It IS worth the effort, but you have to plan ahead for these recipes in my experience. Partly I think it's because he's plating these dishes for a restaurant and he's got at least a little help to do that. What I usually do is choose one as a main dish and then prepare things I'm familiar with to accompany, or I just choose a side dish or dip to go with an easier-to-prepare meal. Bring a medium saucepan of salted water to a boil, then add the lentils, onion, garlic, bay leaves and thyme. Turn down the heat to medium and simmer for 30 minutes, until the lentils are cooked and starting to fall apart. Drain, discard the bay leaves, then tip the lentils, onion and garlic into the sweet potato mash. Add the cinnamon, paprika, parsley, mint, a teaspoon of salt and a good grind of pepper, mix well, then gently stir in the feta so it’s incorporated but remains in chunks.

This is the vegetarian recipe collection from Israeli Yotam Ottolenghi who is the owner of Ottolenghi restaurant in London, UK. I am flawed by this book. Rarely do I arrange more than one week of my dinners by the recipes in one book. I have been doing just that with this book for the last 3 weeks. The recipes are divided by: Eggplant with buttermilk sauce - Blah! Boring. It couldn't decide whether it wanted to be sweet or savory! Recipe said to roast eggplant at 200-degrees for 35 to 40 minutes. I had to read it twice! I've never roasted anything at 200-degrees! Sure enough after 40 minutes the eggplant was still thoroughly uncooked! Sauce was quite runny, didn't look like fabulous illustration! Visually stunning photographs of gourmet vegetarian faire! While on vacation, I attempted to take a photo of some food we were enjoying. Much to my surprise, I had a great deal of trouble! I now have a new appreciation for food photographers! Anyway, it's a beautiful cookbook with delicious sounding recipes. It's the kind of recipe book I would use on the weekend or when I have bags of time as the recipes are very detailed.The dishes range from “okay” to “pretty tasty”, but not “OMG-I’m-gonna-make-this-every-week” tasty, and some list ingredients that are as easy to find in a grocery store for common mortals as bottled teardrops of a 13-week-old unicorn harvested at the second full moon of the year while wearing a pink tutu. I am also not willing to sell my house for some saffron. You might be tempted to think the obvious – that only veggies would. But Ottolenghi has the palate of a discerning omnivore and embraces so many flavours that it’s entirely possible everyone will... Ottolenghi has founded a restaurant and four delis, has now penned four cookbooks, done an eight-year stint as Guardian Weekend’s columnist and – simply put – changed the way we shop and eat. I have made nearly half the recipes in this book. All were divine. I will never see vegetables the same way again. He imbues so many textures, and different flavors into minimally cooked, if at all cooked vegetables. I have only eaten on average two times meat a week for the last 3 weeks, which combined with daily superfood smoothies has really upped my energy levels.

Thing is, this book doesn't exactly spell out accessibility where ingredients were concerned. I really knew I was in the weeds when a recipe for potato salad called for 10-15 quail eggs. Additionally, the average ingredients list length is about thirteen items long, which I would say is a tad excessive for ANY recipe, whether meat is involved or not.Yotam Ottolenghi is the most creative but also practical cook of this new culinary era—a 21st-century Escoffier.If I had a four-star rating for cookbooks, I would give Plenty More five stars.” Ottolenghi is a truly engaging writer, with each dish a story to be read, even if you can’t find everything you need to make it. Ahead of his return to the Sydney Opera House in January 2019, we dig into the surprising life of chef superstar and occasional MasterChef guest Yotam Ottolenghi. He’s not actually a vegetarian