Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #702077 in Books
• Published on: 2002-08-15
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 224 pages

Orlando Murrin, BBC Good Food Vegetarian Chistmas , November 2002
pure inspiration for the keen vegetarian cook - imaginative and original - it truly opens your eyes to what is possible

Antony Worrall Thomson, Daily Express, December 7, 2002
It is undoubtedly one of the best vegetarian books I have come across and - thank goodness - not a nut cutlet in sight.

Country Smallholding, October, 2006
"perfect for the modern cook"

Customer Reviews

Heavenly Veg!
I love this book - every recipe I have made has worked. Having repeatedly borrowed it from the library I tried to buy a copy without success - until now, with this lovely new paperback edition. She seems to have come up with many ideas that I have not seen elsewhere - very refreshing. Also, many recipes are for two people which avoids having to scale everything down - although she must have a bigger appetite than I have! There are no pictures of the food; instead there are vibrant fruit and vegetable ink paintings. I wouldn't have minded fewer of these but it's a small quible and better than nothing at all. It is one of the few books that I actually cook from out of my embarassingly large collection of vegetarian cookery books.

Good vegetarian recipes with a real sense of taste and flavour
I do like this book very much, although not quite enough for it to become a favourite. If I had come across it a few years ago, I think I would have been delighted, but vegetarian cookery books seem to have increased in sophistication lately and so there's more competition.

Admittedly I was swayed by the glowing endorsement from Nigel Slater on the front cover: 'Bold, sassy, sophisticated cooking'. And indeed, it does deliver on the recipe front. The pumpkin stew with coconut, chilli and coriander is particularly delicious and the contents page is full of possibilities from soups to tarts and more. There's a nice range of recipes, from the very healthy to the somewhat dairy-filled - always a hazard in vegetarian cooking! Most are relatively simple and involve ingredients that are easily available, although I did find myself groaning every time a recipe called for preserved lemon (I am sure they are lovely but doubt they will ever feature in my cupboard on a regular basis).

I'm not sure about the lack of photos - I often find them quite useful in getting a sense of what the recipe is like and how to present it. The book is illustrated with watercolour vegetables, which didn't really do it for me, I'm afraid. I also think that perhaps the book could have done with some more hands-on editing as some of the themes are a bit 'samey' - which is not to say that they're not delicious, I just suspect that the book would have been even better if somebody had sat down and said 'right, this is a bit too similar to the last one, let's vary it or include something else'.

All in all, a really lovely book, full of deliciously sensual recipes - and I look forward to a second edition (or another book from the same author) that's a little more polished and shows the recipes off to best effect.