Simple vegetarian cookbooks?

April 21, 2009 10:37 PM

Cookbook recs needed: I'm an amateur cook so I need simple recipes, it would be nice if the books worked from a common and not-too-large set of ingredients, and I like food that's garlicky, oniony, and/or spicy. Oh, and healthy is a plus but not required. Finally, I'm a vegetarian (not vegan).
posted by shivohum to food & drink (32 comments total)

How to Cook Everything Vegetarian - by Mark Bittman. He's a no fuss guy and I can't vouch for the veggie version of his book, but I turn to his How to Cook Everything non-veg version over and over, and I have a shelf full of cookbooks.

Since you like spicy foods, you may want to learn how to cook Indian dishes (not sure if that fits your "common ingredients" requirement, but these days it's not too hard to find the "exotic" spices). I haven't specifically looked for simple Indian cookbooks, but Madhur Jaffrey and Julie Sahni's are great for learning the basics.
posted by girlhacker at 10:48 PM on April 21 [3 favorites]

The original Moosewood Cookbook is pretty much the gold standard for simple veggie cooking. Not necessarily much spicy stuff in there, but they're certainly not afraid of onions and garlic.

(Mollie Katzen, who wrote it, has put out other veggie cookbooks since, and the Moosewood Restaurant has a whole series of other cookbooks too. They're all good, but the original is classic.)
posted by nebulawindphone at 10:51 PM on April 21 [2 favorites]

This is the best vegetarian cookbook I've ever used. And I've used the Moosewood ones, which are good. The recipes seem to inevitably turn out delicious and picturesque. It's eerie. The recipes aren't all simple, but they're usually easy to simplify.
posted by Salvor Hardin at 10:56 PM on April 21

One of the best cookbooks I've ever known—vegetarian or non—is the classic Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison. I confess that I'm not even actually a vegetarian; and yet I've learned so much about vegetables, fruits, and every other sort of non-meat from this book that I really believe it's made a big impact on the health of the food I eat. Deborah Madison has been nominated for a large number of James Beard Foundation Awards, and Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone won one of them.

I'd say that it's like the Joy Of Cooking only with vegetables, but really, it's much more informative - much helpful and handy detail about any and every vegetable under the sun, and great writing, to boot. The thing is like an encyclopedia that's fun to read. I really can't recommend it highly enough.
posted by koeselitz at 10:56 PM on April 21 [4 favorites]

Oh sorry, that's Deborah Madison's "Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone" (in case you didn't feel like clicking the link).
posted by Salvor Hardin at 10:57 PM on April 21

I recommend this a lot (and I'm an omnivore, but had a spell of having to cut out dairy, so took up vegan cooking as a side project for a while to keep things interesting for my family), but La Dolce Vegan is a terrific cookbook.
posted by padraigin at 10:58 PM on April 21 [1 favorite]

Considering the circumstances, you owe me a delicious cauliflower-pea curry, koeselitz :)
posted by Salvor Hardin at 10:58 PM on April 21 [1 favorite]

Ah—I'm too late, as it's already been mentioned. But that's okay—I figured it was popular enough to warrant lots of recommendations.
posted by koeselitz at 10:58 PM on April 21

Oh, and I must also put in a shout for the original Moosewood cookbook, if only for the beer cheese nacho dip, which is a summer staple in our lives.
posted by padraigin at 10:59 PM on April 21

Oh, one other thing about Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone—one of the fantastic things about Deborah Madison is that she's from New Mexico, one of my favorite places, so she's a pro with the spicy foods, since you're interested in that sort of thing. Green chile roasting, rellenos, chilaquiles—it's all in there.
posted by koeselitz at 11:14 PM on April 21

On Indian cooking, there's a youtube channel, Manjula's kitchen that I find simple and useful to follow. Depending on where you live, you might have to ask around to find Indian/Middle Eastern/East Asian markets for spices.

Disclaimer: I know you mentioned you like garlic and onion, I love those as well. However, even though Manjula does not like to cook with them, the dishes still come out very flavorful.
posted by state fxn at 12:08 AM on April 22

I like Veganomicon and Bittman's "How to cook everything vegetarian". Bittman's book is full of simple, basic recipes that also help you learn how to cook without recipes. He gives lots of variations for each recipe.

Veganomicon has recipes that are a little bit more exciting, but still very doable without expensive or fancy ingredients. Veganomicon is vegan, but it gets good reviews from other people who are not vegan as well.
posted by davar at 1:59 AM on April 22

I use two that are mentioned above: Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, and Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. Either of these books on its own would be all a vegetarian would need for a lifetime of cooking.

They're not limited to "simple" recipes or a "common set" of ingredients, but don't worry about that. They give you the basics and work up from there. So you can start with just the basics (Deborah Madison has recipes for grilled cheese sandwich, scrambled eggs, etc.; Mark Bittman tells how to make pasta with garlic and oil, or pasta with a basic tomato sauce), and work your way up from there. Don't limit yourself -- as you get comfortable with the basics, you'll want to be able to go further. Both books are very good at giving a useful recipe and then describing a bunch of variations, so it's easy to adapt their suggestions based on what you happen to have around.
posted by Jaltcoh at 3:56 AM on April 22

I confess that I'm not even actually a vegetarian...

BTW, 2 other people who would have to "confess" this are Mark Bittman and Deborah Madison.
posted by Jaltcoh at 3:57 AM on April 22

Laurel's Kitchen
posted by All.star at 4:23 AM on April 22

I second girlhacker and others on Bittman's How to Cook Everything. Recently, I've started looking online for cooking and baking ideas and I love http://www.allrecipes.com because I can read other user comments for help.

I find soups are the easiest thing in the world to make. Since you love spices and garlic, you can make some seriously tasty stuff. Happy cooking. :)
posted by futureisunwritten at 4:45 AM on April 22

I really use this one a lot: Vegetarian 5 Ingredient Gourmet. Most of the recipes are quick, easy & everything I've tried has been really tasty. You can always modify the recipe to your liking if the 5 ingredients seem too limiting.
posted by Laura in Canada at 4:48 AM on April 22 [1 favorite]

Seconding How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. I just bought it last week, and I'm finally learning a lot of core cooking skills which my shelf of regular vegetarian cookbooks completely failed to teach me. Things that are useful, but not vegetarian-centric, like how to poach the perfect egg or how make a good pizza base.

The structure of Bittman's book is particularly good for new cooks - it teaches you simple, tasty recipes, then encourages you to improvise with lists like '15 toppings for baked potatoes' or '10 dishes you can put in a pie'. My only complaint is that he's a bit flippant about specific ethnic cuisines - but you can learn those from other books.
posted by embrangled at 4:55 AM on April 22 [1 favorite]

Everyone else has made the recommendations I'd make.

My only comment, then, is that I've personally found Bittman's recipes to be a little bland -- if you follow them to the absolute letter. But that's kind of the point. He's trying to teach you how to cook, not just give you a recipe. You're sort of supposed to think it's bland at first, so then you can branch off and think to yourself, "you know, let me just add a little more pepper/cumin/garlic and see what happens..." His recipes are only recipes when they're new. After that, they're meant to be templates, and you can play with the spices part of them when you're more confident.

Just giving you that heads-up, so if you get one of his books you don't taste it and think, "well, darn, this is a little boring."
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:33 AM on April 22 [2 favorites]

I myself am not vegetarian but I have both the Moosewood Cookbook and Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone has been a delight, and it was an essential resource when we were getting weekly CSA deliveries last summer. Moosewood Cookbook, I'm probably going to get rid of it in a garage sale. Everything I've tried from that book has been heavy and flavorless - the recipes don't bring out the flavor of the ingredients, there is a distinct lack of umami, and a lot of recipes just sit very heavily on one's stomach, a filling but not very pleasant experience.
posted by needled at 5:37 AM on April 22

Another (omnivore) vote for Veganomicon. I especially like the section in the front that gives you simple cooking techniques for a variety of vegetables. And it's easy enough to "de-vegan" if you don't want to mess with egg substitutes and such.
posted by JoanArkham at 5:58 AM on April 22

I have approximately two dozen vegetarian cookbooks in my collection (including many mentioned here) and the cookbook I use most for both tried & true and for new inspiration is Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian Cooking. It's worth the price for the falafel recipe alone.
posted by torquemaniac at 6:07 AM on April 22 [1 favorite]

I was just going to recommend the Madhur Jaffrey World Vegetarian book, but I see torquemaniac has already done it. The one thing I would say about this book is that while the recipes and ideas are great, she is very prescriptive about the exact procedural details of her recipes, and I have got good results by playing around with simpler or different techniques and/or variations in ingredients, using her recipes as starting points.

Where this book really comes into its own is when I have something in my weekly veg box (UK equivalent of the CSA schemes in the US) that I have never cooked before - if I don't recognise it, I'll look online to identify it and I know there'll be a good recipe for it in the Madhur Jaffrey book.
posted by altolinguistic at 6:20 AM on April 22

I'll third Madhur Jaffery's book. I received this as a gift this past Christmas. Not only is it one of my favorite vegetarian cookbooks, its one of my favorite all around cookbooks.

I'd say altolinguistic's comments are fair though about her tendency to be very prescriptive. This may not be so bad for a beginner looking for stricture. But, you should keep in mind that you don't necessarily need to continue with this structure once you find your style.
posted by NormandyJack at 6:50 AM on April 22

Nthing Veganomicon, and the Moosewood and Bittman books. And Madison and Jaffery.

Damn, I've got to set the alarm clock earlier.
posted by box at 7:32 AM on April 22 [1 favorite]

I'm a vegetarian (not vegan) myself, but I've found tons of great stuff in the Veganomicon. One of the great things about it is that it doesn't only have great recipes, but also tons of tutorials on how to cook some of the more exotic constitutive ingredients of vegetarian and vegan food (tempeh, tvp, etc) and a breakdown of different things you'll need in your kitchen. Plus, vegetarian-izing vegan recipes is only some shredded cheese away!
posted by mister barnacles at 8:03 AM on April 22

Eleventh-ing Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian. One thing not mentioned above is that it's organized by vegetable, not by course. That makes it really easy and interesting to use.

She has several other cookbooks that focus on specific regions. Everything she does is brilliant.
posted by mudpuppie at 9:27 AM on April 22

N'thing Madhur Jaffrey. In my opinion, the best vegetarian cooking in the whole world is Indian, so investigate Indian ingredients available in your area. You can order spices online if necessary, and they keep pretty well in a cool dry place.

An observation about Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone: much of the flavor in her recipes comes from fresh herbs. If you omit them, the dishes are pretty dull. Personally I don't care much for herbs (apart from parsley, cilantro and occasionally basil), so I find her recipes don't work too well for me. (I want to like this book, really I do, and I dig her attitude toward food and agriculture, but ... meh.)

I really like Vegetarian Planet by Didi Emmons, whom I'd never heard of until I stumbled across the book in a thrift store. What a find! Recipes from many traditions, mostly fairly simple but very flavorful (even without the herbs). This has become my all-purpose vegetarian cookbook.
posted by Quietgal at 9:56 AM on April 22

An observation about Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone: much of the flavor in her recipes comes from fresh herbs. If you omit them, the dishes are pretty dull. Personally I don't care much for herbs (apart from parsley, cilantro and occasionally basil), so I find her recipes don't work too well for me.

What other herbs does she often use that aren't acceptable in dried form?
posted by Jaltcoh at 12:51 PM on April 22

> What other herbs does she often use that aren't acceptable in dried form?

I didn't express myself very well, sorry - I don't care for most herbs, fresh or dried. Madison uses lots of fresh herbs but usually says you can replace them with dried. Thyme, marjoram, tarragon, chervil, dill, rosemary, sage and lovage appear on a quick flip through 4 or 5 pages. In my non-herb-loving opinion, dried herbs are even less lovable than fresh - the most volatile and labile flavors are gone, leaving you with a dull taste and little dry bits of straw in your food. I'd say even if you like herbs, if you have a hard time finding them fresh (like many folks in winter), leave Madison's book on the shelf until spring when fresh herbs reappear in the market.

For the OP, here's another cookbook recommendation: Lord Krishna's Cuisine: The Art of Indian Vegetarian Cooking by Yamuna Devi. It's not the simplest of simple cooking, but the author explains things in great detail so you will learn as you go. Don't be put off by the long ingredient lists - most of it is spices, which is simply a matter of opening a bottle and inserting a measuring spoon. For religious reasons, onions and garlic are avoided but her recipes are amazingly flavorful regardless, and of course you can adjust the "heat" to taste. It's probably my favorite Indian vegetarian cookbook.
posted by Quietgal at 6:21 PM on April 22

In my non-herb-loving opinion, dried herbs are even less lovable than fresh - the most volatile and labile flavors are gone, leaving you with a dull taste and little dry bits of straw in your food.

Oregano and tarragon are actually better dried.

Anyway, if you just don't like herbs fresh or dried, then yeah, you'll be ruling out a lot of tasty vegetarian cooking. I don't think that's specific to Deborah Madison.
posted by Jaltcoh at 7:34 PM on April 22

I wasn't a big fan of Madhur Jaffrey's recipes, but I MUST continue the recommendations for the original Moosewood cookbook. I'm also a giant fan of the Moosewood Restaurant's New Classics cookbook - it's the only cookbook among my giant collection that I will use for company when I haven't tried the recipe previously. In fact, I often look through there for the recipes that sound weirdest or least like I would enjoy them, and choose to make them. Invariably I find that the food is delicious - I've expanded my tastes and palate so much with this book. Yum.
posted by vytae at 10:48 AM on April 23