it!), or for someone who entertains and sometimes has a mixture of veg & non-veg guests. It would allow them to make a separate entree for the veg guests.

I got this book because I am trying to eat healthier, and that means less meat in my diet. I'm also trying to eat less processed foods. I would consider myself an experienced cook. I am by no means a professional, but I've been cooking for close to 25 years now, if you count all the times my mom and I baked cookies and cakes together while I was a kid. I know my way around a kitchen, but I have some room for more learning, too. It's just me and my husband that I have to cook for, so the layout of the recipes was what drew me to this book in particular. Each recipe is written for only two people, and even has the recipe halved as well so you don't have to do the math on your own. It's a great idea, and what saved this review from only having one star, but the quality of the recipes is what makes this book such a failure.
This book was a bitter disappointment. While I was not looking for a gourmet cookbook, I also don't need to be told how to make a grilled cheese, either. And this book actually has a recipe for grilled cheese. To it's credit, though, it adds tomato and basil, as if I couldn't have figured out that variation myself. This book also includes recipes for baked potatoes, baked sweet potatoes (because the recipe is so completely different for the two varieties), and mashed potatoes. The last straw with me (and what prompted me to actually post this review) was when I read the recipe for "Quick Tomato Sauce". The ingredients consist of: olive oil, onion, garlic, oregano, cayenne pepper, and A CAN OF TOMATO SAUCE. I don't call that a recipe, I call that spicing up a store-bought sauce. Personally, if I'm buying a cookbook, I feel that it should have recipes in it that I wouldn't know how to make without the recipe.
This book's biggest saving grace is that it has 42 pages of cooking tips as a preface to the actual cookbook. This area has some good tips on how to pick out the best fruits and vegetables, and the best way to store them once you get them home. It has a section on restricted diets, such as dairy-free, sugar-free, and wheat-free, and what substitutes can be made for them. There is also a helpful section of cooking tips, such as how to fry your own taco shells, how to pit olives, how to remove the garlic smell from your fingers, how to prevent the eye irritation caused by cutting onions, and how to cut and pit an avocado. I wouldn't say that this section makes the cost of the book worth it, but if you've bought it already, the information there and maybe a couple of REAL recipes make it worth not getting rid of.
If you're considering buying this book, and you're NOT absolutely clueless about cooking, I would certainly NOT recommend this book. I would suggest you try "The Best Vegetarian Recipes" by Martha Rose Shulman (ISBN 0-688-16827-2). It is obviously written by a cook who's got a lot of experience, and contains practical and creative recipes for those who choose not to eat meat. Another good pick is the "Vegetarian Times Complete Cookbook" (ISBN 0-02-621745-7). This cookbook reminds me of the book that my husband got when he was in culinary school. Thus, there is a lot of information at the beginning of the book about different vegetables and fruits, good reasons to become a vegetarian (which I think is kind of like preaching to the choir to put that in a vegetarian cookbook!), and kitchen techniques. There are also photos throughout the book of several dishes. This book is geared towards those who are just getting started with a vegetarian diet, but unlike the simplistic "Intimate Vegetarian", this book actually assumes that you've been in a kitchen before.