Comments: We always feel sorry for the dear vegans – it looks like they have to go to so much trouble just to wind up with uninspiring food.

Donna Klein has set out to change that. She doesn't want you traipsing to the health food store twice a week. All the ingredients can be found in a well-stocked supermarket. She doesn't call for any meat, dairy, or egg replacements in her recipes. The recipes are not supposed to take longer than 45 minutes to make or require more than 10 ingredients.

The fact is, there is a lot of variety among the 225 recipes in a relatively small book. The chapters include appetizers & snacks; soups, stews, and chilis; salads; sandwiches, wraps, pizza, breads, and other light fare; pasta & noodle dishes; main dish vegetable, grain, and legume combinations; side dishes & slaws; and desserts. There is a comprehensive nutritional analysis of every recipe.

There is generous use of canned and frozen ingredients – beans and broths, of course, but also some vegetables that you might expect to buy fresh in season. That's part of the price you pay for the convenience of shopping in mainstream markets and saving prep time.

We use a somewhat unfair standard to judge vegan cookbooks: how many recipes would we be happy preparing and eating? We think the soups and salads look very good. Most of the appetizers and side dishes also look tasty. The desserts look fabulous. There is good variety in the pastas and main dishes, but – a fact of life for vegans – man, there are a lot of chickpeas and beans. Some of the sandwiches are a little beyond the pale for us, and we see no reason to produce a pizza without cheese.

Of course, in the end, it doesn't matter if we would be happy with the book. What matters is whether or not the dear vegans will like it. In this case, we think there are plenty of recipes that would satisfy us, and many more that would keep vegans happy.