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The Meat Free Monday Cookbook
In 2009, Paul, Stella and Mary McCartney launched the Meat Free Monday campaign as a simple and straightforward idea to show everyone the value of eating less meat - and to make it easier for us all to do so. "The Meat Free Monday Cookbook" is for everyone who shares the campaign's aims and consists of menus for each of the 52 weeks of the year. Packed with recipes such as Spiced Pumpkin Pancakes, Basil and Mushroom Tart, Pilau Rice with Cashews and Watermelon Granita, as well as vibrant spring soups, inventive summer salads, appetising autumn bakes and comforting winter stews, it includes contributions from Paul, Stella and Mary McCartney and celebrity and chef supporters of the campaign such as Skye Gyngell, Giorgio Locatelli, Theo Randall, Yotam Ottolenghi, Kevin Spacey and Vivienne Westwood.
240 pages, Hardcover
First published October 11, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 38 reviews
March 12, 2013
0/5 stars.
This cookbook has helped me realize that what the common review and rating systems are missing is the ability to give a book negative stars.
Meat Free Monday Cookbook is like that sexy hipster fellow who talks smart and looks sharp but is pretty dull and lacking soul when you get him talking. To quote another reviewer from Amazon, "This is one of the most sensible (and appetizing) vegetarian cookbooks I have ever read". So as far as purchasing cookbooks for reading, hey, A+++. The problem results when you attempt to actually cook something from the book. I am pretty skilled in the kitchen and every single recipe I have made from tMFM Cookbook has been bland and just beyond the pale of yuck. I was finally driven to write this angry review after making the meatless ale pie concoction (from the winter menu section). It was so disgusting that those of us who were unfortunate enough to take the first bites gave into our instinct to spit it out full stop immediately. And now we are going out to dinner, but because I care about you considerably dear reader I am taking a moment to write this review RIGHT NOW before we head out the door.
This cookbook has helped me realize that what the common review and rating systems are missing is the ability to give a book negative stars.
Meat Free Monday Cookbook is like that sexy hipster fellow who talks smart and looks sharp but is pretty dull and lacking soul when you get him talking. To quote another reviewer from Amazon, "This is one of the most sensible (and appetizing) vegetarian cookbooks I have ever read". So as far as purchasing cookbooks for reading, hey, A+++. The problem results when you attempt to actually cook something from the book. I am pretty skilled in the kitchen and every single recipe I have made from tMFM Cookbook has been bland and just beyond the pale of yuck. I was finally driven to write this angry review after making the meatless ale pie concoction (from the winter menu section). It was so disgusting that those of us who were unfortunate enough to take the first bites gave into our instinct to spit it out full stop immediately. And now we are going out to dinner, but because I care about you considerably dear reader I am taking a moment to write this review RIGHT NOW before we head out the door.
January 23, 2013
"Hey babe, I'm at the store- do we have any fatoush or pomegranate molasses, or should I pick some up?"
I'm totally on board with meat free mondays, and I'm glad the concept is spreading enough to have this book published. But this book just wasn't realistic for me. Alot of ingredients I will never have and probably couldn't find or afford if I wanted them. Beautiful photos and what I'm sure is delicious food- but just not the sort of practical cookbook that I prefer.
I'm totally on board with meat free mondays, and I'm glad the concept is spreading enough to have this book published. But this book just wasn't realistic for me. Alot of ingredients I will never have and probably couldn't find or afford if I wanted them. Beautiful photos and what I'm sure is delicious food- but just not the sort of practical cookbook that I prefer.
June 3, 2015
I like the idea of seasonal eating and meal plans, but I found that too many recipes are heavily dependent on dairy and eggs.
January 29, 2017
A pretty mediocre cookbook all around. Although the introduction stresses the importance of reducing all animal products in one's diet, not just meat, most of the recipes here require eggs, cheese, or some other dairy--which, depending on several factors, are potentially almost as inhumane and carbon-heavy as meat, which defeats some of the the ecological ethical reasons for going vegetarian.
The recipes themselves are okay. I tried four main courses, and the results ranged from my family actually saying "This is terrible" to my face (which, to be fair, may have been due in part to technical failures on my part) to "You could make this again, but you should change a bunch of stuff to make it better." The two desserts I made were more reliably received, but were nothing worth writing home about.
Although the layout is beautiful, it's not very practical. I have the feeling many recipes were simplified to fit better on the page: the ones I tried were pretty bland, as if a longer list of seasonings was omitted for lack of space. Directions, too, are pretty sparse, which is fine for the more experienced cook but a challenge for the less experienced one. For example, the instructions for blind baking, included with several recipes, are deceptively minimalistic--complete enough that a newbie cook might not feel the need to look up blind baking in a really good cookbook/the internet, but incomplete enough that her crust will probably not come out quite right if she doesn't.
Most of the recipes here sound really good, but I would use them more as inspiration rather than expect them to come out right on the first try. I could not, in good conscience, recommend it to anyone.
The recipes themselves are okay. I tried four main courses, and the results ranged from my family actually saying "This is terrible" to my face (which, to be fair, may have been due in part to technical failures on my part) to "You could make this again, but you should change a bunch of stuff to make it better." The two desserts I made were more reliably received, but were nothing worth writing home about.
Although the layout is beautiful, it's not very practical. I have the feeling many recipes were simplified to fit better on the page: the ones I tried were pretty bland, as if a longer list of seasonings was omitted for lack of space. Directions, too, are pretty sparse, which is fine for the more experienced cook but a challenge for the less experienced one. For example, the instructions for blind baking, included with several recipes, are deceptively minimalistic--complete enough that a newbie cook might not feel the need to look up blind baking in a really good cookbook/the internet, but incomplete enough that her crust will probably not come out quite right if she doesn't.
Most of the recipes here sound really good, but I would use them more as inspiration rather than expect them to come out right on the first try. I could not, in good conscience, recommend it to anyone.
October 16, 2012
I love this cookbook, with a foreword by celebrities Paul and Stella McCartney, along with the accompanying website, www.meatfreemondays.com, It's all about encouraging us to take account of our meat consumption as well as to pay more attention to the environment and climate around us. And, since I'm trying to incorporate more fun vegetarian based dishes into my meal plan (especially dinner), I thought this was the perfect companion for me. And I also like that the meal plans for a truly Meat-Free-Monday are all laid out from breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The only thing I don't like about the book is that some of the ingredients may be inaccessible or just that realistically, I'm not going to find them (just being honest). But I do like that it offers to many creative ways to think about how we can easily prepare our food and be okay without eating meat with every meal.
April 18, 2012
Enjoyed the foreword by Paul, Stella and Mary McCartney and also the introduction explaining how The Meat Free Monday Campaign came to be. From there the book is divided into sections: Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter with recipes for each week of the year. This enables everyone to have a complete meat free day with a recipe included for Breakfast, Packed Lunch, Lunch, Side, Dinner and Dessert. A great campaign and loved the set up of the book but nearly all of the recipes call for milk or eggs which was a little disappointing. However, this would make a great starting off cook book for those interested in exploring vegetarianism and those interested in adopting a meat free day of the week.
August 6, 2012
Plenty of delicious recipes for breakfast, snacks, lunch, dinner and a dessert- for each Monday of the year! My only complaint is the layout of some of the recipes. I prefer cookbooks that list ingredients first, so you know what to prepare, and then show you the recipe. Many (at least half) of the recipes in the book are written in that frustrating paragraph style, which narrates the process of preparing the dish, and the ingredients are listed within the narration in bold. I don't care for that. If all the recipes had been presented in the more common format, I would have given this book five stars.
July 30, 2019
A disappointing cookbook indeed. First there's the preachiness about why we should eat meat free. (I enjoy vegetables and was hoping to find some good recipes for them here, but I do eat meat and don't need their reasons.) Then the book was very heavy on text, short on pictures, and lacking in regular recipe formatting. (I presume they did it to save space, but I find it so much easier to look at a recipe that lists the ingredients first and the method after. I do NOT like them altogether in a paragraph. It's too easy to miss something important.) The recipes were ok, I suppose, but with 6 recipes for each Monday, I can't imagine what they were thinking! Who has time to cook that much each day? For the most part the recipes seemed accessible, but they did not inspire me. Plus they seemed VERY light, and I wonder if anyone would actually feel full eating them instead of a regular meal. Overall, a book I'll ever glance at again or recommend.
January 7, 2013
3.5 - I think its easier simply to list positives and negatives about this book:
Good points:
~I think the ideas behind this campaign are really good and they're summarised simply in the introduction.
~The recipes are appealing and different, certainly giving a lot of new vegetarian inspiration. The evening I brought this book home my friends and I spent ages flicking through it drooling.
~Each Monday has many more recipes than I would be able to eat in one day, so you could even use the book for 2 days a week of meat free-ness if you wanted, without really having to double up.
~A really really extensive index, that is really useful if you have veg to use up and aren't sure what to do with it- I imagine this would be very useful if you had a veg box too (oh how I wish I could!)
~The recipes are healthy and nicely balanced, some are more indulgent but there are also lots of ideas for interesting salads etc.
Bad points:
~Whilst the photos of the finished dishes are amazing and the food looks delicious, there are a lot of full page photos of fruit and vegetables which are all very nice, but I want to see the recipes rather than the raw ingredients- I know what those look like!
~Quite a few of the recipes call for expensive/rare/a lot of ingredients that it simply isn't practical for me as a student, cooking for only me or perhaps one other person, to make quite a few of them. Which is a shame, as they look really good... I'll have to wait until I get home and have a proper kitchen and fridge!
~Some of the day meal plans don't seem very well planned out, for example the suggested side would be very odd with the main meal, e.g. citrus rice accompanying a noodle dish for week 11 of winter. However this could easily be worked around by swapping weeks meals around or having the side with lunch etc... many of the mains sound filling enough that they wouldn't need a side!
~A bit more bad planning, such as a 'packed lunch' that calls to be served immediately after cooking! (Winter week 3) Not quite sure how that would work...!
All in all it isn't the easiest, quickest, cheapest cookbook ever, but with a bit of tweaking (or splashing out time and money once in a while) I think it will be very useful... I might change this review up or down once I've tried some out!
EDIT 22/03/12- I've now tried two recipes from this book, sweet potato and pesto gnocchi and middle eastern aubergine casserole (sorry don't have page numbers because I've left the book in London for my holidays, so the recipe titles aren't exact either). The aubergine casserole was delicious- several unusual ingredients (pomegranate molasses, preserved lemons and verjuice to name a few) but I had been wanting to try several recipes with these in so they won't go to waste!
The gnocchi on the other hand weren't such a success, more the pity because my boyfriend and I were making it for valentines day- one particularly sensitive and kind flatmate said it looked like chunder in my colander! However I gather gnocchi in general are hard to make so I'm not really blaming the book...
So I'm still keen on the book with many more recipes I want to try- recommended for special cooking, not really very everyday....
Good points:
~I think the ideas behind this campaign are really good and they're summarised simply in the introduction.
~The recipes are appealing and different, certainly giving a lot of new vegetarian inspiration. The evening I brought this book home my friends and I spent ages flicking through it drooling.
~Each Monday has many more recipes than I would be able to eat in one day, so you could even use the book for 2 days a week of meat free-ness if you wanted, without really having to double up.
~A really really extensive index, that is really useful if you have veg to use up and aren't sure what to do with it- I imagine this would be very useful if you had a veg box too (oh how I wish I could!)
~The recipes are healthy and nicely balanced, some are more indulgent but there are also lots of ideas for interesting salads etc.
Bad points:
~Whilst the photos of the finished dishes are amazing and the food looks delicious, there are a lot of full page photos of fruit and vegetables which are all very nice, but I want to see the recipes rather than the raw ingredients- I know what those look like!
~Quite a few of the recipes call for expensive/rare/a lot of ingredients that it simply isn't practical for me as a student, cooking for only me or perhaps one other person, to make quite a few of them. Which is a shame, as they look really good... I'll have to wait until I get home and have a proper kitchen and fridge!
~Some of the day meal plans don't seem very well planned out, for example the suggested side would be very odd with the main meal, e.g. citrus rice accompanying a noodle dish for week 11 of winter. However this could easily be worked around by swapping weeks meals around or having the side with lunch etc... many of the mains sound filling enough that they wouldn't need a side!
~A bit more bad planning, such as a 'packed lunch' that calls to be served immediately after cooking! (Winter week 3) Not quite sure how that would work...!
All in all it isn't the easiest, quickest, cheapest cookbook ever, but with a bit of tweaking (or splashing out time and money once in a while) I think it will be very useful... I might change this review up or down once I've tried some out!
EDIT 22/03/12- I've now tried two recipes from this book, sweet potato and pesto gnocchi and middle eastern aubergine casserole (sorry don't have page numbers because I've left the book in London for my holidays, so the recipe titles aren't exact either). The aubergine casserole was delicious- several unusual ingredients (pomegranate molasses, preserved lemons and verjuice to name a few) but I had been wanting to try several recipes with these in so they won't go to waste!
The gnocchi on the other hand weren't such a success, more the pity because my boyfriend and I were making it for valentines day- one particularly sensitive and kind flatmate said it looked like chunder in my colander! However I gather gnocchi in general are hard to make so I'm not really blaming the book...
So I'm still keen on the book with many more recipes I want to try- recommended for special cooking, not really very everyday....
February 5, 2017
Don't ask me where I learned this, because I don't really remember but suspect it was from a tall drunken Australian with amazing knife skills, but the average home cook uses three recipes from a cookbook. Which, if you are as short shelf space as I am, feels like an inefficient use of space. I mention this to explain why I'm giving Meat Free Monday a four star rating before I've tackled one recipe.
As I browsed my way through 54 Monday's worth of breakfast, lunch, and dinner recipes I noticed something astonishing. Historically I place a large Post-It-Note on the title page of a cookbook, upon which I write the name and page number of the recipes I'm interested in trying. With The Meat Free Monday Cookbook, I quickly realized I might save time by jotting down the page numbers I wasn't interested in.
According to my mom I'm a fussy eater. Personally I'd describe myself as discerning. Either way I'm not used to finding so many recipes that I want to try. Making the book more interesting the recipes are sorted by season. Over a decade ago I started buying organic produce and quickly learned the only way to avoid $12 a pound asparagus (my husband insists that I tell you it only happened once because it never occurred to him to look at the price of veggies since they had always seemed so cheap, and that it has never happened again, and that he wishes I would stop telling people this story because it makes him look like a fool) was to eat seasonally. Having the book organized by the way I like to shop makes it more attractive.
Today's grocery run included the ingredients for two dinners from a Meat Free Monday, and I have three additional recipes that I want to try in the next week. Assuming they are half as interesting as they look I'll be returning this library book and finding room on my crowded cookbook shelf for my own copy.
As I browsed my way through 54 Monday's worth of breakfast, lunch, and dinner recipes I noticed something astonishing. Historically I place a large Post-It-Note on the title page of a cookbook, upon which I write the name and page number of the recipes I'm interested in trying. With The Meat Free Monday Cookbook, I quickly realized I might save time by jotting down the page numbers I wasn't interested in.
According to my mom I'm a fussy eater. Personally I'd describe myself as discerning. Either way I'm not used to finding so many recipes that I want to try. Making the book more interesting the recipes are sorted by season. Over a decade ago I started buying organic produce and quickly learned the only way to avoid $12 a pound asparagus (my husband insists that I tell you it only happened once because it never occurred to him to look at the price of veggies since they had always seemed so cheap, and that it has never happened again, and that he wishes I would stop telling people this story because it makes him look like a fool) was to eat seasonally. Having the book organized by the way I like to shop makes it more attractive.
Today's grocery run included the ingredients for two dinners from a Meat Free Monday, and I have three additional recipes that I want to try in the next week. Assuming they are half as interesting as they look I'll be returning this library book and finding room on my crowded cookbook shelf for my own copy.
June 19, 2012
I was super-excited to get this new release from the library (after an excruciating wait of several weeks).
Meat-Free Monday is a relatively new campaign that’s catching on, and as its name suggests, it’s asking everyone to give up meat one day a week (the Monday requirement is flexible, I’m sure). I love the idea as it breaks down an overwhelming diet change into a manageable one that most people can embrace. Once a week is not a huge commitment, yet it can have huge global impacts if everyone in the Western world reduced their meat consumption by 1/7.
The book is divided into the 4 seasons, with 13 weekly meal plans in each. The meal plans include meat-free breakfast, lunch (packed), lunch (cooked), dinner, snack and dessert. It’s a cool structure, although honestly I can’t say that I typically even have meat-enriched breakfasts or lunches, and my desserts definitely never involve meat!
2 concerns I had with the book:
1. These recipes are NOT Weight Watcher friendly! There is a lot of oil, butter, and cheese in this book, which is very sad as vegetarianism is supposed to be better for the diet
2. They rely very heavily on the 2 banned substances in our family: mushrooms and tofu.
Nonetheless, there are several intriguing recipes to try.
Meat-Free Monday is a relatively new campaign that’s catching on, and as its name suggests, it’s asking everyone to give up meat one day a week (the Monday requirement is flexible, I’m sure). I love the idea as it breaks down an overwhelming diet change into a manageable one that most people can embrace. Once a week is not a huge commitment, yet it can have huge global impacts if everyone in the Western world reduced their meat consumption by 1/7.
The book is divided into the 4 seasons, with 13 weekly meal plans in each. The meal plans include meat-free breakfast, lunch (packed), lunch (cooked), dinner, snack and dessert. It’s a cool structure, although honestly I can’t say that I typically even have meat-enriched breakfasts or lunches, and my desserts definitely never involve meat!
2 concerns I had with the book:
1. These recipes are NOT Weight Watcher friendly! There is a lot of oil, butter, and cheese in this book, which is very sad as vegetarianism is supposed to be better for the diet
2. They rely very heavily on the 2 banned substances in our family: mushrooms and tofu.
Nonetheless, there are several intriguing recipes to try.
May 7, 2014
I had found the website for this idea of a Meat Free Monday awhile back and thought it was a great idea, so naturally when I found out they had created a cookbook for it, I had to get my hands on it. Convincing my husband to have a meat-free meal is another thing entirely, but I'll definitely have ammunition now with all these great recipes. They broke the book down into seasons, and have 13 weekly menus per season. Every weekly menu has recipes for breakfast, lunch, packed lunch, side/snack, dinner and dessert. While I don't particularly like the menus the way they have them listed, I think that there are a lot of fantastic recipes in there, that you can make up your own. Some of the tasties recipes are for Banoffee Pie, Spinach Tart, Peanut Butter and Banana Cupcakes, Apricot and Oat Bars, Basil-Scented Braised Fennel, Potato and Gruyere Foccacia and so many more. Highly recommended, 5 stars.
January 9, 2013
Not sure if you can truly read an entire cookbook, but I was able to scan this for some great new receipes. (The person before me earmarked all eggplant recipes, for which I'll pass.) Still I like the format of this one with menus set up for each week (Mondays, specifically, if you're falling the meat free mantra just once a week) of the year from breakfast through dessert, divided by season. Bon appetit!
January 9, 2013
Provides a year's worth of full-day menus without meat. I really appreciated the diversity of meatless recipes here; it wasn't all meat substitutes, though almost every menu featured cheese. I was a little concerned that the text might get wrapped up in name dropping, as some celebrity cookbooks do, but I found very little of that here. I did have one quibble, which is the teeny tiny text size, something that would be very difficult to read in the middle of cooking. Otherwise, recommend.
January 19, 2013
I'm not vegetarian but this book is one of my favourites. The book gives you a set of recipes for every Monday of the year, breakfasts, lunches, mains and sides throughout the seasons. The recipes are tasty, fresh and have given me so many new ideas that I wouldn't have considered before, even small things like using lentils instead of mincemeat. There's also the lovely photography throughout mixed with clear, colourful layouts of pages which makes looking through this book a delight.
August 9, 2012
a beautiful cookbook just packed with recipes. the photos are gorgeous. it's a little hard to cook from because so many recipes are in paragraph form. I'm not ready for the commitment to make any of them- i'll need a grocery list. but it's definitely a cookbook i'm considering buying. thanks for the recommendation, Jamie!
March 15, 2014
I like a cookbook that has ingredients I can find at most supermarkets. These recipes were few and far between. Plus, the idea of sorting them by Season was interesting but not functional for me. I like when recipes are group by meal and this way a day by day, breakfast to dessert layout. Not for me. Sorry.
May 29, 2014
I will try a few recipes out of this book, but most are a bit too exotic for my taste (and my husband's). There is definitely a European slant to the recipes, and while I appreciate the meat free options, I was floored by the amount of butter required for some of these dishes. Egads! I will update this review after I try a recipe or two.
June 12, 2012
i loved the layout & design of this book, and i think the concept of meat free Monday is a good one. many of the recipes were ones i'd try in the future - they most likely wouldn't appeal to my kids, and were a bit more labor and ingredient intensive than i have time for right now.
August 27, 2012
Made the Asparagus and Mushroom risotto... My oh my! It was so delicious. I'm excited to create more recipes from this book. Knocked off one star because the recipe called for 3 cups of broth, but it actually needed 7 cups to get the risotto completely cooked.
January 14, 2013
Beautiful photos, lots of great recipes (arranged by season) for those seeking to eat less meat. Recipes range from simple to relatively involved and will definitely break you out of your routines, both as a cook and as an eater.
April 20, 2012
Recipe layout was more arty than practical; too many dishes that my children wouldn't eat on a dare.
May 20, 2012
Quite a few good recipes, and loads of beautiful pictures!
September 12, 2012
Very cool book. Love the format, the flow and the menus. Pictures are beautiful, and the recipes are well rounded. A lot of gluten, but still worth checking out.
October 7, 2012
Great vegetarian cookbook for breakfast/lunch/dinner!
November 30, 2012
beautiful pictures. I would love to be able to make all of these yummy, healthy recipes.
January 6, 2013
Beautiful presentation, simple recipes, and yummy creations make this vegetarian cookbook a winner!
February 20, 2013
This is a great cookbook - full of a lot of beautiful pictures and a year's worth of easy recipes for people who would like to make their way towards a less "animal centered" way of eating.
April 2, 2013
I really love this cookbook. Most of the recipes are easily adaptable, menus are laid out according to what's in season, and the photography is lovely.
May 29, 2013
Some good suggestions.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 38 reviews