Customer Reviews

The Vegetarian Grill: 200 Recipes for Inspired Flame-Kissed Meals

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a great book to help vegetarians get past the standard packaged meatless burgers and enjoy the grill as an everyday tool for summer meal planning. The author offers a variety of recipes which draw upon many ethnic cuisines including Japanese, Chinese, Thai, Mexican, and Italian. The section on wraps provides several ways to prepare flavorful, healthy, vegetables and beans. The book also offers a number of innovative ways to prepare tofu which I look forward to trying.

Equally important to the recipes is the book's discussions on grilling how-to and equipment recommendations. After finding this book, I am ready to switch from charcoal to gas so we can grill everyday.

I bought this book on a whim; I already have millions of vegetarian cookbooks. My old kettle grill had been relegated to the gargage ever since we became vegetarians 2 years ago. Alas, no more steaks to cook! I am now glad to say the old kettle grill is my most useful appliance. Every single recipe I have tried from this book is a winner! Pizza is my absolute favorite thing to cook on it, but I am experimenting everyday with this book and the excellent recipes it contains. Get it!

My husband and I have been vegetarians for about twenty years and are raising our kids vegetarian too. For years I've always brought veggie burgers and tofu pups to other people's barbeque parties every summer. I thought we needn't bother owning a grill of our own because all we could make on it would be garden burgers anyway (how exciting is that? not very!) Anyway, this book has shown me how wrong I was. We recently acquired a very nice gas grill and I have been cooking up a storm on it! I've been using this cookbook and everything has been delicious. Not one bad recipe so far. I had a BBQ party of my own finally for my sons first Birthday recently and it was a totally hit. I made veggie pizzas (with the recipe from this book, although I used my own pizza dough recipe.)I grilled up all the veggies and than had everyone fix their own pizzas which I grilled for them. It was a lot of fun. Everyone gobbled them them up, raving about how delicious they were. Plus it was nice for people to see that a BBQ doesn't have to revolve around meat.

As for the comment below about the chicken stock, there is one recipe that says you can use either veggie or chicken stock. (I haven't noticed any others.) I agree it shouldn't be in the book. Vegetarian means no meat at all. I didn't see any mention about adding meat to the recipes, though I haven't read every page of this book, so maybe I just haven't seen it. I haven't seen any recipes that actually call for meat or anything. (No mention in the index either.)

So far I've made about 6 recipes from this book and they have been totally great. Plus, despite the fact that I'd say I know my way around a kitchen, I'd never grilled before and there was a useful chapter just talking about tools. (A vegetable grill rack is a *must* have for veggie grilling. I use mine constantly and would have been very frustrated had I not known about it.) To me, a newbie vegetarian griller this book has been indispensable. My husband keeps commenting on how fun it is to sit out on our deck and eat yummy food from the grill.

Two things made this a great book for me.
1. I've been a vegetarian for 16 years.
2. I've been living in Sydney, Australia for 6 of those and we were given a huge gas Barbeque as a wedding present.

Since I moved to Sydney I drag a bag of veggie burgers to every BBQ. There's only so many types of veggie burger you can try before eating at the next BBQ is a real chore.

Since I got it, this book has opened up a whole new world of BBQ enjoyment to me. I've had it a week; we've had three BBQ's and I have tried a half dozen recipes. All of them worked out really well. We are talking red pepper Quesedilas, herb-grilled potatoes, veggie skewers in Tandoori sauce, char-grilled vegetables with cous cous. Yummmm. The (normally carnivorous) guests were all well impressed too.

Recipes are from around the world as you might have gathered and are not overly complex or time-consuming. They are well described, but this is not a glossy book. There are no photos bar the cover. Illustrations are hand-drawn but clear. The layout is easy to read and pleasing to the eye. This is a food-lovers book, not a coffee-table decoration.

The only slight limitation is many of the recipes require a special vegetable grill pan. I've never seen one of these things and reckon they aren't commonly available down here. So a few of the recipes will result in much loss of your vegetables to the coals below. But you learn the work-arounds fast. For me half the fun of cooking is adapting recipes to what you have, so if a few of the ingredients are not available, it's just fun making a new recipe.

I thought I had too many vegetarian cook books in my library. This one proved me wrong! If only I could find a way to get this in the hands of a few more people in Sydney, I wouldn't have to do all the cooking. How about an Australian edition?

I'll admit that I originally only ordered this book because someone on Amazon was selling a used one for a few cents. Even with shipping, based upon the reviews, that makes it hard to pass up. Still, if it's not a great cookbook I always have no problem in saying so in my reviews, regardless of price...it needs to be "crave-worthy" for a five star review.

We've been grilling a crazy amount lately. 2 weekends ago it was 6am and I was on the deck, in the rain, with a deck light on in the dark, in the cold, grilling something to take to work for lunch. THAT kind of crazy grilling mode. And I have several vegetarian grill books so I am still picky.

This impressed me...and continues to do so. In fact, I've been reaching for it lately non-stop for new ideas. In fact, it's one of those that would make true carnivores not notice anything amiss.

The book is extensive and thick and is divided into the following sections:
Grilling Basics
Simply Vegetables
Appetizers and Soups from the grill
Great Grilled Salads
Sensational Sandwiches and Burgers
Wrapped and Stuffed
Fired-Up Flatbreads and Pizzas
Flame-Kissed Pasta
Kabobs, Couscous, and other compelling combinations
Grilled Fruit and Desserts
Marinades, Glazes, Pestos and Dipping Sauces

First, for the veggie burger section alone it's worth it. I personally would rather eat a bun with just cheese and condiments than a veggie burger. Not so for these recipes. Here's a few examples of some recipes I like:

Portobello Mushroom and Goat cheese sandwiches (tip: replace the tomatoes with salsa)
Mushroom Steak Sandwiches with Blue Cheese Dressing
Basic Bean and Grain Burgers
Blacke Bean Mushroom Burgers
Vegetarian Fajitas with Chipotle Sour Cream
Cheese Stuffed Chiles
Grilled Garlic BreaD
twice grilled sweet potatoes
Mixed smoked vegetable lasagna
Linguine with Red pepper pesto and grilled vegetables
cheese tomato pizza on the grill
eggplant pizza with goat cheese
basic pizza dough
Fusillis iwth mixe4d peppers and fresh mozzarella
Arugala and grilled mushroom salad
New Englad style grilled corn chowder (I added a bit of jalapeno and a bit of cream)
tex mex style grilled corn chowder
Split pea soup with grilled vegetables

I haven't done any of the desserts yet or marinades, but there are lots of those too.

Negatives: No photographs, plan "textbook style" printing and paper that stains easily, No nutritional information

I would have knocked it down a star for no nutritional info since most vegetarian cookbooks contain them nowadays since some are vegetarians for health and some for compassion but the health target marget misses out without easy-to-compute nutritionals...but this book was printed 12 years ago when it wasn't as common to find and compute nutritional information...so I threw em a bone and wasn't so picky. I really don't care about photogrphas in cookbooks because I can pretty much picture the dish by reading it, but I know some do care but I DO always like to have nutritional info as I do track what goes in...You may not, so it's noted either way.

Level: Very easy to follow instructions. No one should have difficulty with this one getting the dish right or finding family-friendly AND gourmet dishes as well. Good variety.

Conclusion: A worthy book to shake things up on the grill whether you are in a rut grilling burgers and chicken and want some healthier but tasty options or if you are a full vegetarian who loves that chargrilled taste as much as I do on ANYthing.

This is a great addition to the collection - I have two other grill books and this compliments them well. Interesting recipes, mouth watering pictures to inspire, straight forward instructions. Some interesting cheese dishes, great dips, and I love the sate recipes. Definitely makes it so you're not missing out on delicious grilled foods.

If you enjoy grilling and vegetables, you must have this cookbook. I used it at least 3 times a week all summer long, and I liked it so much I've been buying copies for other people every time I get a chance.

I have never tried a recipe that let me down. Everything has been delicious and fairly easy to make. The author does a good job of explaining what to look for as you're grilling, so it's rare for me to have something over or under cooked. Every recipe is interesting enough to be tasty, but not so outlandish that it would be out of place at an average American backyard barbecue.

There are a few recipes where the author suggests using chicken or vegetable broth, as other reviewers have mentioned. Maybe they'd be happier if the title was "The Vegetable Grill" instead? I'm not too worked up about it. This is a solid cookbook, and it definitely fills a niche that was open for far too long.

The author recommends buying either a flat grill pan or a grill wok. I bought both and have only used the wok once or twice. I would recommend to other readers to buy the grill pan along with the cookbook and skip the wok entirely.

Love this book. It is not only full of a variety of great recipes but it has useful tips and suggestions as well. My husband thought he was going to have to do away with the grill when I switched to a vegetarian lifestyle. This book has shown him that there is more to grilling than just using it for meat.

I bought a used copy of "The Vegetarian Grill". I received it promptly and was very pleased with it's condition. I'm excited to start using the recipes within, on my grill this coming month. I've bought into a local CSA, (Community Supported Agriculture) project. Starting mid-July and the 12 weeks following, I will be getting a box of 'locally grown' fruits and vegetables each week. Thanks to the vendors' prompt and reliable service I'll be ready to grill!

Let me start by saying that I enjoy reading cookbooks as much as I enjoy using them, and from the first read, I am not very impressed. I really wanted a vegetarian grilling book, what I got was a book that calls for chicken stock in at least one recipe, tells me what kind of meat I could throw in to the mix and tells me that I won't even miss the meat. While there may be pros and cons to the cheese question, how can anyone justify chicken broth in a vegetarian cook book?