The Middle Eastern Vegetarian Cookbook

The recipes are reliably delicious and several have made it into my regular rotation. They’re a fun departure from the norm while still mostly using ingredients you already have or can easily find. I enjoyed it so much I wound up giving a copy to someone as a Christmas gift, now they love it too!

I just received this cookbook today, after having studied it and others on the Amazon website. My doctor has suggested following a Mediterranean diet. Although this is not specifically a M DIET cookbook, there are plenty of sensible and delicious recipes that I am dying to try out. Ingredients are not hard to come by--you can order some from Penzey's, if you can't find them locally, but a decent Middle Eastern deli will probably carry most of them. Lentil stuffed grapeleaves. Potato and pea soup. Stuffed baby eggplants! My mouth is watering. I am gifting this is a friend who is interested in Mediterranean food and to another who is vegetarian. Great layout--one page recipes accompanied by great photos. Worried about what exactly follows the Mediterranean diet? You can download a M diet chart and use that to guide you. I am thrilled with this purchase.

It's a plus to have pictures of the finished product so you know what each recipe should look like when you try it out. The recipes are easy to follow and the description of some of the ingredients at the beginning of the book are very useful for those of us who have never heard of them before. I found this book enjoyable to read and an inspiration to vegetarian cooking.

This book definitely has tasty recipes. Especially the spicy tahini dressing on veggies has been a big hit. But there are 2 things that bother me: 1. At least one recipe is erroneously marked gluten free (wheat berry porridge). So I would definitely check the recipe thoroughly and not just rely on the little symbols. 2. The bean recipes are based on canned beans. I think it would be fine to offer the canned beans as an option but then give the recipe with actually cooking the beans. For example the lentil and bean soup: The directions state to cook the lima beans, black-eyed peas and green lentils "as directed on each package". And then to use them in the soup recipe. One plus is that the author does give the amounts of dried beans you would need and tells you to soak them overnight.

Love, love, love this cookbook, Want to try all of the recipes. Enjoyed the personal stories of her life and learned a lot about MidEastern spices and how they are used. Already tried the Quinoa Tabbouleh and the Falafel which were excellent. She includes pictures so you can see what your dish is supposed to resemble. Learning to combine fruit both dried and fresh into recipes that I never would have thought of. Yesterday I had the Minted Cucumber salad and added pomegranate seeds and pine nuts--really, really good. I ordered another Middle Eastern Cookbook, The New Persian Kitchen which I would rate just OK. I will probably donate it to the library. This book had lots of meat recipes which are OK and you can substitute legumes, but not enough pictures so it was hard to visualize the dishes. As a newbie to Middle Eastern food I needed more of an explanation with pictures to make me curious to try the food.

After checking this wonderful book from the library, I had to have it! New to vegetarian cooking, & although I like meat, the recipes were delicious without it. The photos are so enticing, that I am always looking at them & have made many. My favorites are Roasted Cauliflower with garlic-tahini dip, Asparagus & Feta Quiche, Quinoa Stuffed Peppers ( use Bob’s Red Mill quinoa- don’t have to rinse ), Spiced Apple & date crumble, and Pistachio walnut halva ( absolutely devine, but mine turned out like brittle twice & think it’s probably supposed to be more the consistency of fudge? ) . So excited to be using Lebanese 7 - spice seasoning, cumin, coriander, sumac , pomegranate molasses, & tahini paste, za’atar & more listed in the glossary! And the little stories at the beginning of each recipe make them even more special. Thank you Salma!

I had been looking for a good vegetarian Middle Eastern cookbook for a while, and when I saw this book on Amazon, I went to my local library to preview the book. The book has great recipes, the photographs are incredible, and the kibbeh recipes alone are the reason why I had to get this book. The recipes are fairly easy to make, and Salma Hage has also included some new dishes with a Middle Eastern twist. Love this book!

This book is amazing. The recipes are not overly complicated, easy to follow and, most importantly, delicious! The photos are beautiful and i love to read it as I would a book. The recipes are fresh and exciting and the anecdotes are interesting also. I highly recommend!

This is a really nice recipe book packed with recipes that use a variety of vegetables, grains, beans, herbs and spices to suit your tastes. I often find that when I make a recipe it needs tweaking at the end, adding salt, extra salad dressing, or more spices, but nearly every one of these recipes are perfect from the first time I make them, no adjusting necessary! I'm not vegan but I noticed that lots of recipes are vegan and substitutions are suggested when the recipe isn't vegan, which is a nice touch.

Me gusta la gran calidad de las imágenes, las explicaciones y la creatividad para adaptar los platos. Como contra a veces es difícil encontrar todos los ingredientes.

Baba ganoush without smoked eggplants, why?! But... a lot of versatile and easy recipes. So far, do not cooked any...

This is the best Middle Eastern cookbook I have.

I have an embarrassingly large collection of cookbooks and never review them. The fact that I felt it necessary to say how amazing this book is should speak volumes. I'm a vegetarian, so was happy to see a possible new cookbook that I could use without making a lot of substitutions. But vegetarian or not, this is a cookbook for anyone who enjoys middle eastern food. It's not a cookbook with fake meat substitutes, it's a cookbook of authentic recipes that simply use real food... beans, veg, grains, seeds, etc. I have made 7 recipes, all of which turned out amazing. The flavour was spot on, I couldn't stop eating the food, and surprisingly, I think the end result is pretty close to what the author intended. I can't say enough about this book. If you are looking at it, buy it.