Vegetarian Times Complete Cookbook [Hardcover]

One point no one has mentioned yet makes this cookbook distinctive. Except for the one recipe I note below, the food presents very attractively. This is almost never true of other vegetarian cookbooks I have used. If you are a decent cook concerned with presentation (as you might be if you were taking food to a party, or having people to dinner), this may well be the book for you.

I will review each recipe I have tried to give you a feel for the book, so you can decide whether it may be for you.

I have made these recipes from the book, in this order.
- snow peas stuffed with radish creme (dairy)
- cucumbers stuffed with hummus (vegan)
- two rice salad (vegan)
- wild rice and apricot stuffing (vegan)
- raw cabbage dressed with balsamic vinegar (don't remember the title but it may have been something like Low Fat Slaw). (vegan)

I liked the first three of these five recipes, so the book made a good impression on me. Three out of five recipes that work in any cookbook is a decent batting average. Remember, there's no accounting for taste!

The snow peas with radish creme were very tasty: ground radishes in a cream cheese base, stuffed into blanched snow peas. You would have to like radishes, but the cream cheese tones the radishes down a bit. It's meant to be an appetizer or finger food for a party. But, I think the book told you to blanch the snow peas too long; the snow peas were a little limp for stuffing. Also, you have to open each blanched snow pea carefully and insert the stuffing. Snow peas have a backbone like string beans used to have before they became green beans; you have to find that thread and pull it out. You are also supposed to use a 'pastry bag' or some such thing (I don't have the book in front of me) to pipe the radish creme into the snow peas. I don't know about you, but I don't have any such thing in my kitchen. The radish creme thins as it comes to room temperature (as it will during your party) so you are picking up a limp snow pea with runny stuffing. This defeats the point of a party finger food which is to allow your guests to nosh without fear of accident. I took this to a party and it was pronounced tasty but messy. I will make the radish creme (to use as a dip) again. BTW, you have to grind the radishes which I did with an Amish kitchen gadget. I can't recall what the book suggested but they may expect you to have a food processor. The only hard to obtain ingredients are fresh snow peas and radishes, which may be out of season. Opening limp snow peas and stuffing them is fussy, but if you are having a party, you may not mind going to the extra trouble.

The cucumbers stuffed with hummus are very, very attractive to look at. Hummus is well cooked chick peas, ground to the texture of mayonnaise and seasoned with spices. It's usually a dip or a sandwich stuffing. In this recipe, you make hummus such that it has a bit more body than usual; this hummus is unusual also because it includes diced black olives. You cut cucumbers into thick slices and scoop out the seeds with a melon baller, and stuff the hummus where the seeds would be. This too, is meant to be an appetizer for a party. They are an excellent finger food, stand up to an evening on the buffet table well, crunchy and refreshing to eat, too. I took these to a party and they got rave reviews. I thought the hummus was mediocre, myself. It called for canned chick peas --that's a BAD HUMMUS tipoff right there --but the guests did seem to like them well enough. Now to make hummus you need a way to grind chick peas. If you cook them yourself, you could use a potato masher or a fork or a food mill, but canned chick peas are really too firm for that. A blender, meat grinder, or food processor is more the thing. (One thing about this book and other cookbooks annoys me. They call for canned chick peas but don't tell you how many raw chick peas to start with if you prefer to cook them yourself!) You must have a melon baller -- you can't fake it with a knife. You may not have one but it is not as outlandish as the pastry bag with the piping attachment. All the ingredients are easy to obtain at any grocery store. Preparation was very simple. I will definitely make this again (but not with canned chick peas!)

The two rice salad is stunning to look at and very, very good. It is a mixture of brown rice, wild rice, green peas, red pepper, toasted sliced almonds, in a spicy dressing. It seems to me the first time I made this I did not use the whole teaspoon of black pepper as directed and next time I did to see if they knew something I didn't --nah! I took this salad to a party. Not only was it pronounced appealing to look at and good to eat, but I was asked for the recipe. It calls for instant brown rice which is widely available -- even Walmart has a store brand. It calls for 'instant' wild rice -- something I have never seen -- and a tablespoon of ginger juice. Maybe there's such a thing as Ginger Juice just like you can buy carrot juice, but not around here. Between squeezing the ginger root and cooking the wild rice the old fashioned way, the recipe is TIME CONSUMING to make. If'n you had one of those new fangled JUICERS it might not be such a struggle. The salad is a lot of work, but I would not be embarrassed to take this salad anywhere and I bet you no one else will be bringing the same thing. Of course, even regular wild rice can be hard to find and when you do find it, it's not cheap.

The wild rice and apricot stuffing was a disappointment. It wasn't dreadful, but I wasn't impressed. It was very appetizing to look at indeed, but too sweet and the flavors didn't really blend, and the apricots were too chewy for a stuffing. Of course it had cooked wild rice to which you add chopped dried apricots and other things. You bake it in the oven either in a pot or stuffed into a vegetable. I suspect that if you stuffed this into a duck or a cornish hen (which would add moisture, fat, cooking time, and a foil to the sweetness of the apricots) instead of a vegetable it would be quite good. But vegetarians don't do that :-)

The raw cabbage with balsamic vinegar was just that: raw cabbage sitting in balsamic vinegar. Oh sure: you grate the cabbage as for slaw, you add some other vegetables, herbs and such, and let it sit in the fridge as you do with slaw. But after tasting it, why bother? The cabbage never wilted, the other ingredients were overpowered by the balsamic vinegar, and it is frankly shocking to look at slaw in brown dressing (Balsamic vinegar is chocolate brown.) A mediocre recipe I would not serve to guests.

This is why:
While the nutrition and introducton sections are the strengths of the book especially the long descriptions of the ingredients and the types and such of vegetarians. After trying a bunch of their recipes, too many of the recipes are experimenting with substitutions for meat that are hit or miss in whether they taste good or not (Recipes remind me of taking a large chunk of Tofu, and calling it a pot roast - vegetarian cuisine can be so much better than that!). The book also tends to under-spice the food - adding to the blandness in many dishes.

They may convince you to try out vegetarianism, but the recipes may not hold you. Some recipes you may not be able to do since the ingredients may be hard to find in some areas, though in the last couple of years it has got better.

If you are looking for a good Vegetarian cookbook, there are other, better, books out there (to be fair, mostly since this book came out). As far as explaining about vegetarianism and vegetarian ingredients this is a good reference. Keep in mind, though, that there have been books published since this one that are just as good information-wise with better recipes.

Upshot: There are a lot of creative recipes, but you will have to do a lot of trial and error to figure out which ones work the best. The introduction, nutritional and general information is its strength, and if you decide to get the book, this should be the reason, but be sure to check out the books that have come out in the last 5 years before you do!