East

Simple & Inspring

This is my favorite cookbook for simple, flavorful meals. And, by the way, the recipes are vegetarian. Beautiful pictures. Lay-flat binding (which means when you open the book to a page it friggin stays open! As it should be for all cookbooks but all to often, is not!). All the recipes are one page or less so - simple! I have not made everything in it yet but I am well on my way. Pho that is as good as any good take-out! Braised tofu that is a delight! PhadThai to die for! I live in a rural community that, while far from being a food desert, does present challenges when gathering ingredients. Enter Amazon! I’ve been able to find most things on Amazon. However, the vast majority of recipes can be made with what’s available on an island in the great Pacific Northwest.

Always a good place to draw inspiration from!

A perfect present. A Book to be proudly kept on the bookshelf. A Book to be preserved for generations!

Everything about this cookery book is brilliant! The photos are stunning and inspiring. Well thought out content, explanations of types of ingredients and added bonus of names of suppliers online. Love it! I would like to add, I’m not a vegetarian or vegan.

Very attractive visual presentation. My only gripe about the cover is that in my hands i know it will get stained and dirty through usage (I'm from the bombsite school of cookery) and it's not really wipe clean. I guess I could get a cover....but I won't. I'm working through the book and have only made three recipes thus far. But the flavours were excellent. I found the text of the recipes clear and appropriately detailed. There are several shops reasonably local to me where I can access some of the less usual ingredients. Although I found quite a few at my supermarket albeit substantially more expensive (hence exploration of my local Korean shop- what a joy & revelation!) I've been vegetarian for decades but branching out more into veganism these days so I don't really want to be eating paneer, but found that I could satisfactorily use firm tofu instead. Fact is that no cook book is ever going to be meet the individual needs of us all, so it's more about using a book as a creative starting point and adjusting things to fit your own tastes. I don't do frying apart from a bit of stir-frying using very little oil. There is quite a bit of frying in this book, so where possible I've used less oil and oven-baked as an alternative cooking method. It probably changes the end character of the dish a bit but it has still tasted good and been (I believe!) that much healthier. I also don't eat much in the way of carbohydrate and there are quite a few rice dishes in the book. I'll get around to them but it'll take a while. I'm sure they will taste good though. Full marks to Meera for not including useless breakfast meals, not too much in the way of dessert stuff and for avoiding overly effusive language. This is a down-to-earth book, just good food , and I like it ☺