Monkey Rose's Reviews
66 recipes reviewed. Showing 1 to 50Sort by: Book Title | Date 
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Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home: Fast and Easy Recipes for Any Day
By Moosewood Collective
Simon & Schuster - 1994
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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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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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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The Ultimate Vegetarian Cookbook
By Roz Denny
Smithmark Publishers - 1996
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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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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These are delicious and surprisingly easy.
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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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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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This is a delicious dish! It works well as a side 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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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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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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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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Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone
By Deborah Madison
Broadway - 1997
This is a great basic waffle recipe. Sometimes I add a little molasses, nutmeg, and ground cloves to give them more of a gingerbread flavor.
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These are a delicious toothsome treat. A nice change from your every-day pancakes.
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This is a great way to make tofu. It might not be "authentic" but it reminds me of the tofu that you usually get in East Coast Chinese restaurants (and that's harder to find out here on the West Coast). I always make this when I'm making stir-fried vegetables. I often add minced garlic and grated ginger in for some extra flavor.
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This is a very heavy cheesy dish, but it's very rich and flavorful. It's great for a cold day.
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This is a nice risotto to have in the spring (as she even suggests in the book). It has a nice fresh, light flavor to it.
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One of my very favorite dishes in this book! It's so beautiful and bright when it's done. I love the flavor of the beets especially when paired with the lemon. The lemon adds such a nice zing to this. YUM!
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This dish has a very nice flavor to it. The only thing I don't like is that it calls for carrot juice which isn't exactly easy to find. I usually buy a little bottle of Odwalla Carrot Juice for this recipe, but it doesn't use all of the juice so I always have some carrot juice left over. I don't know about you, but I don't usually drink carrot juice, so it ends up going to waste.
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This pizza sauce is sublime. It's very simple and very basic, but sometimes the best recipes are.
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The pizza dough comes out pretty good - but pretty heavy and bread-y. It could also use a little salt.
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These are DELICIOUS! This is my ultimate "I'm showing off" recipe for when I have guests or for special occasions. These things are also beautiful when they come out of the oven. They're a little bit labor intensive, but SO SO SO worth it. But make no mistake, this isn't a "healthy" vegetarian recipe. There's a ton of butter and cream and cheese in this one. This recipe will spike your cholesterol. There's a reason why it tastes so good.
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This is a nice dish and there's a pretty color picture of it in this book somewhere. However... there isn't anything all that special about it. I went out and bough saffron for this recipe too and now I'll probably be finding other recipes to use it in.
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This is a nice, fresh tasting recipe. The lemon is a nice flavor, but I think it could probably use a little more than she calls for to give it a bit more kick.
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This is a good recipe and it's nice to try something different with the pasta. I'm apparently not a big fan of capers which is why I'm only "meh" on this one.
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This is a nice one with a lot of flavor. It's a good one to have if you're sick of tomato sauce with your pasta.
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Maybe I'm being a little unfair to this recipe. I made it only once. The problem I had was that the fritters didn't really stay together very well. I'm not sure if I didn't salt and drain them enough or what, but they were wet and fell apart pretty easily.
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This is a good one for Thanksgiving. This recipe introduced me to and began my love affair with parsnips. The garlic cloves are incredible. The beets add a nice pop of color to the dish. I often use yams in addition to the sweet potatoes and I quarter whole onions instead of using small ones or shallots.
I think of it as a main dish but my husband feels like it's more of a side. He's not a vegetarian, so what do you expect? But I do feel that it needs something to go along with it.
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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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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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The Complete Baking Cookbook: 350 Recipes from Cookies and Cakes to Muffins and Pies
By George Geary
Robert Rose - 2007
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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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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Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone
By Deborah Madison
Broadway - 1997
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 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 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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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 lovely, hearty gratin. It's definitely "heavy" so I prefer to make it with a nice light vegetable side dish.
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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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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 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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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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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 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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A tasty way to eat beets.
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Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone
By Deborah Madison
Broadway - 2007
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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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 - 1997
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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Barefoot Contessa at Home: Everyday Recipes You'll Make Over and Over Again
By Ina Garten
Clarkson Potter - 2006
This is a DELICIOUS way to make potatoes. We often have it as a side to salmon.
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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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