Monkey Rose's Profile

From: Seattle, WA USA

Joined: April 7th, 2010

About me: I love to cook (duh). I'm mostly vegetarian, but do have some fish from time to time. I'm also a huge fan of pies.

Favorite cookbook: Vegetarian Cooking For Everyone

Favorite recipe: Quinoa Mango Salad with Curried Vinaigrette Dressing


Latest review:

May 11th, 2010

Mango Salsa from Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home: Fast and Easy Recipes for Any Day

YUM! I don't even know if you should listen to what I have to say about this recipe because I love mangoes so freakin' much that if it's one of the ingredients, I'm bound to love the dish. But I really... read more >


recipe reviews (66)
book reviews (3)
useful review votes (20)

Monkey Rose's Reviews


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66 recipes reviewed. Showing 1 to 50Sort by: Book Title | Date | Rating | Recipe Title

Barefoot Contessa at Home: Everyday Recipes You'll Make Over and Over Again

By Ina Garten
Clarkson Potter - 2006

This is a very tasty and pretty easy recipe (my husband will even make it on his own - that's how easy it is!). It's a nice warm dish and we usually make it in the winter.

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12th April 2010

Mustard-Roasted Potatoes

This is a DELICIOUS way to make potatoes. We often have it as a side to salmon.

useful (2)  


The Complete Baking Cookbook: 350 Recipes from Cookies and Cakes to Muffins and Pies

By George Geary
Robert Rose - 2007

12th April 2010

Blueberry Coffee Cake

This is a very yummy cake and very easy to make as far as cakes go. He calls for fresh blueberries and pooh-poohs frozen ones, but I used ones I picked last summer and froze and they worked just fine without turning the whole cake blue as he warns. This is a great one to make for company or brunch.

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12th April 2010

Lemon Shortbread Cookies

These cookies were good... but they weren't anything special. They basically tasted like surgar cookies with a little hint of lemon. I was hoping that the lemon flavor would have stood out a little more.

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Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian: More Than 650 Meatless Recipes from Around the World

By Madhur Jaffrey
Clarkson Potter - 2002

This is a delicious and easy recipe. The directions for canned beans are a little bit vague, but I've managed to make it work by estimating the amount of liquid that should go in in place of the cooking liquid.

useful (1)  


12th April 2010 (edited: 12th April 2010)

Soft Polenta Mixed with Cheese and Butter

This method of cooking polenta works very well. I've had better results than when I have tried other methods. Never the less, cooking polenta is almost always a pain and although the results are good and the method is better than others I've found, this is still fairly labor intensive.

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This is a delicious recipe! I'm a little partial because I love beets.

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Moosewood Cookbook

By Mollie Katzen
Ten Speed Press - 1992

12th April 2010

Samosas

I love this recipe. Don't expect them to turn out like the ones you get in a restaurant, but they're tasty in their own right.

I've made this MANY times and I've found that I like to add almost twice as much spice as is in the recipe. I also add a healthy helping of cumin. I don't have exact measurements because I usually just keep adding spice until it tastes "right."

Also, there are two versions of the dough recipe. In one edition of this cookbook, there's a recipe with no butter in the dough. That dough comes out a bit tough and rubbery. The really good dough recipe is as follows:
2 cups flour
1 tsp salt
4 tbsp melted butter
1/2 cup yogurt
water as needed

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12th April 2010

Calzone

This comes out very well. I find that there's usually a little too much filling (or too little dough) to make 6. And although she calls for lots of black pepper (and I love black pepper) I find that I like this better without much pepper at all.

useful (2)  


Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home: Fast and Easy Recipes for Any Day

By Moosewood Collective
Simon & Schuster - 1994

I made these for my in-laws. It was a very easy recipe to make. It was a tad bit bland - maybe I should have put in more salt or other spices. Also, I would recommend using a very sharp cheddar for the cheese - I used a regular "sharp" cheddar (Tilamook sharp), but it really would have been even better with a stronger sharp.

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11th May 2010

Caribbean Black Beans

This was a good recipe - not spectacular, not bad. The orange juice added a nice kick to the beans. It was a little bit bland to my taste and it was also pretty liquidy.

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11th May 2010

Mango Salsa

YUM! I don't even know if you should listen to what I have to say about this recipe because I love mangoes so freakin' much that if it's one of the ingredients, I'm bound to love the dish. But I really did love this one - such wonderful flavors! And it did combine well with the Carribean Black Bean recipe listed in the margin of this recipe.

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Pie: 300 Tried-and-True Recipes for Delicious Homemade Pie

By Ken Haedrich
Harvard Common Press - 2004

11th April 2010 (edited: 12th April 2010)

Basic Flaky Pie Pastry

This is a fantastic crust recipe. It's my go-to recipe for most pies. It comes out wonderfully - flavorful and flaky. Basically, it's a half-and-half recipe - half of the fat is butter and half is shortening, thus bringing together the best of both worlds.

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11th April 2010 (edited: 12th April 2010)

Rainier Cherry Pie with a Grated Top Crust

Around here, we have a lot of Rainier Cherries in the summer. Usually, cherry pies are made with sour cherries, but this is a great recipe if all you have are sweets.

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11th April 2010 (edited: 12th April 2010)

Fresh Sweet Cherry Pie with Coconut-Almond Crunch Topping

I'm not a big fan of coconut, but the flavors go very nicely together. This is a great recipe if you have a lot of sweet cherries as we do around here where sour cherries are harder to find.

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11th April 2010 (edited: 12th April 2010)

Strawberry-Rhubarb Crumb Pie

I think if I'd made this with a regular pastry topping instead of the crumb topping, I'd have been able to give it a 5 instead of a 4. I'm not so hot on cornmeal. Also, I don't usually keep tapioca around, so any recipe with tapioca in it has a strike against it from me. But otherwise, a great recipe.

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11th April 2010 (edited: 12th April 2010)

Wyman's Wild Blueberry Lattice-Top Pie

This was a very good pie. I had to make it with regular blueberries instead of wild blueberries. It was a pretty basic blueberry pie - quite tasty though!

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11th April 2010 (edited: 12th April 2010)

Dundee Arms Inn Bumble Berry Pie

I made this for a work picnic and won a prize for best desert. Even the people who "don't usually like pies" loved it.

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11th April 2010 (edited: 12th April 2010)

Brown Sugar Apple Pie

This was a nice tasty pie. The brown sugar brought a nice flavor to it. The only problem I had was that I put a top crust on it and the apples cooked down a good bit and left a dome of empty pastry on the top. Otherwise, the recipe worked very well.

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11th April 2010 (edited: 12th April 2010)

Liz Reiter's All-Granny Slug-O-Bourbon Spiced Apple Pie

I made this for Thanksgiving. The bourbon flavor was pretty strong and since I'm not a big fan of bourbon, I didn't like this one so much. The pie didn't disappear as fast as the Pumpkin pie and other pie we had that year, so I'd have to guess that the others at dinner weren't as excited by it either.

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This is a great pie recipe for the middle of winter when the only inexpensive fresh fruit on the shelves are apples and you're not really interested in making a regular apple pie. I think this pie is best when refrigerated, so I'd suggest planning to make it ahead of time.

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11th April 2010 (edited: 12th April 2010)

Maple Pumpkin Pie

The maple in this one gives it a kick that you don't find in regular pumpkin pies.

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11th April 2010 (edited: 12th April 2010)

Joe's Stone Crab Key Lime Pie

I love this pie! It is tasty and very simple to make. It couldn't be much easier. My cousin and I were talking about making key lime pie once and he complained about how much trouble it was. Since this is the ONLY recipe I'd ever used to make key lime pie, I had no idea what he was talking about. I shared this recipe with him and now I think he's a convert.

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The Ultimate Vegetarian Cookbook

By Roz Denny
Smithmark Publishers - 1996

These... just did not come out well. I could not get the crust to stick to the tomatoes for the life of me. To be fair, I may have done something wrong, but I thought I followed the directions to the letter, so I don't know what it could have been.

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12th April 2010

Rum-Baked Bananas

This is a great desert that's not too sugary-sweet and probably not all that bad for you. It can end up a little bit juicy so I suggest going easy when you juice that orange. Although they suggest you serve it with cream or yogurt, I suggest that you serve it with vanilla ice cream. You can scratch what I said earlier about it not being all that bad for you if you add the ice cream :).

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This is pretty tasty, but I wouldn't say that it's any better than the tapanade you can buy in a jar at the store and save yourself a lot of time and probably some money too.

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Here's a different way to eat your potatoes. This is very easy to make. They're quite serious about not overcooking the potatoes though - you end up with basically mashed potatoes with beans in if you do.

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This is a delicious dish! It works well as a side too.

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The main reason that I'm reviewing this one is because the crust actually comes out quite well. It's a basic pizza recipe otherwise.

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12th April 2010

Thai Tofu Curry

This dish is notorious in my mind for being my worst cooking disaster ever. I spent a long time cooking it and I was VERY hungry by the time I was done. So, when I tell you that it was so bad that I dumped it in the trash without eating more than two or three bites, don't take that lightly. On the other hand, one of my housemates (oh so long ago...) also made this and it came out well, which was why I was trying it in the first place. I don't know where I went wrong, but something went terribly awry with this recipe when I made it.

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12th April 2010

Greek Spinach Pies

These are delicious and surprisingly easy.

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12th April 2010

Warm Spicy Dahl

This is a nice dahl, but overall it's pretty average. I've had better. I've had worse. Nothing really noteworthy about this one.

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I believe that this was the first yeasted bread I ever made, so it's a credit to the recipe that it came out. I used to make this a lot in college, but I haven't made it in years and years now. I doubt that I used any saffron and I sincerely doubt that I ever let it rise for more than the bare minimum of 1 hour. Also, I learned the hard way not to add more honey than is called for. It usually came out well (and when it didn't, it was usually because I strayed from the recipe).

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Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone

By Deborah Madison
Broadway - 1997

12th April 2010

Spicy Peanut Dip

Oh my gosh... this recipe!!! It's very easy - you just dump a bunch of things into a food processor and mix. What comes out is a wonderful dip that tastes a bit like Thai Peanut Sauce (and no wonder when you look at the ingredients...). It's a great dip for vegetables - a fantastic and easy appetizer. I make this often for parties, book group etc.

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Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone

By Deborah Madison
Broadway - 2007

12th April 2010

Spicy Peanut Dip

Oh my gosh... this recipe!!! It's very easy - you just dump a bunch of things into a food processor and mix. What comes out is a wonderful dip that tastes a bit like Thai Peanut Sauce (and no wonder when you look at the ingredients...). It's a great dip for vegetables - a fantastic and easy appetizer. I make this often for parties, book group etc.

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This is the first recipe I made from this book. It's really quite good and can be used in burritos in addition to being a dip.

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Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone

By Deborah Madison
Broadway - 1997

A tasty way to eat beets.

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This is a wonderful picnic-safe potato salad recipe. It's really yummy! The only problem I had with it is that the next day a lot of liquid pooled at the bottom of the bowl. A LOT. I think it was mostly the olive oil and vinegar. So anyway, I guess my advice is to try to eat it all the first day.

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I made this for my in-laws the first time they came over for dinner. It's a lovely fall/winter salad. The persimmons steal the show and anytime you put persimmons in anything, they're sure to impress or at least be a conversation piece.

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This one is a BIG favorite of mine. I usually bring it to potlucks and picnics. I always get a lot of compliments with this one. Sometimes I make 1.5x the curry dressing because it IS really tasty and adds a lot to this dish.

I can't wait for mango season...

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12th April 2010

Leek and Potato Soup

This soup is sinfully easy to make. It's very tasty and hearty even though you don't even need stock. I think that's the real beauty of this soup! No stock! Ms. Madison often calls for you to make your own stock, but sorry sweetheart... I don't usually have the time or patience for that.

I sometimes add a little bit of cheese to the soup for some extra flavor - usually Gruyere.

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I love this soup! Usually, I make it just as instructed and it comes out really well. Oftentimes though, I'll fudge a bit and skip the "croutons" since it's an extra step and I can be a little lazy.

This is a great soup to have with some buttery biscuits.

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This is a delicious way to eat squash. The recipe turned out well, but cutting the squash in half and roasting it was a big pain. Actually, it was the cutting in half that was a pain. I had half a mind to take an axe to the dang things. But, if you can get past that, here's something to do with those squash that you used as center pieces at Thanksgiving.

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12th April 2010

Potato and Leek Gratin

This is a lovely, hearty gratin. It's definitely "heavy" so I prefer to make it with a nice light vegetable side dish.

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I think that this one may become a family favorite at Thanksgiving. It's very very tasty. I usually skip the parsley (I'm not a fan of parsley) and the squash is a pain in the rear to peel and chop up (or else my knives suck). But overall, this dish is worth it for a few wintertime special occasions.

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This is a wonderful recipe. It is extremely tasty AND it's probably good for you too. We've made it many times - especially when we were growing chard in the garden and it was running wild (we used the variation with the chard and garlic croutons). The mustard is such a nice flavor to go with the lentils.

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This is one of our go-to recipes for weeknight cooking. It's easy to make and the ingredients are so simple that we almost always have everything on hand.

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This is a tasty dish and the "spicy" tomatoes aren't too spicy for most people. In fact, I'd almost say that they're barely spicy but maybe that's because I usually only go with 1 jalapeno instead of 2.

I keep all of my dried beans in mason jars in the kitchen. This is the only recipe that I know that uses mung beans - but I love having them on hand because they're so darn pretty!

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This is very, very simple. It hardly counts as a recipe at all. However, it's one of the reasons I love this book. There are great recipes like this in there - it's really just the simple addition of lemon juice, olive oil, and pepper that it makes it stand out and really pop when compared to the usual steamed broccoli with a pat of butter or a dash of salt that I think most people usually do.

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This is a very light dish that tastes nice and healthy. Since it's so light, I have paired it with a basic couscous to make it a little more filling.

I recommend reading her prelude on how to shop for and cook eggplants before starting this one (leaching out the bitterness etc.).

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