Vegetarian Express : Easy, Tasty, and Healthy Menus in 28 Minutes(or Less!) [Paperback]

Nava Atlas (Author), Lillian Kayte (Author)

Book Description

Series: Or Less | Publication Date: June 1, 1995

This is a collection of vegetarian meals aimed at busy vegetarian families and singles who do not want to spend hours in the kitchen. It contains more than 180 low-fat recipes which are arranged in nutritionally balanced menus.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Vegetarian Express claims that each of its recipes can be prepared in 28 minutes or less. If preparation time sometimes stretches to 40 minutes on a few of the more complicated recipes, it hardly matters, for you end up with an extraordinarily delicious, low-fat meal in as much time as it takes for the local pizza place to deliver one of its greasy pies. This book was written with busy people in mind: folks who like to eat well but don't have the time to spend steaming, blanching, soaking, and simmering after a full day of work. Instead, Nava Atlas and Lillian Kayte encourage cooks to use prepared foods as often as possible: canned chickpeas, frozen spinach, and quick-cook rice add up to a blissful curried chickpea stew; frozen corn, canned olives and tomatoes, and tortillas combine to make a dynamite Mexican lasagna. The book is divided into sections on grains, pastas, sandwiches, and more, including recipes for side dishes to compliment each entree.

Accompanying each recipe is a checklist for ingredients; a breakdown of the calories, grams of fat, and protein contained in each serving; and instructions for when to begin each phase of preparation. With Vegetarian Express, even the most harried cook can prepare healthful, tasty meals in record time.

From Publishers Weekly

Atlas (Vegetariana) and food writer Kayte serve up a slew of recipes for cooks who don't have time for the lengthy preparation often required by vegetarian dishes. The recipes, grouped in menus that help to minimize even the decision-making time, depend heavily on such "convenient foods" as canned beans, frozen vegetables, quick-cooking rice and packaged, pre-cut vegetables while making good use of tofu and pasta. Recipes come with nutritional analyses that sometimes require a second look: Vermicelli with Fresh Tomato and Basil Sauce, for example, has a per-serving calorie count of 177, but the recipe, intended for six, uses only 10 to 12 ounces of pasta, making for servings that are quite small. Of considerable appeal is the variety of menus in the chapter, Pizzas, Sandwiches, and Burgers, that are appropriate for lunch and provide a welcome respite from peanut butter; White Bean Pate is especially flavorful. There are some tasty recipes here, particularly for those with the leisure to substitute slightly less convenient ingredients.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Little, Brown; 1st edition (June 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316057401
• ISBN-13: 978-0316057400
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #767,549 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

129 of 131 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This Is Our Favorite Cookbook, October 19, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Vegetarian Express : Easy, Tasty, and Healthy Menus in 28 Minutes(or Less!) (Paperback)

This book is absolutely the best Vegitarian cookbook that my wife and I have encountered. Not because the recipes are the most elaborate and mind-blowing that we've encountered, but primarily because they're not. The meals are all tasty enough to please my "meat and fried food" parents, the ingredients are available at the local grocery store (no trips to Zimbabwe to get some obscure plant), and they all take a very short amount of time to prepare. These are the primary problems that we've encountered with books like Moosewood; the ingredients are exotic at best, they take hours to prepare, and they taste extremely bland. Every recipe that we've tried from this book during the year-and-a-half that we've had it has been very pleasing, very flavorful, and the standard ingredients are those that we can expect to have around at any given time.

57 of 58 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Easy, Tasty--For Real. And Really 28 minutes too!, June 6, 2001

By 

Mother of Three (Midwest) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Vegetarian Express : Easy, Tasty, and Healthy Menus in 28 Minutes(or Less!) (Paperback)

I've been cooking vegetarian for four years. This is the first book that is truly EASY and, so far, the recipes I made have been really tasty. This is great for families and people with small kids who want nutritious meals FAST. I have a two-year-old and I can prepare an entire dinner while she watches a 30 minute video. The recipes have even been "approved" and enjoyed by my non-vegetarian husband, which is more than I can say for any of the complicated ones I labored over from my Vegetarian Times magazine. Another plus of this book is that all of the ingredients are not obscure and can be readily found at mainstream grocery stores. The "Penne with Broccoli and Garlic" and the "Mexican Lasagne" are our favorites. Buy this book to please yourself, your kids and even some meat-eaters. Happy cooking.

31 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a real life saver for this self-employed mom of 3, October 27, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Vegetarian Express : Easy, Tasty, and Healthy Menus in 28 Minutes(or Less!) (Paperback)

A wonderful mix of tastes and menus in this easy to follow book. I've used this book almost exclusively for a couple of years now and we've never gotten bored. Sometimes I just grab this book on the way to the grocery store and use the shopping list provided for each menu I want. The cooking strategy is the best thing I've seen, I can always have an entire dinner ready in 30 min because the planning is already done!