Pure & Simple: Homemade Indian Vegetarian Cuisine Hardcover – June 10, 2009

I found this book in our public library and used it so much that I had to buy it. The step by step directions are great. A basic recipe for potatoes and peas used the same ingredients that I have been using for decades but the proportions were different. The result was yummy. I felt like I was eating my mom's cooking. I have found recipes for north Indian meals that I haven't seen elsewhere. This cookbook is so good that I am buying another copy to send to my daughter.

this book is a must for beginners who want to learn how to cook indian food. the recipes are straight forward with large photographs. this book even provides an introduction of all different types of ingredients used for indian dishes, as well as a section that shows how to prep different food items a beginner may not know, like working with fresh coconut or blanching tomatoes. this book has the perfect balance of recipes to please even the most traditional eater.

Thought the recipes would be innovative, but they are watered down versions of recipes that can be found elsewhere.

My husband gave me four different Indian cookbooks (The Spice Box: A Vegetarian Indian Cookbook (Vegetarian Cooking), From Mom With Love . . .: A Complete Guide to Indian Cooking and Entertaining, The Everything Indian Cookbook: 300 Tantalizing Recipes--From Sizzling Tandoori Chicken to Fiery Lamb Vindaloo (Everything: Cooking)) for Christmas this past year and have been making Indian food regularly since then. This cookbook is beautifully laid out with step by step pictures for each recipe. A lot of the dishes are new to me, seeing a picture of the end product is extremely helpful. The beginning of the book offers plenty of information for novice Indian cooks. I particularly liked the Goodness of Legumes section because I wasn't familiar with all the different lentils and their names. It was easy ordering them when I had both the common English name as well as the Indian name. My only complaint of the book is that the dal dishes (plus potatoes, green bananas,etc) are cooked in a pressure cooker which I don't have. So, I have to cook by trial and error on the stove top until I get one.Here are some of the recipes I've made and how I feel about the end product:Cabbage and Peas: I needed to use up some left over cabbage and tried this dish. It wasn't full of flavor which disappointed me but not bad as a side dish (but it is considered a main dish)Gram Flour Coated Zucchini: this dish looks great in the picture but mine turned out nothing like it. I went back over the ingredient list and made sure I followed it to the letter, but mine was over spiced. The 1 tsp chili powder was obviously too much and not included in the dish that was pictured!Spicy Chickpeas: we love this dish at a nearby Indian restaurant so I tried this recipe. It was a little too tangy for us but still pretty good.Flaky Mint Bread: my favorite bread so far! A bit of work but worth it.Spicy Indian bread: again, a lot of hands on work but the end product is delicious!Carom Spiced Puffs: a little disappointed. Mine didn't puff up like the picture (some puffed a little some not at all) and the picture looks like white flour was used rather than wheat (which is called for). Otherwise, the taste was ok but I don't think I'll be making it again.Liquid Yogurt Salad: my favorite raita! Easy to make and goes great with any spicy dish.Some recipes are work intensive and others that can be put together with little effort. Some recipes call for ingredients that may be hard or next to impossible to acquire but most can be purchased from your local store or Asian market. This Indian cookbook is my best looking cookbook and I'm always looking through it. But my best dishes haven't come from this book.

I ordered this along with a bunch of other cookbooks recently. My wife and I have become vegans so we needed some new cookbooks. This one is my favorite of the lot! Many if not most of the recipes are vegan. So far we have tried a couple of them and they were delicious, the instructions are easy to follow and the pictures are wonderful. Plus there are a lot of cooking tips and instructions on making various pastes and spice mixtures. Highly recommended.

Don't buy this book unless you have a pressure cooker. 3\4 of the recipes call for one, including most of the main dishes and pretty much everything except for drinks, fried appetizers, desserts, and some rice pilafs. The instructions are terse, the hints are useless, and the book is filled with pictures. I don't need two pages of picture of vegetables that include broccoli. Who doesn't know what broccoli looks like? This book needs more writing, smaller pictures, and a subtitle that mentions pressure cookers.

This is absolutely one of my favorite cookbooks! The recipes are flavorful, simple, authentic, and taste amazing. There are very nice illustrations of each item throughout. The recipes are as easy to follow and easy to cook. Whether you are vegetarian or not, if you enjoy good Indian food, you will love this book!

I own a lot of indian cookbooks. This is the BEST!!!! Beautifully done in every way.The recipes are well written and organized, mouthwatering photos to every recipe.Included is a chapter on Cooking Processes incl. photos,which is very helpful.It's a great help to refresh,or know how to make Cottage Cheese( paneer)for example.All in all a book very worthwhile to have.