Plenty

I bought this book in 2014 for my husband for Christmas and also have the kindle version of it too. It is a really great cookbook but some of the recipes look easy but they seem to have been made more complicated than they need to be. Yesterday I made the stuffed onions and honestly the length he goes to to create them is overkill. I simplified the steps and got a great result. I don't grate tomatoes and just used regular tinned chopped tomatoes and instead of using wine with the broth I used broth on its own. They came out perfect and everyone loved them. The sweet potato cakes were also easy and tasty but again I simplified them by putting the sweet potato in the oven and just scooping out the insides and mixing it with the suggested ingredients. He does tend to use castor sugar in most of the recipes but I just left it out and also lots of salt but I left that out too. The main ingredients in the majority of the recipes include fresh herbs, white cheeses such as feta or goats cheese as well as lemons or limes and yoghurt. I think this is an excellent book for quirky and unusual cooking ideas and I am happy with the choice of recipes. There really is something for everyone and lots of ideas that you can tweak to make them friendly to your taste. The black pepper tofu is amazing too. I use most of the recipes as side dishes rather than main meals as the portion sizes are quite small and seem to work well for us as side dishes to a main meal. For anyone who enjoys vegetarian cooking, this book is really wonderful. If you are not a vegetarian like me, then you will still find a lot of the recipes useful to go along side dishes. The index at the back of the book is very useful.

If you are a fan of Ottolenghi's weekly column 'The New Vegetarian' in the Guardian, then you may (like me) vaguely remember reading some of these recipes before. You may even have cooked a few, or (more often in my case) vowed to cook them at some point, possibly cutting the recipe out, or just throwing the magazine on the stack in the corner of your cluttered desk, or kitchen table, then tidied them away and allowed the Pear Crostini (Dec 2007), or the Puy Lentil Gallette (Jan 2007), or even (shame on you) the Scrambled Smoky Duck Eggs on Sourdough (June 2008) to drop off the wipe-clean tablecloth of your culinary agenda. Which is why this book is a dream-come-true: it is a cupped palm collecting all those crumbs (adding some previously unpublished ones for good measure) and repackaging them in a stunning, beautifully photographed hardback book. 'Plenty', indeed. I absolutely believe that this is the best book of vegetarian food I've ever read or cooked from. The reason for that is, I genuinely never once felt like I was reading or cooking from a vegetarian book. Some vegetarian cookbooks speak 'meat' as a kind of Derridean absent subtext almost as loudly as they speak vegetables; I'm thinking of recipes I remember reading in other books like 'vegetable toad in the hole'. In Ottolenghi's cookbook the absence of meat is silenced, easy-to-forget, totally squashed and rendered unimportant in culinary terms. Of course there is no meat or fish in the 'Artichoke Gratin' (p.178) or the 'Ultimate winter couscous' (p.262) or the 'Saffron tagliatelle with spiced butter' (p.260), 'Halloween Souffles' (p.64) or 'Egg spinach and pecorino pizza' (p.156) because these recipes are complete and perfect and authentic as they are, meat would be an unnecessary embellishment. It's wonderful to have Ottolenghi's New Vegetarian recipes collected in one place, organized by a central ingredient, so that if you fancy an inventive egg dish or a quirky but wholesome cereal recipe, you know exactly which chapter to consult. This is a great followup to The Ottloenghi Cookbook.

I’ve had Plenty for a while now, and it’s become one of my go-to cookbooks when I want to impress guests or shake up my weeknight meals. Yotam Ottolenghi’s recipes are packed with flavour, creativity, and a love for vegetables that even non-vegetarians (like me) can appreciate. 🍆 What I love: - The dishes are beautifully inventive, think roasted aubergine with saffron yogurt or lentils with grilled eggplant and pomegranate. - Ottolenghi’s Middle Eastern and Mediterranean influences shine through, making even humble ingredients feel special. - The book is gorgeous to flip through, and the writing is warm and inviting. It feels more like a celebration of food than a strict manual. 🔪 Why it’s four stars, not five: / Some recipes require a fair bit of prep or ingredients that aren’t always in my pantry. It’s not a “throw together in 20 minutes” kind of book. - A few dishes are better suited for weekends or special occasions, unless you’re the kind of person who keeps rose harissa and preserved lemons on hand. Overall, Plenty is a fantastic cookbook for anyone who wants to explore bold, vegetable-forward cooking. It’s not the most practical for everyday meals, but when you have the time, the results are absolutely worth it.

I bought this 9 odd years ago and for most of the years it served as an art food book, I’d get it and admire the photography and recipes then it would be put away. I eventually made the leek fritters first (turned out well). Years on I made the Winter Couscous and have made it numerous times since (a keeper), also the paella (keeper and made numerous times since). A crowd pleasing moment occurred in the last few weeks after making The Very Full Tart, I had so many compliments it seems like this is now going on the family’s ‘can you make that tart again’ request. So this is my thank you review to Ottolenghi for providing me with some gorgeous recipes that are absolute keepers for me now to be enjoyed time and again. Thank you x

Over the last few years my family has started eating less meat and we all feel better for it. It's difficult to find decent (mainly) vegetarian books, most contain the ubiquitous stodgy lentil loaf and broccoli quiche and too much cheese! In contrast Ottolenghi's book has a much fresher approach. If you love herbs and zingy flavours that burst in your mouth, this is the recipe book to try. Everything I've cooked from it has been really tasty; at the weekend I made a 2 course meal for a vegetarian friend (no desserts in this book so we had ice cream after as our 3rd course) and she loved it. I agree with other reviewers that there are a lot of ingredients in the recipes and some are hard to come by, but most things are available in my local sainsbury's. The recipes also work if you substitute ingredients, e.g, one herb for another does change the taste slightly but results are still good, so don't be afraid to tweak things. Due to the number of ingredients it isn't an everyday book for those on a budget. I am trying to save money myself but I can still afford to cook at least one recipe a week from this and if you grow your own herbs you will save even more. Since I already had so many cook books I was wary of buying another one to sit on a shelf so I went to his website and tried some of the recipes from it first. I tried roast sweet potatoes with maple and pecans and I cooked mushrooms with cinnamon and they were both amazing! I was delighted when the book contained more of the same inventive ideas. The hardback (or is it softback?!) is unlike any other book I own, it's got a padded white cover which I think is nice; very tactile. It's quite large, roughly A4 in size. Pictures are lovely too, but there isn't one for every recipe so if you choose by photographs this may not be so useful to you. Overall I'm very pleased with it and I'm looking forward to trying more recipes. FYI, I'm quite an experienced cook, perhaps beginners would find it a bit fiddly to make some of the dishes?

This is the second book by Yotam Ottolenghi I have. Just like in the first book, "Plenty" is filled with great recipies, nice photos and very clear step-by-step instructions. The recipies can be a bit unusual at the first sight: the combinations of ingredients are quite original and different from your average Jamie Oliver, Gordon Ramsey or Donna Hay recipies. But that's what makes this book so excellent: fresh ideas and the combinations are clever and create a great taste sensation. Another thing I like about Yotam Ottolenghi recipies is that not only does the food taste and smell good, it also looks very nice with just a little bit of extra effort. So to sum it up: The recipies might look a bit difficult at the first sight but no woories, the instructions are that good that so far, there were no failures in our kitchen and it's well very much worth the effort!

After lusting over this book for years and cooking a number of recipes from it that I had found online, I finally caved in a bought it - and it's one of the best cookbook purchases I've ever made. The book itself is lovely, but it's what inside that really counts. I've been trying out multiple new recipes from it each week, and every single one has been a taste revelation. Not only is this food delicious, it is gorgeous on the plate. "Plenty" is an apt title; I'm not a vegetarian myself, but these dishes are so bountiful and compelling that you never miss the meat. I can't speak highly enough of Yotam Ottolenghi's food or this book. If you want to push your taste buds a bit and explore a new world of veggie sensations, snap up a copy of "Plenty". You won't regret it.

I pre-ordered this book and was very excited to receive it, being the vegetarian food geek that I am. I thought I would start out by bookmarking just a few recipes - but ended up marking almost the entire book - I just want to cook everything! I have already made some of the recipes, which I collected from the New Vegetarian column in the Guardian. The black pepper tofu, the mee goreng, the multi-vegetable paella, the quesadillas and the winter couscous - all extremely tasty! My perserved lemons are ready to use for the summer (thanks to an excellent recipe from the first Ottolenghi book). I plan to make at least 2 recipes from the new book each weekend! I cannot wait to make the caramelised garlic tart, the green pancakes with lime butter and every single one of the aubergine dishes. Thank you Ottolenghi - you're a real inspiration and your food is delightful!