Reddit mentions of Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian: More Than 650 Meatless Recipes from Around the World: A Cookbook

I worked at a grocery store, cleaning the meat department. It was gross as hell, and I was the best cleaner there, which meant that overall, meat departments are awful awful places. So I stopped eating meat. These days, I think we don't need to kill things to eat, so in general we shouldn't if we don't have to. I try not to be strident or to push vegn eating on other people (I'll still go to lunch with people who eat meat, for example) because it's really annoying.

This was 1992, and I haven't eaten meat, fish, chicken, or anything like that since. I still eat eggs and dairy a little, but lately dairy makes me ill so I am cutting out the milk as well. I eat a ton of soy because it's useful and versatile.

Free-range meat and eggs are just to make people feel a little better about eating them. Same with "happy meat." It's nice that it's not factory farming, but you're still raising an animal for the sake of killing and eating it. It seems hypocritical to me.

Let me see... Favorite meals? I like to make burritos with various forms of TVP and fake meaty things. I make a damn fine dry-fried sake-miso-marinated tofu with udon. I've made a bourbon reduction sauce with spice-rubbed dry-fried fake chicken strips. I've made breaded and pan-fried tofu "wings" in buffalo sauce. I could go on, but you get the idea-- I don't eat brown rice and plain tofu every night, or, really, ever.

Your last question-- tofu shouldn't be lumped in with fake meats. It's not really an attempt to emulate meat in any way-- it's a totally different kind of thing. It does take some thought to cook it-- you need to figure out marinades and different frying techniques, and you can't just throw it in a pan and know it'll come out tasting great without you having to do much with it. On its own it's a flavorless lump, but it soaks up marinades and spices like crazy, and you can cook it a bunch of different ways for different effects. Generally you'll want to cook with extra-firm tofu, and you'll want to press the liquid out of it before cooking it (I put it between paper towels on a plate and put another plate and some books on top for half an hour or so).

Fake meats are useful for converting recipes (like the bourbon reduction I mentioned before) since you can usually drop in a package of fake chicken strips from Trader Joe's in place of chicken in most things. (And you can always get a package of Tofurky and make a sandwich.) Some of them are really expensive; some are not very good. Some are better for cooking in different ways. You may have to try them, or get advice from people who have already done a lot of cooking...

Beware of tempeh. It's a weird sort of fermented grain thing, and it's very difficult to make it totally palatable. I still don't cook with it much since it's easy to do poorly and it's super gross if you aren't careful with it. Consider that an advanced vegetarian protein and get used to cooking with tofu first. 8)

If you're curious, Veganomicon is a FANTASTIC cookbook. You could eat from it for years without getting bored:

http://www.amazon.com/Veganomicon-The-Ultimate-Vegan-Cookbook/dp/156924264X

If you want to cook various ethnic foods, I've had a good time with Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian cookbook:

http://www.amazon.com/Madhur-Jaffreys-World-Vegetarian-Meatless/dp/0609809237

It has all kinds of stuff to try out, and goes into detail on methods and techniques of cooking different vegetarian proteins.

There are also vegan and vegetarian message boards around if you want to ask people who do more cooking and have tried a lot of things.

The biggest problem when starting out vegetarian will be going out to eat. You may find that your favorite restaurants are no longer good places for you to eat, or that going out with friends involves more negotiation. It also depends on where you live. Most largish cities will have at least a few vegetarian or vegan restaurants, or will have restaurants with veg options on the menus. Be prepared for some disappointing or annoying experiences while you figure it out. Finding local vegns to hang out with will help that, but you may have to be firm with your friends and convince them that it's not just a phase and that you're not just trying it out for a while. (This assumes, of course, that it's not just a phase and that you aren't just trying it out for a while.)

Be prepared for people to give you a hard time. Don't be afraid to tell them that it's your decision and if they have a problem with it they can go to hell (or perhaps something more polite). Lots of people will think it's clever to start asking you things like "what about plants? aren't plants alive too?" and "Chickens have a brain the size of a peanut-- they're not intelligent or anything!" and "clams are so simple they're hardly animals at all!" and so on and so forth. A million stupid and time-worn jokes. Just be ready.

People also like to argue with vegetarians about things because they think you're judging them. Ideally, you aren't judging them-- if you are, I'd suggest hiding it unless you really want to get into a fight, since people take it very personally. I usually tell people that it's my decision and I don't really care what they do.

Anyway, it's a great decision to make, although it's not always easy. There are lots of groups of supportive people out there, and it's a lot easier to go veg these days than it was back in 1992 (or earlier! Imagine eating vegetarian in the US in the 70's!). Good luck! Ask questions, and don't be afraid to try stuff!

Food addiction is mostly just sugar addiction. Fast food and other refined carbs convert to glucose almost as quickly as a donut, it doesn't matter if you think it's sweet or not. What's happening is that your brain is looking for its energy from the extreme sugar rush that you have accustomed it to. It can't function without high-octane rocket fuel because that is what it runs on now. You need to set time aside to endure the suffering of withdrawal, and your system will naturally start to seek other energy sources such as the 150 extra pounds of stored energy that you're carrying around everywhere.


In my experience, turning it around takes a real moment of clarity and acceptance that you're going to have to suffer for a while and get tough with yourself to get things back into balance. You need to be able to look at yourself and say: cut the shit, enough treating myself. I've banked up extra enjoyment for years, giving myself treats and rewards for no particular reason. Now it's time to pay back that big borrowed pleasure debt that I've accumulated by treating myself. And the only way to do that is by suffering and understanding that I owe back that suffering to bring things into balance again. If you can make a week with no added sugar or white refined carbs, a carrot will literally sound like a sweet treat. But before you get there, you need to suffer brutal withdrawal like you're the guy in Trainspotting. Maybe you need to lay in the dark with a cold cloth on your head, or curl into a ball and sob. The physical awfulness of getting off the sugar/carb train is not to be underestimated.


I don't know what Soylent is, but you should be eating real food rather than anything with a product name. Food was never meant to be particularly fast or easy. Real food takes some pre-planning and time to prepare. The hardest thing can be adjusting expectations about how quick or easy it is to obtain a meal, especially when the rest of society expects you to deal with eating in 15 minutes. But if you're not chopping something on the cutting board and turning the stove on, then chances are you're eating dog shit. It takes a complete readjustment of your schedule to start doing things properly. Anyone who loves food should love cooking, and happily learn to understand raw ingredients and spices and flavors. You should never be staring down a plate of something you don't want to eat. A proper meal that you've made yourself with fresh ingredients with the help of a good cookbook will be more enjoyable than any heroin fix from mcdonalds.


There are a couple great books I've used to help understand how things work, and figure out what I want to be cooking.


Most useful source of information:


http://www.amazon.com/Eat-Live-Amazing-Nutrient-Rich-Sustained/dp/031612091X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1426010343&sr=8-1&keywords=eat+to+live


My favourite cookbook:


http://www.amazon.com/Madhur-Jaffreys-World-Vegetarian-Meatless/dp/0609809237/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1426010362&sr=1-1&keywords=madhur+jaffrey+world+vegetarian

I like World Vegetarian by Madhur Jaffreys. There are several recipes in there that have become regulars for me.

I meal plan and I cook for two. Generally-I make a lunch for both people for the week, and then three dinners, with each dinner making enough leftovers for a second night, and then the 7th night we may go out or making something fun (especially on Saturday).

My guidelines with the mediterranean diet is to eat you veggies, greens and legumes on a regular basis, eat meat 1 or 2 times a week preferably chicken, eat seasonally, consume large quantities of olive oil. So my guidelines are very loose.

So my menu this week:
Dinner: Pasta with fresh tomato and basil, peach panzanella salad, taco salad (I make mine with lettuce, tomato, half an avocado, grilled corn, chiles, some cheese, and an avocado yogurt lime dressing-this is where the other half of the avocado goes).
Lunch: Fava (yellow split pea) dip with tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots, bread and cheese.

I've got some meal ideas on the board for next week and they include pan bagnat, blueberry feta almond salad (not sure if it will include chicken), tomato tart, vegetarian mousaka for lunch, rice and lentil salad with sun dried tomato and pistachios (also for lunch for another week), sweet potato hummus, sauteed greens with pork, lentil salad with arugala, carrots, blue cheese and chicken, zucchini fritters with yogurt dip, stuffed eggplants with yogurt bechamel, maybe a grilled meat with moroccan carrot salad, vegetarian pupusas with cabbage salad, shakshuka with tuna, and so on. In the fall, I'll start eating more squash and other fall veggies and probably way more soups and stews, and stuffed veggie pies. I'm working on creating a spreadsheet of a lot of this stuff broken down by season, so when I need inspiration it will be there.

My inspirations are a lot of Greek food, but I also like Mexican, Indian, and other mediterranean food, so I've gotten a few cookbooks, and follow a few food blogs and go with recipes that sounds good. A great resource is the OliveTomato website that has solid recipes and information on the med diet and I use that for inspiration, though the recipes lean heavy on Greek recipes but it also provides a lot of good guidance. Some of my favorite cookbooks are Kremezi's Mediterranean Vegetarian Feasts, but I really like all her cookbooks, I like Madhur Jaffrey for Indian but also really like her World Vegetarian, for veggie recipes. Ottolenghi has some really great cookbooks though the seasoning can be too much but I can also find free recipe blogs by him online. I've also heard great things about ATK's Mediterranean cookbook.

I agree with your tofu comment. I visited Hong Kong for two weeks and I was blown away with the different things they did with bean curd.

If you like Indian-style cooking, the following book is good (imo): http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0609809237/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_1?pf_rd_p=304485901&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0517596326&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=0FQV31N29MD5YRC273V3 . It also has a lot of non-Indian recipes, but I suspect many of them are Indianized versions of the recipes.

I agree that just chopping vegetables and throwing it on a plate won’t really cut it. You need to have at least 2-3 different components to a dish (unless it’s a one pot type meal) and I personally often take the approach of one bean/lentil dish and one fried or baked dish. That combined with some rice or bread makes a hearty meal that makes me feel satisfied in a similar way to eating a meat dish. On the plus side, veggie dishes tend to cook more quickly than meat.

I’m a omnivore but try to cook vegetarian meals when I can and have the time. I recommend this book if anyone is looking for some ideas for vegetarian dishes and meals to make but aren’t experienced in that type of cooking.
https://www.amazon.com/Madhur-Jaffreys-World-Vegetarian-Meatless/dp/0609809237

Don't try to replicate meals with meat in them! I know there's all this faux-meat stuff with the tofu and the seitan and the whatever, but it doesn't taste as good as meat and there are a zillion delicious vegetarian recipes that are absolutely as tasty as things with meat.

I highly, highly recommend Maddhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian cookbook, which has so many delicious recipes. I cook out of there all the time, even though I eat meat.

If you're eating cheese, eggs, etc., you probably don't need to worry too much about nutrition. Going vegan is more of a concern because you have to worry about where you're getting your protein.

I'm not the person you replied to, but any cookbook by Madhur Jaffrey is a great place to start imo. I bought this one 8 years ago and I still use it.

Yotam Ottolenghi came out with a followup on his Plenty cookbook a few months ago, its called Plenty More. Used to see vegetables as only a side dish but he really changed my mind and enabled me to see that they can really be the star of the table. There are many interesting combinations. And as a man who is an omnivore himself, he often makes his dishes hearty enough that many of us wont even miss the meat.

Another book which you should look into is Thug Kitchen. If you haven't seen their blog, you should really check it out.

You should also look into Deborah Madison's books. This one is practically the Bible among vegetarians due to how comprehensive it is. Ironically, she also is an omnivore.

Theres also the Moosewood Cookbook which is great for weeknight meals as many of the recipes are simple and quick.

If you like Indian, I would really recommend 660 Curries which has some of the best Indian food I've ever tasted. I often compare food I get in Indian restaurants to what I've cooked from this book. Yes, its not completely vegetarian but the vast majority of Indian cuisine is vegetarian so it should still be a valuable resource for you.

Speaking of Indian food, Madhur Jaffrey (who is known for her Indian cookbooks) has a great cookbook dedicated to vegetarian cooking.

See if you can pick up a copy of this: https://www.amazon.com/Madhur-Jaffreys-World-Vegetarian-Meatless/dp/0609809237

Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian

This is far and away my favorite vegetarian cook book. It has a good broad sampling of food from all around the world with a slight emphasis on India (which I appreciate). It is well written and easy to follow. I have a wonderful index by ingredients and country. I've had it for years and it still is my go to cookbook when I'm not making things from memory or making it up.

Maybe you need to put the part about it being a gift in bold, because people are posting links to blogs...

I agree with 5A704C1N on Veganomicon -- I don't own it, but it's very highly regarded. I also really like the Moosewood cookbooks for homestyle comfort food.

But if your pal has good cooking skills, maybe something for a specific cuisine or with a generally more worldly view would present a challenge and give them something to learn. Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian is supposed to be really good.

Edit: I've seen some people say Jaffrrey's World of the East is actually better.

OK, second edit: you might try searching on chowhound.com's forums -- they are always my last word on anything food-related online.