The New Laurel's Kitchen: A Handbook for Vegetarian Cookery and Nutrition

Rating:
Summary: The Publisher, Ten Speed Press
Review: "It has been enormously influential and remains so...As in the original volume, recipes are excellent." --Library Journal

Rating:
Summary: The most worn-out of my 100+ cookbooks.
Review: Friends gave this cookbook to my husband and me as a wedding present in 1987, and it's been my all-purpose cookbook since then. We are not vegetarians, but Laurel, Carol, and Brian taught us to enjoy vegetarian meals. This is the book that gave me confidence in the kitchen and showed me how to make delicious, low-fat meals. The nutritional tables in the back are wonderful -- there's one for basic foods and one that gives detailed nutritional information for each recipe in the book. My favorites (the ones I return to again and again): Hungarian Noodles, Lazy Pirogi, Sandy's Macaroni, Good Shepherd's Pie, Helen's Polenta with Eggplant, Tamale Pie, Black-eyed Peas Virginia Style, Black Bean Soup, Diane's Apple Crisp, Gingerbread, Oatmeal School Cookies. I can't think of a recipe from this book that I didn't enjoy. Don't have a copy of this book? Get one. If I could just find tape strong enough to keep the cover on mine!

Rating:
Summary: The most worn-out of my 100+ cookbooks.
Review: Friends gave this cookbook to my husband and me as a wedding present in 1987, and it's been my all-purpose cookbook since then. We are not vegetarians, but Laurel, Carol, and Brian taught us to enjoy vegetarian meals. This is the book that gave me confidence in the kitchen and showed me how to make delicious, low-fat meals. The nutritional tables in the back are wonderful -- there's one for basic foods and one that gives detailed nutritional information for each recipe in the book. My favorites (the ones I return to again and again): Hungarian Noodles, Lazy Pirogi, Sandy's Macaroni, Good Shepherd's Pie, Helen's Polenta with Eggplant, Tamale Pie, Black-eyed Peas Virginia Style, Black Bean Soup, Diane's Apple Crisp, Gingerbread, Oatmeal School Cookies. I can't think of a recipe from this book that I didn't enjoy. Don't have a copy of this book? Get one. If I could just find tape strong enough to keep the cover on mine!

Rating:
Summary: Very tasty
Review: Full of hundreds of great recipes. Being a nutritionalist, the author presents about 100 pages of info about nutrition, preparing a meal, food selection, and the rest is many great dishes. It seems to have a down home flavor with porage and home made bread as well as just about anything else you want. Some of the recipes may be a bit time consuming but worth it.

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Summary: Narrow minded prose with lackluster recipes
Review: I am, for lack of a better explanation, an omnivore in a caring relationship with a vegetarian. Since I do most of the cooking, I often search through vegetarian cookbooks for ideas and recipes for us or just to make for her. In truth, this book deeply insulted me. The author's repeated attacks on those of us who eat meat were offensive to me personally and I would think to anyone with an open minded view of the world. If you happen to be a militant vegan, this book may just be your style. As for the rest of the general populace, the recipes were pedestrian and the viewpoints were unwelcome.

Rating:
Summary: An old, well loved standby
Review: I bought this book because I was interested in the nutrition aspects of vegetarianism. This book has an amazing amount of nutrition information. It is a great resource for planning a complete vegetarian diet. I haven't tried any of the recipes yet, but there appears to be a great variety of recipes. The book is worth having just for the nutrition information.

Rating:
Summary: Amazing Nutrition Information!!
Review: I bought this book because I was interested in the nutrition aspects of vegetarianism. This book has an amazing amount of nutrition information. It is a great resource for planning a complete vegetarian diet. I haven't tried any of the recipes yet, but there appears to be a great variety of recipes. The book is worth having just for the nutrition information.

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Summary: this book was a light in the darkness for me!
Review: I first encountered Laurel, Carol et al. in 1985, after reading and being impressed by Diet For A Small Planet but feeling constrained by the narrowness of protein complementarity as it was then understood. I had been told by my doctor to lose the fifty pounds I had gained with my first pregnancy or she wouldn't be around to help me with a second one. A vegetarian friend suggested I try changing the way our family ate. Since I did then and still do love to cook, I was ready and willing to make whatever changes might be necessary. Laurel's Kitchen was a light in the darkness for me. The recipes were fun to make and best of all, they tasted great. My formerly meat and potatoes or nothing Irishman husband took to our new way of eating with real enjoyment. I took great heart from the philosophical musings that began the book and were interspersed with the recipes. When the second edition came out, in 1986, I was fifty pounds lighter and beginning a pregnancy as a well-nourished lacto-ovo vegetarian. My 11 pound son's birth left me two pounds lighter than I had been at his conception. I have gone through 3 copies of the 1986 edition, and have memorized (with our own personal modifications) all our favorite recipes, which have become family classics. I have never regained the weight I lost fourteen years ago and am in my twenty-fifth year of teaching high school history. My husband and our two teen-agers are healthy, slim and energetic. My daughter, at 16, takes a lot of static from well-meaning "friends" about her vegetarian diet, but she remains committed but never censorious of others' eating habits. We are happy with our choice and eternally grateful for the wit, wisdom and just plain good eating to be found in Laurel's Kitchen. As Carol states,"Laurel didn't believe just in cooking vegetarian...it had to taste good."

Rating:
Summary: a "must-have" guide to vegetarian cookery
Review: I first learned of Laurel's Kitchen in the mid-1970s when my parents gave my sister Laurel a copy for Christmas. Being an artist, I really admired the woodcut illustrations. However, I didn't start to use the book religiously until 1978, when I and all my grad-school friends decided to pursue a vegetarian life style. My copy, which I bought at the food coop where I volunteered is now in pieces, but I still use it regularly. I can count on the book to contain information about vegetables I'm not familiar with, and how best to prepare them, plus providing clear instructions for making such things as yogurt and sushi nori. Though no longer a strict vegetarian, having a husband and two children who like meat far too much to give it up just yet,I eat meatless meals at least several times a week. The recipe for Sultana's Spanakopita (a real winner!) has inspired a family favorite: broccoli pie, in which we've substituted broccoli for spinach.

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Summary: Much more than a cookbook, which is good and bad
Review: I got this book a few years ago when I wanted to reduce the amount of meat in my diet. I was looking for something that would make it easy for me to prepare vegetarian dishes. My brother, who has been a vegetarian for years, recommended this book, which I understand is considered by many to be the Bible of vegetarian cooking.

And "Bible" may be the right way of viewing this. Because this is no ordinary cookbook. Yes, it has recipes -- lots of them -- but it seemed to me that a typical person new to vegetarian cooking wasn't going to make most of these recipes without going through a significant lifestyle change.

The book makes no apologies for the fact that its approach to food preparation is often painstaking and time consuming. I mean, there's even a section on milling your own flour. That's fine if you are looking for a whole food approach to eating, but if you're just looking for simple ways to substitute vegetables or soy products into your old favorite recipes, this is not what you're looking for.