Customer Reviews

The Lowfat Jewish Vegetarian Cookbook: Healthy Traditions from Around the World

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4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(4)
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Some of the recipes presented here are quite tasty...but I found that many of them were thoroughly unworkable, as if they'd been translated into "vegetarian" without much thought. Matzoh balls are fussy enough with eggs -- with nothing to hold them together but potatoes, they're nearly impossible! Other recipes lacked flavor. In short, simply removing meat, dairy, and eggs does not necessarily make a good vegetarian recipe; something else needs to be provided to supply flavor and structure.

Considering the challenging subject matter, I have to appreciate this book even though it does not contain as much material nor is as professionally presented as many cookbooks. There are not as many Passover recipes as I'd hoped; but ANY source of non-dairy vegetarian Passover recipes is helpful to me, as I need to prepare dishes to bring to a meat-centric Passover seder where vegetarians will be in attendance. I have also just purchased the booklet Vegan Passover Recipes by Nancy Berkoff, which is brief but helpful as well.

I have not tried every recipe in Lowfat Vegetarian (I can't comment, for example, on the matzoh ball recipe another review complained about). One non-Passover dish that I particularly enjoy is the Romanian Paprikash (made of mushrooms, potatoes, paprika and other seasonings, and elbow macaroni). Many recipes involve legumes (beans, chick peas, etc.) and various grains. I think the recipes for foods that are originally low in fat probably come out better than the adaptations of traditional fat-ful Jewish food.

This looked like a great cookbook by the title and the thought of making low fat dishes was appealing to me. I cooked a few recipes and found them bland and not very good.
They were low fat though!

I normally love the cookbook offerings from the Vegetarian Resource Group and anxiously awaited the arrival of this one. However, many of the recipes are somewhat bland--I've remedied that by adding more flavorings as appropriate to the recipe. They are easy to make with clear instructions, but the flavor is somewhat lacking. (One example was the low-fat 'mock chopped liver,' which I made for my family and was roundly booed. Try the VRG regular high-fat version which uses walnuts--much better unless you are looking to cut fat!) But if you are looking for lowfat recipies, these are OK.

I like a lot of the recipes here, I would just spice them up a little as they are basic and simple but I like that. So to me this is a good cookbook, modest but quite a treasure chest that takes up very little space. If you prefer elaborate lengthy descriptions with beautiful photographs look elsewhere but this is a handy lowfat book with vegetarian recipes from various different countries. It may look unassuming but you can work with these recipes without too much effort or time. I suggest that you fine tune some of the dishes to your personal liking but you have a rough draft already given of many dishes that you may know from somewhere...

This cookbook will be easy to follow and give more alternatives to eating a sound diet.