The Vegetarian Times Cookbook Book

I stumbled across this for $6 at Half-Price Books and consider it to have been a bargain.

I like that this is such a basic, "boring", cookbook. It was written before exotic ingredients in vegetarian dishes got to be so fashionable, so almost everything in it is made from normal things that you can find at normal grocery stores. Seitan, shiitake mushrooms, and a few other things seem to be about the extent of the "offbeat-ness" of ingredients. I understand that a lot of people are looking for something more outlandish, but I usually can't find it and couldn't afford it if I did, so rearranging kitchen staples is OK by me. Besides, last time I checked, there is no law on the books that says you have to follow a recipe as written--use these as starting points and add your own twists.

These seem to be pretty substantial recipes, too. It's not just rabbit food. Things could be substituted pretty easily and, of course, you could always add meat (sorry). The seasonings are often a little unexpected without being weird or requiring things that you're unlikely to have on hand in a pinch.