200 Veggie Feasts

by Louise Pickford

Book annotation not available for this 200 Veggie Pickford, Octopus Pub GroupPublication 2009/02/01Number of 240Binding PAPERBACKLibrary of

Genres: Cookbooks, Cooking, Reference

240 pages, Paperback

First published April 15, 2008

Reviews

[karen]

settle down, foer-faces, you haven't won me. although i would be quite a "get" for you, like if foer had actually succeeded in his attempt to convert anthony bourdain (never, never happen) i may be much lower-profile than bourdain, but winning me to your side would still be impressive and cause for celebration.

alas, this is a flirtation only, a brief romp, and after i make my creamy pea and mint risotto with brie, or spinach and mushroom lasagna, or mushroom and ginger wontons, i am going to wrap my lips around the first sausage i see. my only gripe with the book is that it is totally stupid to have sections included for "bread", "salad, and "dessert". really, if you don't know how to make bread or dessert without meat in it, please don't ever cook for me. i would rather have had the space filled by more actual recipes for dishes that are tasty and meatless like goat cheese and sage frittatas or winter vegetable and beer broth, which celebrate vegetables (and beer!) and don't actually need meats.

it's true i get all the meat i cook from a mail-order organic meat company that is hormone-free and looks like proper meat and not the fluorescent-red stuff they have at the regular market. yes, animals are still killed for my tummy, but grow up next to a farm and be fed your pet rabbit at the age of four and than talk to me about how to react to animal cruelty, yeah? i'm like when you blanch a peach (see - cooking terms - relevant) and all that skin comes sloughing off. that's me with my sensitivities.i been through the fire, darlings. that coetzee blurb on the foer book claims that anyone who continues to consume the industry's products after reading the book must be without a heart, or impervious to reason, or both. well, i haven't read the book, and i know it's wildly unpopular these days to be an unapologetic carnivore, but i am what i am. i don't explain it any more than i explain why i rip the skin of my lips off when i am under stress or i pee in the shower - all disgusting things that i do, but have no plans to change.i do, i love the animals, and i saw a dead squirrel on the way to work yesterday, and it made me feel horrible inside of me, but i can't shake that early-childhood-ingrained farmlogic that certain animals are "for' eating, you know? (the learning that my people eat rabbits - even "pet" rabbits was a harder lesson)

there are some truly kickass recipes here, and i plan on making about half of them, but a world without black pudding is no world for me...

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hahha after all that - today i bought three boxes of soup: acorn squash and mango, red pepper and tomato, and carrot cashew ginger. guess i'm being foer-ified after all.

[Mark Rice]

Having eaten an exclusively vegetarian diet for 11 years, I had fallen into a repetitive eating cycle which provided balanced nutrition but lacked excitement. I cooked for speed and nutritional value rather than flavour. Enter this excellent little book and a whole new culinary dimension. The recipes are delicious and, for the most part, relatively uncomplicated.

The chapters are conveniently divided into: (1) breakfast & brunch; (2) starters & snacks; (3) main meals; (4) soups & stews; (5) salads & sides; (6) breads & baking; (7) desserts.

My favourites are the all-in one veggie breakfast, the sweet potato & fontina panini, the sage & goats' cheese frittata, the spinach & ricotta cannelloni, the mushroom soup with truffle butter, and the cherry & cinnamon zabaglione. The full-colour photographs that accompany the recipes are mouth-watering, but the proof of the pudding is - literally - in the tasting...and these dishes taste outstanding.

If you're a vegetarian who wants to spice up your diet, this book is exactly what you need. Equally, if you don't eat an exclusively vegetarian diet but want to broaden your culinary repertoire, the recipes in this excellent book are just the thing.

Coming in at a bargain price, this wee gem is a useful staple of any kitchen.

Highly recommended.

[Judith R-G]

some excellent, fun recipes. Several served to company in past, ore-Pandemic years.

[Maya Panika]

I’ve been a vegetarian for over 30 years and I’m a veggie-cookbook sceptic. Most, it seems, are written by non-vegetarian cooks with no real feel for vegetarian cookery at all, relying on the substitution of meat, invariably with soya or heart-stopping quantities of cheese. They have no regard for nuts, pulses, grains and spices and their many subtle combinations.
This small volume is a delightful departure from the norm, an absolute gem of a book; small and neat with an easy-to-clean cover, nicely illustrated. There's nothing here that's too dramatically exotic (with near-impossible to find ingredients) or fiddly techniques that will have you screaming from the kitchen in floods of tears, just 200 straightforward recipes, most of them new to me, that pluck ideas from a variety of ethnic traditions. There's an abundance of imaginative flavour combinations (pumpkin soup with olive salsa, vegetable and beer broth, potatoes and pine nuts, leeks and hazelnuts, figs and pecans ) that will doubtless spark fresh ideas for new combinations in my own repertoire.
Whether you’re a committed vegetarian or vegan – the great majority of recipes are vegan, or contain easily-substituted eggs and dairy – or just looking to reduce the amount of meat in your diet, at just £4.99, this is easily one of the very best cookery books I’ve seen, and highly recommended.

[Ruth Soz]

Jack and I have made several of these recipes, all of which proved to be very tasty. We find we are eating many more vegetarian meals these days, and this has been a good and easy guide to follow as we transition into a more vegetable-central diet.

[C.A.]

Got this for Christmas from my dad... already made one dish and it was yummy!!

[Johan]

Nice recepies

[Hannah]

Parmesan isn't vegetarian.