Customer Reviews

Simply Heavenly! The Monastery Vegetarian Cookbook

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

please please PLEASE reprint this book, after reading so many great reviews I decided that I must have it!! And through much searching I found it at icon book store. I was so happy. I mean, to be honest I LOVE meat, however, I'm vegetarian for religious and health reasons. So when I saw someone say that they showed you how to make fake meat. I jumped at the chance!! This book is excellent!! No more spending lots of money on already processed veggie meats. I'm so happy. I love this book!!! If u find it GRAB IT QUICK. If you became a vegetarian because you hate meat, then don't even bother with this book. Because the stuff tastes real. Now I can have my fried UNchicken, and be happy and healthy. Beef, chicken, sausage, bacon, ham, fish, scallops, shrimp, cheese. You name it, this book tells you how to fake it. I'm so glad I have found this book.

Like I said, this is the best book for meat lovers who have gone vegetarian. I love my vegetables and all, but it's a good change from eating tofu all the time (even though I'm a tofu fanatic). With the techniques in this book, you can make almost any dish from other cookbooks. I love it!!

Anyway, I'm through rating and raving.
Peaces
:-)

This is truly a great book! There is a new 2nd edition out, so this book is back in print! Yeah! The title is the same, but it has the words Revised 2nd Edition across the top. This cookbook is a must for anyone wanting to eat or experiment with vegetarian cuisine. They are many fabulous recipes for making your own meat substitutes (pork, turkey, beef, chicken, ham, bacon, eggs, ice cream, and sausages), step by step directions to make make your own Tofu and Wheat Gluten, as well as a multitude of simply amazing vegetable dishes. This book is a must for everyone, whether or not they are a full time vegan. This cookbook is written simple enough for anyone to follow, but has dishes complex enough to interest even the most seasoned chefs. Do yourself and your loved ones a favor and get this book!

I've been a vegan for 7 years. When I started out, I bought a ton of cookbooks. Now, this is the ONLY one I need. The recipes are easy and things I actually like to eat! Most vegan/vegetarian cookbooks are composed entirely of things with ingredients like avocado, eggplant, weird stuff I've never heard of, and always whole wheat everything, with a major lack of flavor and many recipes that don't even turn out! This book, on the other hand, has EVERYTHING, from interesting new exotic stuff, to (what most new vegans REALLY want), ways to make all your old favorites vegan and still just as good or BETTER! There are literally 1,400 recipes in this thing, and every single one I've tried is good. Want to make barbecue chicken? It's here. Eggplant parmesan? Yup. Vegan pizza that actually tastes like real pizza, with "cheez" and everything! Of course. Every imaginable style of cakes, cookies, pies, and puddings? You bet! And tons of delicious yummy vegetable dishes, fake meat dishes, soups, salads ... and random stuff like pancakes, biscuits, vegan fudge ... Basically, this book has EVERYTHING (and it's all 100% vegan). :)

This cookbook tends to be difficult to find, but if you want to prepare vegan faux-meat meals, there's simply no better cookbook. Burke's marinades are clever and obviously honed, and really live up to his promises.

Beyond his gluten techniques, all the other sections are great, too, and quite a few of the recipes are very simple and fast to prepare, which for me is a very important factor in purchasing a cookbook.

One important distinction is that while some vegan cookbooks embrace the view that vegan cuisine is fundamentally different from omnivorous cuisine, this cookbook is something of the opposite. Much of its focus is on using vegan foods to emulate meat, dairy, and eggs.

That's great, and I'm often in just the mood for the BBQ gluten (which is a spot-on match for good barbeque, incidentally) or any of his other great meat substitutes. But it's kind of a novelty, at some point, and so it's not one of those cookbooks for which I could say, "This is the only cookbook I ever use!" or such.

Still, that's not much of a detraction. Sure, sometimes I have to turn to another cookbook for what I want, but *Simply Heavenly* covers many areas, and it's the superlative for all of them. Put another way: I have never been disappointed with a recipe from this cookbook.

If you can find a copy of this, snatch it up quickly. It's inexpensive, contains great information, and fills what would otherwise be a very notable gap in my cookbook collection.

This book is an absolute MUST for any vegetarian or vegan! It's also a must for anyone willing to try such crazy dishes as cashew milk, UnSeafood and lots of crazy and delicious and *healthy* dishes! This guy devoted 20 years of his life to create the 1,400 dishes in this book (so far, only 1 out of the perhaps 50 I've made wasn't AMAZING!), so you owe him the measly 20 bucks to enrich your life with happiness and health. If you cook a different recipe every day it would still take almost 5 years to get through this monsterpiece! Just get it

This is the first cookbook I have purchased that has such a wonderful supply of excellent recipes. Even my non-vegetarian friends and family love the recipes. Instructions are easy (and humorous), ingredients are easily found in grocery and health food stores, and the recipes are delicious!

This is my favorite cookbook and I use it all the time. I've always had a problem with cookbooks because I never have the right ingredients on hand. But, this cookbook has multiple versions of basic recipes so you can always find a version that fits what you have on in your cupboard. The index is also very helpful because you can look up key ingredients and find all the recipes that use it. Plus, this book has a vegan version of just about any recipe you could ever want to make.

There is a rather large section in the book about how to prepare wheat gluten from scratch using serveral methods and with several different flavors. It comes out delicious!

This book is the end all of it all. It has made my life incredibly richer and easier in terms of my vegan diet. The recipes are straightforward and the sections on gluten and dairy substitutes are unparalleled. The recipes themselves are very very good, though they are not as 'exotic' or 'haute-cuisine' as some out there will like. However, this book is THE book for the main stuff you need to do on a day by day basis. Even when using other books that I have in my cuisine library, I ALWAYS use this one.

The point being that this book is the key for preparing the basic stuff that you will use in all recipes (including recipes from other books). This book gives you the building blocks of everything else. Usually books present -say- a specific dressing cause they are recommending it for a salad that they are also giving to you. This book doesn't work like that. It is the pure building blocks. And so even when I am cooking Indian or Thai food, I come back to this book constantly.

...breads...glutens (3 methods of preparation and flavors include ham, sausage, chicken, beef, shrimp, pork, among others)...un-cheese...dressings, unmilk, kreem cheese, yogurt, sauces, etc. it is all here. There is even a very good parmesan chiz recipe. It has A LOT of recipes PLUS potential variations in many of them.

The section on beans and grains is very good as well.

This book is well-researched, the author is extremely knowledgeable AND experienced, and it shows a LOT. He offers alternatives constantly and sometimes even gives you two or three ways of preparing -say- a parmesan cheez.

This is the only book I take when traveling abroad or on vacation trips. I carry it with me on the NYC subway everyday and read from it. I've been doing this for almost a year now. Everything is here, everything is easy to do, and everything is superb.

The main idea is...Given than vegan food is better for you than animal-based food, it should also taste better. Here is how.

This book should be reprinted over and over, my second favorite book...Veganomicon...is on a distant, very distant second place. Sorry Chandra and Terry!!

This is a book full of simple and easy vegan recipes, interspersed with gently humorous comments by the author. It should be owned by every aspiring vegan, as it contains recipes for such things as soy whipped cream, tofu sour cream, cheese substitute, and a number of other common meat, dairy, and egg ingredients. You should try the vegan "ice cream" recipes

This is an excellent book! It's a crime that it's out of print. The author deserves a huge thank you for enriching vegetarians' diets and lives.