Wednesday Review: Good Cookin’
The lovely Elaine Eppler and I have developed quite an online crush. We surf back and forth to each other’s blogs, looking for a something delightful to brighten our day, or to find out what the other was up to the previous weekend.
Elaine has three blogs: Closely Observed always moves me towards gratitude; The Edible Balcony Garden inspires me to get creative about green living in an urban setting; and Berries and Greens gives us all a sneak peek into the health-full world of professional nutritionists.
It’s National Nutrition Month (who knew!) and Elaine is hosting a series of interviews about food attitudes over at B&G. We had fun doing an interview together via email, and she has it posted now. Hop over there and give it a look-see.
To celebrate our blogaffair (and of course National Nutrition Month) I’ve reviewed my favorite cook books for Wednesday Review.
Happy (and Healthy) Eating!
The New Moosewood Cookbook
The New Enchanted Broccoli Forest
Mollie Katzen
When I was 18 I moved out of state to attend college, and suddenly realized that my cooking repertoire didn’t go much past chocolate chip cookies and grilled cheese. True, I had helped my family cook dinners, but always as prep chef, never in a primary role. We were required to purchase a meal program at the school, but the food was so bad that the only thing you could eat was the quesadillas and the salad bar. This crisis of bad taste, plus the political fever most college students seem to catch, quickly converted me to vegetarianism and Mollie’s cookbooks became my guides.
From the The Moosewood Cookbook came a bevy of soup recipes, especially the veggie-rich Gypsy Soup and her never fail Minestrone. My books are on a slow ship from Seattle right now, but I’m pretty sure this is the cookbook with Montana Mama’s ricotta cheese cake with a lush, baked sour cream topping. It defines ‘decadent.’ And her chocolate brownies (with or without espresso) are also delish. There are handy tips for the beginner chef, including how to slice and dice various kinds of fruits and veggies. Without Molly, I still wouldn’t know how to section an orange.
The Enchanted Broccoli Forest offers the same kind of hearty, healthy goodness (all of Katzen’s recipes feed a good-sized crew.) In graduate school ours favorite thing to do was to host dinner parties and I often made the Indian Lentils with coconut and green apples. My former housemate Heidi swore by the broccoli casserole.
These aren’t the cookbooks to turn to when you’re in a rush. But if you’ve got time to dice awhile, either one of these charming, hand lettered cookbooks will keep you inspired with year round veggie goodness. Today’s Flavor: Hearty and Healthy.
When you order any of these books by clicking on the image or title, a portion of the proceeds supports this site. Find more great reads, music, and other treasures at Magpie Reviews. Thank You!
8 comments
these are my two absolute favourite recipe books in the whole world. i love the beautiful artwork and instructions. one of my faves is the gentle lentil stew :)
mmm…I love that one too. Lentils are the bomb!
I like all of the Katzen books I have (4), but I didn’t really dig the other Moosewood collective books, The Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home and Sundays at the Moosewood Cafe. I used 1 or 2 out of each book, but that’s about it. I think the really good banana bread with rum and coconut glaze is in the Sunday’s one. Yum!
I approve of today’s flavor!
Thank you for your kind words, Rachelle. I was very excited about publishing our interview. It’s now the most popular post I’ve ever published on my blog! After only one day!!
I have both of these Mollie Katzen books, too, and they are frequently used faves. In fact, I’ve been asked to take a veggie appetizer to a potluck dinner tomorrow and I think I’m going to choose a recipe from The Enchanted Broccoli Forest — thanks for the inspiration.
I also have another Moosewood Favourite that helped me learn about urban food gardening in the days before blogs like You Grow Girl. It is The Moosewood Restaurant Kitchen Garden (first edition, 1992). It’s light on recipes but has great advice on sowing seeds and designing food gardens in small spaces. It was recently updated. Here is the link to the current edition: http://www.amazon.com/Moosewood-Restaurant-Kitchen-Garden-Creative/dp/1580086667/ref=wl_it_dp?ie=UTF8&coliid=I3DSYPCN7F6W38&colid=2G1YZKYIELZAC
Rachelle
I love Moosewood everything!
Sundays at Moosewood is my favorite just now but the New Moosewood Cookbook is a real classic.
And I love keeping up on your lovely cultivation of life in Copenhagen -
Blessings to you and yours,
Kelly
I think everyone loves the Moosewood cookbooks. She had a new children’s cookbook out recently, I think, that I meant to pick up.
We considered Copenhagen for a flash of a moment: just had to look up housing costs to realize we’d never make it.
Enjoy!
Arg, CPH is notoriously expensive as far as housing goes. Seattle is a ridiculously expensive housing market as well, but we are STILL paying more for at two bedroom apartment here in CPH than we did for our six-bedroom house in Seattle (our rent here is more than our mortgage there!)
My 7yo loves to cook, and she adores Katzen’s “Pretend Soup” cookbook. She has another one for slightly older kids as well.
I love both of those cookbooks and the Moosewood Restaurant in Ithaca is quite a treat for a vegetarian! I too remember being a vegetarian in college and eating inordinate amounts of pasta and salad bars with way too many croûtons. Fortunately, a fun little vegetarian restaurant set up shop on our campus and I ate my fair share of fabulous home cooked veggie burgers!
I came across this site from Google and found this post quite yummy!
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