Rating: 
Summary: Not your typical vegan cookbook
Review: A lot of times people make vegan recipes that taste awful and that try to replace non-vegan dishes. Since trying to be vegan I have realized that it is easy to make good vegan dishes that taste good naturally and without having to do a lot of weird stuff (use ingredients that are impossible to find or to even know what they are). I lived in the Mediterranean for 9 months, and many of the recipes I see here remind me of the foods I ate there. I have already made the focaccia bread and it turend out fabulously, and I am already planning on making many of the other recipes soon.If you are vegan or trying to be vegan or trying to be more healthy, or if you just plain love Mediterranean food you will NOT be disappointed. I have eaten dairy almost all of my life, so switching to vegan has been a challenge. But when you eat this kind of food you won't even realize that anything is missing--because NOTHING IS MISSING. These recipes are the same ones meat-eaters and dairy-eaters eat every day in Europe.
Rating: 
Summary: Very good but not necessarily the healthiest
Review: After reading the rave reviews for this book, I decided I just had to have it to experience it for myself. This book garners mostly praise from me albeit with some reservations. The book is very good overall. The recipes are innovative, plentiful and beautifully laid out and the entire book is chockfull of what appear to be delicious and faily easy to follow recipes. The author apparently went to a great deal of effort with her material and I applaud the absence of the usual meat analogues, tofu and the such that so many vegan authors succumb to using. The real problem I had with this book lay mostly in the quality of the ingredients recommended and the cooking methods employed. The ingredients ranged widely from healthful to down right bad for you and a lot of frying and sauteeing is suggested. Some examples are that most of the dessert recipes call for refined white sugar and even hard liquor, and white refined flour products are suggested in many of the appetizers. I understand the author's intentions to present authentic recipes from a particular region but at what price to your health? Especially in a book that is promoting the "healthiest diet under the Sun." Certainly in this day and age with all the natural sugar substitutes, whole grains and modern food preparation methods available, modifications could have been easily made that would have retained the natural flavors of this cuisine. It did make me question whether the author meant to promote a healthy diet or just a delicious one. I believe you can have both. But on this, the reader will have to judge for himself or herself. A very good attempt at bringing whole foods to a vegan diet, however this reviewer suggests looking at healthier alternatives for some of the ingredients and cooking methods suggested. A vegan diet can be very delicious and promote good health at the same time.
Rating:
Summary: Best Vegetarian (Not Just Vegan) Cookbook
Review: How many "vegetarian" cookbooks have an excess of fats and cheeses to compensate? Too many. We are not vegans, but this book is the best "vegetarian" cookbook we have ever used. Every dish is bursting with flavors, chiefly garlic, wich we love. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Awesome Cookbook!
Review: I absolutely love this cookbook. I have about six other vegan cookbooks, but none compare to this one. It has wonderful, flavorful recipes that use many fresh vegetables and spices. The recipes are creative and colorful. No "meat substitutes" are used. Includes nutritional information. I highly recommend this to anyone, vegan or omnivore.
Rating:
Summary: The Mediteranean Vegan Kitchen:
Review: I am a brand new vegan, and my general cooking experience is limited, but the recipes in this book are very easy to follow, and the results are delicious. We do use a lot more seasoning than is called for, but that's just a matter of taste. Nutrition info is given with each recipe for fat, protein, carbs, fiber and sodium, which helps in menu planning.
I'm very glad I bought this book.
Rating:
Summary: an excellent cookbook on the mediterranean
Review: I am a recipes junkie. I have about 300 recipes around, plus a couple of books, but I rarely use any of them. But this book is the sole exception, as I've relied on it time and again when I feel like cooking. First of all the books here are mostly home-styled (though some are fancier) and can be prepared within 30 minutes. The recipes are very clearly written, easy to follow for anyone, and are absolutely delicious. Also, while the author draws recipes from some of the most popular cuisines in the world, somehow all her recipes tasted fresh and different. While I love minestrone and pasta primavera just about as anyone else, this book goes far and beyond your standard recipes. Most of all, despite the wide region the recipes covers, somehow the author manages to weave an air of authenticity and underlying theme that connects the different regions. Not using substitute, while important, is not the author's true preoccupation while writing book. The emphasis is on preserving the attitude of cooking, rather than mimicking the exact items, that goes into each dish. Overall, this is definitely one of the best cookbook in the market, both for the recipes and for the care the book takes in commnicating the ideas behind each recipe.
Rating: 
Summary: Vegan, but not necessarily healthy
Review: I bought the book with the expectation of finding recipes that might be compatible with Dr. Fuhrman's "Eat To Live" diet. After skimming through the book, I found that most of the recipes had 10-20 grams of fat, which is too fat much for Fuhrman, Ornish and McDougall diets. This is a lot of fat for anyone to include as a regular part of their diet. There are some low-fat dishes (<8 grams) in the book that look good. Most of the desserts are low-fat. Unfortunately, most of the desserts add significant amounts of sugar, which also pose dietary problems.
Rating:
Summary: A wonderful aide to becoming vegan
Review: I bought this book as part of a transition from being a lacto-ovo vegetarian to becoming a true vegan. After giving up meat four years ago I had become increasingly dependent on dairy as a regular part of my daily meals. This bothered me because I was not getting the full health benefits of a vegan diet and animals were still being mistreated to supply me with my daily fix of cheese. So I decided to bite the bullet and switch to veganism. The first couple of weeks were not easy. It was difficult to eat enough healthy food to not be hungry all the time and to fight my cravings for cheese and eggs. But then finally this book arrived (is it me or is Amazon's shipping getting slower?) and ever since I have been cooking from it almost on a daily basis. I probably cooked at least 10-12 different dishes from this book in the past three weeks and every one of them was satisfying and tasty. Preparation of most of the dishes is very straightforward and ingredients were easy to find (but then this is San Francisco). This is the first cookbook I have used where I have not had to adjust cooking times or amounts of ingredients to make the recipes work. It is really an excellent piece of work. One exception: I would recommend halving the amount of Harissa in the fabulous Tunesian Chick Pea Soup, since the Harissa drowns out other flavors in the recipe that is included in the book.
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Summary: My favorite cooking book
Review: I bought this book when I started what I call "my trip towards vegetarianism". When I decided to start decreasing my intake of animal products, I decided to experiment new ways of cooking veggies: I love cooking and I enjoy eating good food, and I was not going to make my meals boring or lacking in taste because I decided to eat healthier, no way! This book shows how simple it can be to eat healthier while still enjoying your meals fully and not feeling deprived. As an Italian, I found here recipes that I absolutely love, as they use spices and tastes very familiar to me. But this book also contains recipes from Spain, Greece, France, and other Mediterranean areas. You'll fall in love with this book! Since I started preparing the dishes in this book my husband told me I didn't need to make meat for him anymore at home, as he loved my veggie dishes. Being a vegetarian/vegan has never been so easy!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent vegan cookbook
Review: I can only back up what everyone has said in their reviews about this book - it really is great. No strange ingredients are called for in the recipes. All the recipes have ingredients I guarantee you have in your pantry all the time and you won't need to search the entire grocery store for any one particular item nor will you have to go to the health food store. The recipes are truly Mediterranean and they are very delicious. I haven't tried a bad recipe yet. I can honestly say that you will not be disappointed at all in this book. It is a great buy and a terrific bargain - you'll definitely get your money's worth out of this book by making the recipes over and over again!
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