Customer Reviews

The Vegetarian Lunchbasket: Over 225 Easy, Low-Fat, Nutritious Recipes for the Quality-Conscious Family on the Go

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

 

 

A vegetarian for over twenty years and mother of three children, Linda Haynes has lots of experience in preparing vegetarian lunches. She shares her expertise in The Vegetarian Lunchbasket, a collection of over 225 mouth-watering recipes. Her book was first published in 1990, and updated in 1994 and 1999 to reflect changes in nutritional information and availability of products. Haynes developed most of her recipes through experimentation. That enables her to advise readers which ingredients may be replaced with substitutes to accommodate different tastes and budgets. She also shares stories of her experiences, like learning that there is a difference between baking yeast and brewer's yeast when it comes to making bread. At all times, she emphasizes the practical, both in ingredients and techniques. The first chapter provides an amazing variety of recipes for breads and sandwich wrappers. A simple one is lightly steamed cabbage leaves. The next chapter is full of even more suggestions for fillings and spreads. Many of the soups and thermos foods are designed to be made the night before, to provide a delicious evening meal, with leftovers heated for the next day's lunches. The salad and salad dressing recipes allow you to leave wilted lettuce drenched in runny dressing behind forever. Main dishes like "Tofu Telephones" or "Somewhat Knishes" also work well for a meal the night before with leftovers going into the next day's lunch boxes or on a family picnic. The condiments and snacks chapter includes items like nut milk and yogurt chips (both incredibly simple to make!). As does most writers of cookbooks, Haynes ends with a chapter on desserts. She maintains the richness, but makes her desserts a bit more healthy with tricks like a tofu substitute for eggs, and pureed vegetables for liquids. Although nutritious and healthy, the recipes are all tasty. Practicing vegetarians and those curious about what vegetarians can eat other than lettuce and carrot sticks will find a wealth of practical and easy recipes in The Vegetarian Lunchbasket. Although some recipes include dairy products, many are suitable for vegans. And don't be fooled by the title--most of the recipes makes equally tasty main meals! Paper, 205 pp. -- Sandra I. Smith, Reviewer

I received this book as a Christmas gift this year because it was on my list and, based on the online reviews, it looked as if it would be just what I was looking for.

I am used to cooking with "exotic" ingredients such as umboshi plum paste, nutritional yeast, agar agar, and miso but there were ingredients in this book I would not go out of my way to buy given the meager amounts in the recipes.
I am speaking about hing, which according to the author is so smelly she keeps it in the garage. I haven't seen a recipe yet in this book that called for more than 1/4 teaspoon of the stuff. If she had offered a substitute, I wouldn't have been so turned off. There were also the pickled nasturtium buds (she did mention capers as a substitute) and dried tofu skins, which can be hard to find.

There is one recipe in the book for "Soy puree" except instead of soybeans, she has chickpeas listed. Chickpeas are NOT soy.

I'm a pretty seasoned cook (pun intended) and I really wanted to like this book but alot of the recipes just didn't sound very appetizing. For example, she gives you her recipe for one of her favorite soups: Kale and Bean Curd. Its nothing more than water, miso and kale. No depth of flavor, no aromatics, no complexity- just boring.

I think that this is a book for the unsophisticated vegetarian palate. I believe that if you enjoy more complex flavors and consider yourself a gourmet or a foodie you will be highly disappointed.

I think Joanne Stepaniak, Paulette Mitchell, Mollie Katzen and Deborah Madison do a much better job.

I really like "the Vegetarian Lunchbasket" because it is full of easy to make recipes that one can afford with even extremely limited funds. Boston Brown Bread was fun to make, and absolutely delicious. There are many bread recipes and ideas of how to make the bread appealing to children utilizing ingenuity. My favorite part of this book however is the Chapter 2: Fillings and Spreads. I find myself frequently eating cheese sandwiches for breakfast, lunch and dinner and this book is helping me branch out. Peanut-Yeast Spread is pretty tasty, as is Tofu Salad. I look forward to trying the others like Tofu-nut spread, Sesame-Avocado Spread-and Vegnut Spread. There are many other spreads. I also like the fact that these recipes don't make a huge amount. It is perfect for creating meals for one person. Also, there are good recipes for meatless gravies in here, like Nut gravy, and Dal Gravy to name a few. It's a great resource.

This book is chock full of fun ideas to get your toddler to eat! The author has compiled 225 easy and nutritious recipes for families on the go. Haynes, a mother of three vegetarian kids, offers creative ideas for packing lunches and combining foods. Despite her clever ways to eat on the go, I have found her recipes to be quite helpful in getting a fussy toddler to eat at home. He loves to eat recipes such as Tofu Telephones and Turtle in the Mud salad. Haynes also offers recipes for sandwich spreads, condiments, sauces and snacks as well as desserts. She finds new ways to serve left-overs. Even, meat-eaters will find her meals quite delicious. What I like about this book is that the ingredients are listed in the margins, so they are easy to find. Best of all most of the ingredients are found in my cupboard. It is certain to become a well-worn friend in the kitchen.

I've been a vegetarian for over nine years, but this book has given me LOTS of new ideas- including foods my 15-month old daughter likes. I really like how the recipes are unconventional- I had run out of ideas for eating tofu, but this book has encouraged me to eat it more regularly... Also- if you are into the Zone Diet, this book has many recipes that are fairly compatible (at least low in unfavorable carbohydrates)

I have been a vegetarian for almost three years, and have not come across a cookbook that contains easy to make, packable food. This book is absolutely fantastic, and contains just a little bit of everything. I enjoyed just sitting down to read the recipes, and am having fun trying them out. Next time, please include pictures!

I'm having a hard time figuring out who, exactly, this cookbook is for. The author leans heavily on a Tofu Mayo recipe that doesn't taste a thing like mayonnaise or even tofu mayonnaise; it instead tastes like a blasphemous form of Miracle Whip, and not in a good way.

I should have loved the Artichoke Delight recipe, but I didn't. Because it was made with her Tofu Mayo recipe, and when I tried it I found the nasty sweetness of it overpowering.

And then there is the ubiquitous Tofu Mayo recipe itself, which calls for honey in the ingredient list, which makes me wonder what the point is because most vegans don't eat that. Nowhere in the recipe does she list how long this mayo is good for, or how best to store it, something I would find worth mentioning on a base ingredient.

If it sounds like I'm harping on this one recipe overly much, please understand: it is pervasive. It touches nearly every aspect of this book, and it strikes me that if you are going to make something that important to your recipes, wouldn't you first make sure it tastes good?

Now to the confusion: who is this book for? Why is it tagged with vegan? It isn't; the aforementioned Artichoke Delight recipe called for the honey-laced mayo and yogurt cheese and parmesan. The effect is somewhat scattershot.

Even at the dirt-cheap price I got this for, I find it not worth my money. It's going to the library. Far more recommended are Crescent Dragonwagon's "Passionate Vegetarian" or "Simple Vegetarian Pleasures" by Jeanne Lemlin. Buy this one at your own risk.

This book was a bit of a disappointment.I feel the title is misleading. If you are looking for quick, easy dishes to pack in your lunches then this isn't the book for you. It does have a wide variety of recipes; however they seem more like meals you would cook and eat at home. I'm glad I purchased it here and didn't pay full price for it elsewhere.

If you are looking for a professional cookbook, look elsewhere. Linda Haynes is not a professional cook. And it doesn't seem like she does much proofreading either. For example, she frequently leaves out ingredients (her "Spicy Indian Vegetables" contain no seasoning other than salt). Her nutritional information is sporadic - she'll tell you something is high in fat because it has a little cheese (though no specific nutritional information is given for any recipe). Meanwhile, there is no warning given on a recipe chock-full of sunflower seeds and nuts.

What this does contain is a lot of ideas for different things for those trying to eliminate meat from their diet. Take her ideas as a base, and run with them.

Let me first make clear - I am not a vegetarian. Why did I think this book would be helpful? It looked like it would have some fun recipes in it and I rarely eat meat at home so I didn't think it would make that big of a difference. But a lot of the recipes call for ingredients that I would have to search for and that I suspect would be more expensive than I can currently afford. I am sure to other vegetarians these recipes - which do look very creative and (mostly) appetizing - would be well worth it. But I need to take lunch to work because I am trying to save money and was looking for nutritious ways to incorporate more veggies into my diet at the same time. Plus, I have to admit that I am a little scared to try tofu and haven't actually cooked cabbage myself and one or the other was in most dishes. I am sure this wouldn't be a problem for most people and hope that others do get the book but I was grateful that I checked it out of the library first as I was really excited about it before I got it. I just wanted to let anyone else who might be foolish like me and think this was a general-lunch-cookbook-that-just-didn't-include-meat-dishes know - not so much.