Vegetarian cookeyr book

[timmette]

Hi Mumsnetters
Am not vegetarian - and love my meat too much. But would like to cook vegetarian food several times a week - can anyone recommend a good book to get me started just family food and hopefully not too heavy on cheese and mushrooms.
Thanks

bump - need the same!!
have just ordered wholefoods and vegetarian mothers cookbook so will let you know when they arrive

was a bit disappointed with delias vege book - more about veg side dishes and LOTS of cheese

Rose Elliot id a bit of a Goddess when it comes to veggie cooking.
www.roseelliot.com/books.php

I have been using her books since I went veggie waaaay back in the 1980s.

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Rose Elliot is pretty good, any Australian women's weekly veggie ones also. I like The Accidental Vegetarian but can't remember who it is by and Sophie Grigson's Vegetables is helpfully arranged by vegetable so is useful if you order a box and don't know what to do with something, it does contain meat dishes too though.

Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian is brilliant. I use it weekly.

this book (how to cook everything vegetarian) is brilliant. It gives you loads of basic techniques/recipes and then gives ideas of how to vary them. It's very clear. And the results are yummy.

Delia - booooo! She was snidey about vegetarians in the 1970s and I have never forgiven her.

Or get a lovely Italian cook book. Let me go and look... Valentina Harris is good or try... 'Vegetables the new food heros' by Peter Gordon (of the Provadores on Marylebone High St). I always cook at least one dish from this when folk come around. Very yummy and quite unusual.

I agree Lawks, it's the best veggie book I have.

For family meals the Cranks Bible and Cranks Fast Food (everything under 30 minutes) are very good.

Leith's Vegetarian Bible. I've been veggie for 20 years and this is by far and away the best cook book I've found. The receipes are reliably good. No pictures though.

Will def try the Madhur Jaffrey - sorry not a Delia fan .
Does the Peter Gordon include slightly more spicy food - I like that.

I agree with Lawks re: Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian - tis brill. In fact Lawks I'd love to know which recipes you keep returning to as everything I've done from there has been lovely but recs for which to try next would be great.

I also really like The World Food cafe books and Rose Elliot.

Oh and Leslie whatshername has two which are good - one is called Broader Than Beans and the other is called Cooler Than Chillis or something like that.

Rose Elliot has to be my fave. One of her's is called, "A foreign flavour," and has to be my most often used cook book. It's top. Didn't get on with her, "Cheap and easy," one though.

Boo hiss to Delia - she has lots of nasty things to say about veggies in her complete cookery course so I will not on principle buy any cook book she writes ever! Moo.

Delia's veggie one isn't very good anyway. I got it from the library and there wasn't a single recipe that I wanted to try. It was all full of hugely long lists of ingredients and horribly fussy directions.

Another vote for the Good Housekeeping Vegetarian cookbook.

Definitely the Cranks Bible - the recipes are amaaaazing and I have never cooked anything from it that didn't turn out well. The recipes are influenced by a wide range of cuisines and are all the sorts of things you could easily serve people without them noticing that meat wasn't included.

I also second Madhur Jaffrey - her Eastern Vegetarian Cooking is a wonderful book although full of weird ingredients so definitely one you have to plan your shopping for in advance! Eastern meals are great if you're trying to cook vegetarian food as so many curries etc are prepared without meat anyway. I hate books that just tell you how to make veggie versions of cottage pie etc - so unoriginal.

Antonio Carluccio's vegetable book is also great although not strictly vegetarian.

Rose Elliot is the definitive, the one and only in my opinion!