New Vegetarian

[Smithy]

I agree with the Moosewood comments... My "Moosewood Restaurant Low-Fat Favorites" has a broken binding from use.  The recipes are all good for you and have amazing flavor.  My personal faves from it... Portabello Mushroom Stuffed Zuchinis, Tamale Pie, and great fish recipes.  The library here has it.  You could check it out before you purchase.  I also found it at half.com last year for $6 brand new.

[PixieSkull]

The Post Punk Kitchen (http://www.theppk.com/): Has awesome recipes for both vegans and vegetarians. The sweet potato fries are awesome, and the pumpkin waffles are really hearty, healthy, and delicious.

The fat-free vegetarian archive(http://www.fatfree.com/): They have healthy recipes for EVERYTHING. This is the FIRST website I go to when looking for vegetarian recipes. There are sections for different ethnic foods, based on certain ingredients, certain types of meals. Don't let the name fool you, the recipes are REALLY FREAKING delicious. And your mom would be happy to see you eating healthier than french fries and fried rice.

VegWeb (http://vegweb.com/): Always good, very easy directions to follow, guidelines for vegetarian diets, very well set up.

Allrecipes (http://www.allrecipes.com/): Search for the vegetarian section and you'll find some very hearty and delicious recipes, often rated very accurate as to how good the recipes taste and ease of use, etc.

I bought a bunch of random vegetarian cookbooks at TJ Maxx and when on sale in Waldenbooks. The 1001 vegetarian dishes had a lot of recipes with odd ingredients or don't sound all that well put together, but it has recipes for GREAT soups. Can't go wrong with Borscht, in my opinion (the again, my family has strong roots in German cooking )

Where It All Vegan is an awesome cookbook with some very delicious recipes in it. Check that out. Vegetarian Times magazine can often be found in your local public library, as with other vegetarian magazines.

Good luck on finding recipes, it can be overwhelming I'd reccommend grinding chickpeas(garbanzos) after taking off the shells and mixing with mayo/miraclewhip/nayonaise and mustard, it's VERY delicious. Borscht is easy (just chop up or slice vegetables and boil.) And rice has less carbs in it if you rinse well before cooking. Carbs ARE good for you, however.

[susietherockgod]

Congrats on going veggie! I've been a vegetarian all through high school (four years plus), and it's great to hear of others making the same choice.

You've got a lot of great suggestions for cookbooks and stuff here (I LOVE Moosewood cookbooks - the Italian Tofu Salad in the Moosewood Daily Special is basically my tuna fish), so I thought I'd mention that it's not at all hard to adjust recipes for carnivore-food into vegetarian ones. They make so many veggie meat substitutions - fake sausage, hamburger, chicken, hot dogs, lunch meat, etc - that you can toss in to replace the actual meat. Also, tofu (firm, non-silken tofu, after being pressed between two plates with something heavy on top of it, which drains it of water) can be used in place of chicken in quite a lot of recipes, although it doesn't cook quite the same and it's best to experiment with it. If you freeze the tofu, the texture becomes very meaty...
Also, a lot of recipes work fine if you just leave out the meat altogether.

*Just in case you don't have too much money in the cookbook-fund*

[Babygrl0098]

thank you for all ur advice ! I checked out Moosewoods cookbook from the library and love it.

[Play_Dead]

Hi! I've been a vegetarian for almost 20 years, and I can assure you it's easier than you think! 
Peta.org has a great site with lots of info for new vegetarians too and absolutely delicious recipes.
If you go to http://www.vegcooking.com you can search for recipes by tiping an ingredient, the type of meal etc. there are also tons of news about veggie products on the market and more. It totally rocks!
Something similar you can also find on BBC's website http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/ there are some vegetarian and vegan meals featured on the first page but you can find much more if you search for recipes by clicking the vegetarian option http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/

I hope this helps,
cudos for going veggie!

[jujubecraftin]

I've been a vegetarian for over ten years now, and my going veg initially encouraged my mom and brother to eat less meat(almost none now), and my grandparents to experiment more with veg cooking.  I think it helps you become a much more interesting/creative cook because you don't rely on just a hunk of meat to bring richness to a meal.  Just think about what you normally eat as a meat eater it isn't only meat, there's so much more, so you're really not substituting/replacing that much.  Tofu is really great once you get the hang of it.  You can marinate it just like meat and bake it, stir fry it, crumble it.  a good way to prepare it for marinating or cooking is to press the water out of it by sandwiching it between papertowels and two plates and puttting something heavy on top for about 30 min. this helps the tofu absorb the flavors better.  Veggie cooking can definately be as hearty as meat cookiing, and once you've experimented for a while you'll get the hang of how to replace ingredients in a meat inclusive recipe.  Some really great websites I love to use are:
www.recipezaar.com    it's not specifically veggie, but there are reviews of the recipes, and you can type in an ingrediant and it will bring up all the recipes.
Also  http://ashycook.topcities.com/  has many fabulous, simple, hearty recipes, many inspired by his travels.  Don't give up, Good luck!
P.s. I almost forgot, Vegetarian Times is a great magazine with a ton of recipes, much less expensive to pick up an issue than investing in a cookbook

[NynaeveAS]

Does anyone have a recipe for a wrap that has cucumber, feta, red pepper and red onions in it?  I had it at a wine tasting and hence can't figure out if there was any mayo or sauce on it.  The veggie were the strongest feature and it was really good.  Anyone know of a wrap recipe with all these ingredients?  I did do a web search and a search on several of the recipe sites to no luck.

[jujubecraftin]

Hmmm, don't know of a specific recipe, but since it sounds sortof greek-like, i would try a garlicky tzaziki sauce, not mayo.

[NynaeveAS]

I'll give the garlicky tzaziki sauce a try this weekend for that wrap and if it's tasty, I'll post the recipe here for all you other lovers of the veggies.  Thanks for the sauce idea!  I was at a lose for what to use.

[Babygrl0098]

wat i like to do is eat many small meals (really small) throughout the day, like snacks. can u please post some recipes regarding this.