Customer Reviews

The Vegetarian Meat and Potatoes Cookbook: 275 Hearty and Healthy Meat-Free Recipes for Steaks, Stews, Burgers, Roasts, Chilis, Casseroles, Pot Pies, ... Pasta, and Other Stick-to-Your-Ribs Favorites

5 star:		(31)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

As a meat eater and lover, I enjoy using this cookbook to prepare meals without meat about once or twice a week. Its clever use of the word "meat" in its title grabbed my attention in the bookstore, and its 275 recipes promises a wide variety of experimentation in the kitchen. Roberston uses a lot of tofu and eggplant as substitutes to meat. Prior to reading this book, I ate eggplant about twice a year, always breaded, fried, and fattening. You had to cover my fried eggplant in Louisiana hot sauce to make it edible. As for tofu, I ate it occasionally, sliced, fried and boring, and usually found it rather tasteless and rubbery. Robertson has rescued me from both of these self-inflicted culinary disasters.

The derivation of Robertson's recipes are Asian, Chinese, French, Latin, and what is now becoming known as "New American." She uses ginger, garlic, and sot sauce as the base for many recipes, and teaches you how to cleverly turn mushrooms, green beans, and eggplant into some pretty good meat type dishes. I eat meat because it makes my feel satiated-that is, I enjoy the flavor and texture of meat, and the fat tells my stomach I have eaten. Vegetables can be disappointing in all three of these important aspects of eating. But, I have to honestly say, with Robertson's help, my argument for eating meat is weakened. I'm working against generations of cultural conditioning relevant to my insistence on eating meat, and with Robertson's help, I hope to one day free myself from its shackles. Time and experimenting with Robertson's recipes will tell.

One of the best aspects of this book is the simple ingredients contained in the recipes. I live in bit of a provincial type town, where exotic vegetables and spices are hard to come by. I'm not a chef either, but found the instructions fairly easy to follow. I recommend you add this book to your collection.

I am not a vegetarian, but my fiance is and I'm not complaining! I certainly eat a lot more vegetables now than ever before and if I can just get the tendency to overdose on carbs under control, all will be well. But another great thing is that I have the opportunity to explore a whole new world of cooking, one of my favorite hobbies.

As such, I've bought several vegetarian cookbooks in recent months-- I found recipes that I like in all of them, but by far, my favorite is The Vegetarian Meat and Potatoes Cookbook. Time after time, I picks something out of this book and give it a shot and it turns out delicious. Usually I have whatever it calls for in the cupboard-- not a whole lot of fancy things required here. The meals are normal, filling and feel like nothing special. That may sound bad, but it's not. Sometimes it's nice to just have everyday dinner without thinking about how vegetarian it is. This book is a great one for the non-gourmet vegetarian. Highly recommended.

Vegetarian Meat and Potatoes is possibly the best ever book written for people wanting to go vegetarian, but still hunkering for meat and potatoes, and also for vegetarians, who want to turn their meat-eating friends on to the vegetarian lifestyle.
After serving Robertson's recipes at several dinner parties, everyone always exclaims that they didn't know that vegetarian/vegan food could be so delicious. In this era where viruses, bacteria and God knows what lurks around every corner, going vegetarian/vegan is no longer a possible choice. It's the only choice to help keep those little bugs at bay. And where better to begin than with this wonderful guide to a new lifestyle success. If you are vegetarian/vegan, buy this book for yourself, and buy it to give those you love, who haven't yet made the change.

I love this book! Most of the recipes are easy to prepare, and the dishes are different from the typical fare you'll find in the average vegetarian cookbook. (OK.. there is one recipe for hummus...) As other reviewers have pointed out, it often calls for fake meat products, so if you don't care for them, this may not be the book for you. However, if you do enjoy seitan, soy crumbles, faux sausages and the like, this book offers many creative ways to prepare them. My favorite recipes are the Vegetarian Pot Roast (made with seitan and a to-die-for marinade), Tofu and Mushroom Piccata, Red Beans Bourguignon, Maple-Mashed Sweet Potatoes, Plan-Ahead Potato Latkes, Spicy Tofu Po' Boys, and Seitan Cheese Steaks.

With 275 recipes, you'll be sure to find some great ideas to add to your vegetarian (or vegan) cooking repertoire. Not all recipes are vegan, but many that aren't can be adapted.

Many vegan cookbooks contain recipes that either use unusual ingredients; this book for the most part is not like that. It's one of the best vegetarian cookbooks I've come across.

I really like this cookbook and use it just about every week.
There is a great variety in here and every recipe can be adapted for Vegans like myself. There are great entrees,dips,desserts,appetizers, you name it.
The five spice oatmeal cookies are a favorite in my home as well as the mexican casserole. Most of the recipes require ingredients you can easily find at your grocery store.
I highly recommend this cookbook, I bought it for five dollars new and it was well worth it!

I have been a vegetarian for 10 years. In that time, I have collected several vegetarian cookbooks and scoured hundreds of websites, most of which only contain a few recipes that I actually like. The Vegetarian Meat and Potatoes Cookbook is by far the most valuable cookbook I have ever purchased. I continue to try new appetizing, filling recipes that become part of my regular repotoire.

At first I found the cookbook a bit disappointing because it seemed to have so many "exotic" ingredients. I was expecting more home-style American food, wheras this book contains numerous Asian, Indian, etc inspired recipes. But then I tried some of the recipes, and realized their brilliance. This isn't comfort food because it's always the traditional American foods you grew up with, although it does have some recipes like that. It's comfort food because of the filling textures and flavors, that unlike plates of steamed vegetables, leave you satisfied.

I have tried around 30-40 of the recipes in this book, and loved most of them. This is the one cookbook I TRUST is not going to give me flavorless rabbit food. Yes, there is a salad chapter, which I really have not speant that much time on, but the many other recipes are totally worth the price of this book.

The only real flaws are the difficulty of finding some of the ingredients, particularly exotic spices or vegetables that can only be found at an [Insert Ethnicity] grocer or a "well stocked grocery store." At best, I might be able to find them 45 minutes away at the nearest Whole Foods. Soemtimes I just end up substituting, and the results aren't always great.

Also, the recipes are invariably hugely time consuming to make. 2 hours is not uncommon. I wish she'd make a quick vegetarian meat and potatoes book because I just don't have all night on weeknights to spend cooking.

My only complaint with this book is that many of the recipes call for fake meat, which I try to avoid eatting to much of.

With that aside, you can always find a nice filling dish in here. Most of the recipes can be easily veganized, and the author gives recomendations for how to do this. The book also doesn't call for too many oddball ingredients, and they are usually well described.

This cook book doesn't have any pictures, but it doesn't really need any. I use this book anywhere from 2-4 a week, and it shows by having food all over it. ;-)

Although I usually frown on reviewing cookbooks w/o first trying the recipes, this one is an exception. The recipes are varied and designed to appeal to omnivores and reluctant vegetarians -- and thus perfect for entertaining. (They're also very clearly written.) The author explains that she has been a vegetarian for over 30 years, and in 1971 married a meat-and-potatoes man who hasn't changed his menu preferences, but is a strict vegetarian -- i.e., who eats the type of recipes in this book, which were designed to appeal to omnivores. They're appealing and varied enough to appeal to darned near everyone. My one and only complaint (and the reason I gave it only 4 stars) is that it mentions that some brands are better than others, but gives no hint as to which the author prefers -- which means that *I* will have to try umpteen brands to find which one(s) work in a particular recipe, when the author could easily have provided a starting point, at least giving ideas of what to look for <sigh>. But that's my only quibble; I LOVE this book!

I can see I am in the minority, but this was the only vegetarian book I've bought that has been a disappointment.

I was looking for very hearty, filling, vegetarian recipes. I wanted casseroles, Sheperd's Pies, and vegetarian lasagnas. This book has two thin chapters with such recipes. The majority of the book consists of ordinary recipes for salads and other items that don't fit with the concept promised by the book's title. I think the publishers thought they could make it stand out from a sea of vegetarian cookbooks with the title, but the book doesn't deliver.

The definitive meat-and-potatoes book for vegetarians has yet to be written. In the meantime, there are many other better vegetarian books. Amazon list-maker thema_athenis has it pretty well pegged, except for this clunker.

(On the other hand, Robertson has penned an outstanding book of vegetarian chili recipes, in which every recipe is a visual delight as well as delicious, and which I have given to friends.)