Vegetarian Classics

Cookbook

Vegetarian Classics
300 Essential Recipes
for Every Course and Every Meal

By Jeanne Lemlin

Get the dish on vegetarian cooking with universal appeal! Vegetarian Classics by award winning cookbook author Jeanne Lemlin contains an indispensable collection of 300 recipes, highlighting traditional and updated favorites. Readers are provided with easy instructions in addition to helpful tips for preparing a diverse range of dishes, including a gloriously simple Spruced-Up Store-Bought Tomato Sauce, an elegant Butternut Squash and Cider Soup, and embarrassingly easy (they literally take five minutes) Ginger Cream Scones.

Everybody Loves a Classic

The concept of established favorite dishes within the vegetarian repertoire is a fairly new one, developing in the decades since the movement took hold in the sixties. with her latest effort, Lemlin has taken many of these recently recognized ordinary classics and made them extraordinary, thereby creating recipes that are sure to become as treasured and worn as any of those compiled by Irma Rombauer or Fanny Farmer. She adds bulgur to chili for a version so satisfying nobody will be asking where's the beef. and in another vegetarian improvisation of a typically meat-based dish, she combines breadcrumbs and ground walnuts for a mock meat loaf that will win raves. Lemlin gives classic comfort foods, a special twist with recipes like Wasabi Mashed Potatoes and Baked Macaroni and Smoked Gouda Cheese.

Debunking a Myth

Many who cook every day shy away from preparing vegetarian meals simply because they believe sautéing a chicken breast or frying a burger is less time consuming. Lemlin sets the record straight with recipes that expertly combine fresh ingredients with convenience products. Store-bought frozen puff pastry speeds up the preparation of an assortment of tarts, including an Easy Zucchini and Cheese Tart and a Caramelized Onion Tart, and a flour tortilla "crust" pulls together a Pizza with Feta Cheese, Tomatoes and Olives in minutes. Other simplified recipes include Classic Vegetarian Lasagna Bechamel, made with no-boil noodles, and a Shepherd's Pie, featuring frozen corn and green beans.

Features with Universal Appeal

With a great chapter entitled "The Basics," Jean gives us a kitchen 101 with techniques and recipes for all those staples we know taste so much better when made by hand—vegetable stock, pie crust, bread crumbs, pesto. Jean also shares tips on how to make the most out of seasonal produce. Instead of buying expensive roasted peppers, why not save a bundle and make your own when the bounty appears in your local market this summer.

A collection of menus takes the guesswork out of planning full-course vegetarian meals and a glossary provides information on commonly used ingredients. These features, in addition to a tantalizing assortment of recipes, combine to make Vegetarian Classics a cookbook that will be cherished for years to come—by every type of food lover.

About the Author

Jeanne Lemlin is an acclaimed cookbook author and food writer whose work appears in Gourmet, Yankee Magazine and Country Journal. She is the author of four cookbooks, Main-Course Vegetarian Pleasures (for which she won a James Beard Award), Simple Vegetarian Pleasures, and Vegetarian Pleasures. She lives with her family in Great Barrington, Massachusetts.

Buy the Book!

Vegetarian Classics
300 Essential Recipes for Every Course and Every Meal
By Jeanne Lemlin
HarperCollins, May 2001
Hardcover, $27.50
ISBN: 0-06-019482-0
Information provided by the publisher.