Cookbook Reviews - 150 vegan favorites

150 Vegan Favorites
Publisher: Random House
© 1998 by Jay Solomon
ISBN: 0761512438

Nice Extras:

Detailed tips on how to make your own soups and chilies.
Information on the different kinds of rice, grains, legumes, potatoes, squashes and root vegetables.

Reviewer: Alexis from New Hampshire, U.S.A.:

I heard a lot of good things about this book when it first came out so I was pretty excited to get a copy of my own. But I really wouldn't call this more than a three star book; it's okay, but it's not a show-stopper.

Some of the good points are that the dishes are all simple to prepare; new cooks, people in small kitchens, or folks on a budget will not have to worry about needing fancy gadgets or cookware to make any of these recipes. This book never calls for specific prepackaged items or soy analogues, which can be expensive and hard to find in some areas. In fact very few of the recipes call for any sort of soy products at all, and those that do usually call for tofu, which could be left out if needed (great news for anyone who's soy intolerant)! Almost all of the recipes can be made completely or mostly non-fat simply by reducing or eliminating the oil to sautée with, so this would be worth looking over for anyone following the McDougall plan or just looking to reduce their fat intake. And the recipes always include a lot of vegetables and, except for a few recipes that call for white rice, are usually all whole foods.

I've actually had about the same number of hits and misses with the recipes, and that's with additional adjustments to suit my tastes. My biggest complaint is the amount of grains used in the grain-based dishes. A large section of the book is dedicated to one-dish grain dishes such as pilafs and stews. The veggies and herbs go into the pot first, and they seem okay enough at that point, but then the directions call for adding such an unusually large amount of raw grain and water that by the time the dish is done, you've got a huge pot of plain rice with the occasional fleck of vegetable for dinner! This can be fixed if you plan in advance by simply reducing the amount of grain and the corresponding amount of water by about 1/2 to 2/3. If that wasn't so easy to fix, I'd like this book a whole lot less! My second complaint is that a number of the dishes turn out rather bland or seem to have an unfinished quality to their flavor if they aren't bland, and I'm not usually sure how to fix them up later. It's also because of this book that I learned that I really don't care for the combination of curry powder and thyme in the same recipe, but that may just be me!

The dishes I've really enjoyed include the roasted chili hummus, pasta with oven-broiled vegetables, Middle Eastern noodle pilaf, oven-roasted sweet plantains, and multi-vegetable couscous (as long as only about 2/3 of the amounts of couscous and water are used!).