kaye16's Reviews
5 recipe(s) reviewed. Showing 1 to 5Sort by: Title 
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Fast Vegetarian Feasts
By Martha Rose Shulman
Main Street Books - 1986
Banana Yogurt Freeze : page 315
This is a simple, quick dessert. You have to be prepared and have the banana chunks already frozen, but this can be done hours, days, or weeks ahead. (Keep the chunks smallish, less than 1" perhaps. And it's a good idea to freeze them in one layer, on a cookie sheet or some such, before bagging them up.)
The recipe purports to serve 4. The first time, I made a half recipe (with 2 large bananas and 1/2 cup yogurt) and it was way too much for the two of us.
To make dessert, you zap the chunks, yogurt, vanilla, and a dab of nutmeg in your food processor. (A blender can't handle this.) If the banana chunks have frozen togther, it's a good idea to snap them apart to give the processor an easier time.
Yum! A reasonably healthy dessert.
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Curried Carrot Salad : page 284
A really nice variation on the standard/classic French carrot salad with lemon vinaigrette. Capers plus curry powder, cumin, allspice, and cayenne give a new sort of taste that goes well with all kinds of things.
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Florentine Tomatoes : page 171
I made a half recipe of this as a side for dinner. Quite tasty. Needs quite a bit of salt. Not sure if separating the eggs really added that much. A handful of cooked grain added to the spinach mixture would be OK. There was *lots* of the spinach mixture so don't be afraid to cut back a bit on this.
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Middle Eastern Beet Salad : page 288
Made a half recipe, which probably would serve 3 easily. We liked this. Easy and tasty.
- I used already cooked (steamed) beets from the store.
- The spice mixture is rather like ras el hanout; might try that next time.
- I added a small pinch of cayenne.
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Tofu Cutlets : page 131
This is one of my favorite things to do with tofu. Who knew that pressing tofu would make such a difference in the texture? You end up with something dense and chewy, not soft and squishy like tofu is ordinarily.
The pressing is simple, but takes a half hour or more of clock-time. This generally means that for a weeknight, you have to Plan Ahead and do this the night before. (My notes say if you keep this overnight in the fridge, you should turn the cutlets once.)
Shulman recommends another half hour for marinating. I've done this with less, but the more time you can let them soak, the better.
The marinade in the recipe is good, but you don't need to be limited to this. Replacing the tahini with a nut butter is a simple variation. Any clinging marinade should be scraped off before cooking.
The cutlets can be broiled or sautéed or even cooked on the bbq grill (Shulman doesn't mention this option). They are easy and *really* good.
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I finally found some real tofu and made this again tonight. Since I've now got a stove with a real broiler, I decided to use that. I started by following Shulman's suggested times of 5 minutes per side. Side one was pretty well burnt. Tried 3 minutes on the second side and that was not quite as bad but still darker than we'd like. Of course this is dependent on how your particular broiler works, but I think looking in about 3 minutes would be a good idea.
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