kaye16's Reviews
1460 recipes reviewed. Showing 1 to 50Sort by: Book Title | Date | Rating 
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Madhur Jaffrey's World-of-the-East Vegetarian Cooking
By Madhur Jaffrey
Knopf - 1981
This was my first attempt at an Indian pickle, I must say it was a complete failure. I suspect the chilies I used weren't right ones, but there's no guidance for choosing. Boo.
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How to cook everything vegetarian
By Mark Bittman
John Wiley & Sons - 2007
Seemed like a good idea, but it was almost inedibly bitter. Feeling bad because I used most of my stash of anchos on this. (The after-dinner aftertaste was good, though.)
Will tart up the leftovers with beans and corn hoping to improve flavor.
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How to Cook Everything Vegetarian: Simple Meatless Recipes for Great Food
By Mark Bittman, Alan Witschonke
Wiley - 2007
Seemed like a good idea, but it was almost inedibly bitter. Feeling bad because I used most of my stash of anchos on this. (The after-dinner aftertaste was good, though.)
Will tart up the leftovers with beans and corn hoping to improve flavor.
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Flavours of India
By Madhur Jaffrey
BBC Books - 1995
The mustard fish recipe looked like a sure thing. Grind some mustard seeds and a dried chili together and mix with water. Make a paste with turmeric, cayenne, and water. Rub the fish fillets with turmeric, salt, and mustard oil and let them sit for 10 minutes. Prepare some panch phoran and hot chilies for the final cooking. While the fish are broiling, the sauce is prepared by heating mustard oil, then adding the panch phoron. When the mustard seeds in that begin to pop, stir in the turmeric paste and some extra water. Then stir in the mustard paste. Bring to a boil, add salt and the chilies, stir, and remove from the heat. Pour the sauce over the fish, then simmer for two minutes. Serve.
Sounds good. Made a pretty plate. First bite—yuck! Unpleasantly strong taste of mustard. The recipe says to stir the ground mustard-chili into water and let the seeds settle. But the seeds never settled. Even after half an hour, the mixture remained uniformly grainy in texture with no settling apparent. Maybe I ground the seeds too fine, although they looked coarse to me. Or maybe the recipe meant 4 teaspoons of mustard seeds, rather than 4 tablespoons. At any rate, we both scraped off as much of the sauce as we could, then mixed the fish with the rice. This was reasonably good.
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30 Minute Indian: Cook Modern Indian Recipes in 30 Minutes or Less. (30 Minute Cooking)
By Sunil Vijayakar, William Reavell
Laurel Glen Publishing - 2000
I was curious about how you can turn out a 30-minute naan. The answer is that you can't. This recipe takes a minimum of an hour. And, while the result was more or less edible, to me it tasted of baking powder.
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Reasonably good taste. Poor texture, poor instructions.
- I used basmati rice, rather than jasmine, since that's what I keep in-house and I didn't think to buy jasmine this week. These cook the same as far as I know
- The result calls for 2-1/2 cups milk. I used almost the whole liter, and the "pudding" was still as stiff as could be.
The recipe has another unclear ingredient/instructions. It asks for 1 teaspoon of crushed cardamom seeds. I suppose he means for you to take the seeds out of the pods and crush them. That's what I did. But this is a 30-minute cookbook. Why not just use ground cardamom?
Very unhappy with this one and trying to think what to do with a bowl of stiff rice pudding to make it edible.
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Floyd's India
By Keith Floyd, Kim Sayer
Harper Collins Publishers - 2001
This is my first venture into this book (my cookbook-of-the-month) and it was pretty much a failure. Something is seriously wrong with the recipe. It asks for 25g of ground turmeric. Various ingredient-converters tell me this is 8-1/3 teaspoons. That's more than 4 teaspoons for my half recipe. That's a lot of turmeric, which has a strong bitter taste and is usually used in much smaller doses. The bitter overran any subtler tastes from the other spices. Definitely won't be making this again.
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Jump up and Kiss Me: Spicy Vegetarian Cooking
By Jennifer T. Thompson
Ten Speed Press - 1996
Well, it seemed like a good idea. Not.
First of all, I strongly suspect that Thompson didn't really mean anchos or pasilla chiles, which are dried peppers, but poblanos or chilacas, the fresh forms. Since anchos are rather difficult to come by where I live, I greatly resent that I used a major part of my stash on a mediocre and inappropriate recipe. To eat these, I chopped my chiles quite thoroughly; my husband scrapped any flesh remaining off the inside of of his chiles and discarded the outside.
The filling is basically creamy Parmesan-flavored spinach. Ok, but nothing special.The ingredient list is a bit imprecise. E.g., button mushroom differ greatly in size where I live, but the recipes calls for 8 of them, big ones? small ones? makes a big difference. (I used 6 medium-sized ones; how about that for a waffle?) And how much do 2 cups of spinach leaves weigh?
And the idea of wilted spinach (unchopped) becoming a uniform paste is a little odd. Should I have let it cook to mush (ugh) or should I have zapped it in the blender? Actually, either sounded unappealing, so I just stopped cooking when most of the liquid had evaporated, and it was fine
On the plus side, the dish was fairly quick and easy to make. Two of us ate all four chiles on a bed of polenta, followed by a bit of salad. A lot, but not over-much.
Also, the idea of parboiling the chiles before stuff looks like a good time-saving trick.
If I ever grow fresh poblanos in my garden, I might try this again. Maybe.
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The Spice of Vegetarian Cooking: Ethnic Recipes from India, China, Mexico, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Europe
By Martha Rose Shulman
Healing Arts Press - 1986
A pretty boring rendition of an eggplant and potato curry. Neela's Eggplant and Potato from Madhur Jaffrey's World of the East Vegetarian Cooking is quite similar and much better.
I made a half recipe as dinner for two.
Ingredients are annoyingly not in the order that they are used.
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Recipes: Chinese Cooking (Foods of the World)
By Time-Life
Time-Life - 1973
Instructions badly presented. Quite quick to make. Tasty, and improved with a bit of sambal.
The instructions said to soak the noodles for five minutes in cold water. After more time than that, they weren't very soft at all, so I drained and poured some hot water over them. But for only a few minutes so there were still a bit chewy.
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The Cooking of Spain and Portugal, plus accompanying Recipes: The Cooking of Spain and Portugal (Time-Life Foods of the World)
By Peter S. Feibleman, The Editors of Time-Life Books, Dmitri Kessel, Brian Seed
Time-Life Books - 1977
Used smoked paprika instead of plain.
Pretty good, nothing special.
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Dinners for Two, Menus and Music: Vol IV
By Sharon Oconnor
Menus Music - 1991
Downgraded mostly because of incredibly poorly written recipe. As served, we rather like it.
Remember this book offers menus for dinners for two. This is the starter.
The pasta calls for 3 cups of flour. I use 1 cups when making a main-course pasta for two. I cut back to 1cup, and measured all the nori sheets (shredded by the food processor with the pasta), but didn't add all of it. Probably it would have been OK with all of it. There are no eggs, but toasted sesame oil, neutral vegetable oil, and water for the liquid. I needed to add quite a bit extra from what was specified of the neutral oil and water to make a workable dough. Maybe the nori soaks up water???
There being no limpets in the store (out of season?), I used smallish shelled cooked shrimp (a suggested alternative) rather than opihi.
The sauce calls for 1 cup of butter; I used only about a tablespoon. It turned out a very nice sauce: garlic, shallot, and sambal oelek simmered in white wine till almost dry; topped by a goodly glug of cream; finished off with a bitter butter. (I might use a smidge more sambal if I do this again, although it was the bottom of the jar so maybe the hot stuff was gone.)
As made, we liked this dish. As written, it would have been a disaster.
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Website: Seasoned Cooking
Easy. Not bad, but nothing to try again.
I made a half recipe with skinless thighs rather than than boneless, skinless chicken breasts.
My broccoli was still a bit crunchy when cooked longer than asked. Maybe my idea of "bite-sized" is too big.
The recipe called for 2tsp curry powder for a whole recipe; I wonder if that should have be 2tbl? I used probably 1tbl or a bit more (didn't measure after the first 2tsp, but after tasting, I dumped in the rest of the jar which was close to empty.
Edible, but not all that appealing.
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30 Minute Indian: Cook Modern Indian Recipes in 30 Minutes or Less. (30 Minute Cooking)
By Sunil Vijayakar, William Reavell
Laurel Glen Publishing - 2000
We didn't like this much at all.
- The cauliflower should be in bite-sized pieces. For a relish? I think it should be pretty well chopped up, not bite-sized.
- We found it too crunchy for a relish, but this could be because the pieces were too big.
- Nothing special taste-wise.
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Um, find another recipe. Madhur Jaffrey's paneer works.
This recipe says it makes 5oz of paneer; mine weighed in less than 4oz.
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The Thrill of the Grill: Techniques, Recipes, & Down-Home Barbecue
By Christopher Schlesinger
William Morrow Cookbooks - 1990
We didn't like this much at all. Disappointing, since most of the condiment things in this book (salsa, chutneys, etc.) have been outstanding.
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At Home with Madhur Jaffrey: Simple, Delectable Dishes from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka
By Madhur Jaffrey
Knopf - 2010
Disappointing, this one. In a book full of really good recipes, this one was uninteresting.
Used lieu noir filets, rather than steaks.
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The Incredible Secrets of Mustard: The Quintessential Guide to the History, Lore, Varieties and Healthful Benefits of Mustard
By Marie Nadine Antol
Avery Publishing Group Inc.,U.S. - 2000
Good idea, poor recipe.
- What on earth are slivered carrots? I sliced my carrots fine and they weren't done in the given time.
- The dry mustard powder was way too sharp. This would be better with dijon mustard.
- No snow peas to be found; I used snijbonen, which I think are runner beans in English.
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I only realized when I was assembling the spices for this, that this is acutally a vindaloo recipe from someone who thinks vinadloo should have pototies in it. Not.
The instructions are weak.
The ingredients ask for TWO pounds of potatoes. I used only ONE pound and that was still twice two much.
Otherwise, it was ok, if nothing special.
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Jeannette's secrets of everyday good cooking
By Jeannette Seaver
Knopf : distributed by Random House - 1975
I haven't made this yet, but love her breezy style that makes it seem so simple.
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Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking
By Marcella Hazan
Knopf - 1992
This was not a success. Good ingredients, but the result was blah and visually unappealing.
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We didn't much like this. It was a lot of work with a so-so result.
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Jump up and Kiss Me: Spicy Vegetarian Cooking
By Jennifer T. Thompson
Ten Speed Press - 1996
My notes say this was good, but there was much too much pasta. Probably 8 oz (rather than 1#) would be better, but serve only 2-3.
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License to Grill: Achieve Greatness At The Grill With 200 Sizzling Recipes
By Christopher Schlesinger
William Morrow Cookbooks - 1997
The bread-garlic sauce was the thing that caught my eye in this recipe. (Also the minimal amount of work required on a hot day.) This morning, I see from the recipe preamble that the sauce should have been thick -- mine wasn't, it was quite runny (the remains will dress a salad today). This could have been because the (real) French bread that I used is quite light after the crusts are removed; perhaps I should have doubled the bread asked for. Otherwise is was tasty, if not thick. The thicker texture would have improved the dish and looked nicer on the plate by staying on the fish, rather than running in a puddle. I think the green grapes idea might work quite well also. (There's a Green Grape-Parsley Relish with lots of garlic in Schlesinger and Willoughby's Big Flavors of the Hot Sun that is wonderful.) I used my staff mixer and its beaker to buzz the sauce together.
I made a half recipe and have quite a lot of sauce and almond/cumin crunchies left over.
Both diners agreed this is one of those dishes I'm glad I tried, but I don't need to have it again. Although, now that I've noticed that the sauce should have been thicker, I think I might try this again, adding enough bread to thicken the sauce properly.
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A Taste of India
By Madhur Jaffrey
MacMillan Publishing Company - 1988
I'm a little puzzled by this dish. It was tasty enough, but very soupy. Twelve ounces of potatoes and a cup of peas were swimming in 2/3 cup water plus 1-1/4 cups yoghurt plus another 1-1/4 cups water. (It is typical of the way recipes are written in Jaffrey's books that water is added in the instructions, but it's not listed in the ingredients. I find this rather annoying.) Of course the besan thickened the sauce a bit, but there was still much more sauce than I expected.
This was a good side dish (in an American-style Indian meal), and I expect it would make a nice vegetarian main course, served over rice.
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Tofu Cookery
By Louise Hagler
Book Publishing Company (TN) - 1991
I suspect silken tofu is what's needed here. I had to double the oil and vinegar to get something slightly less thick than toothpaste. Regular tofu taxed the blender and probably would have resulted in thinner dressing; use the food processor instead. Tasty enough.
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This was easy. OK but a bit boring. A soy sauce/vinegar dipping sauce perked things up.
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Big Flavors of the Hot Sun: Recipes and Techniques from the Spice Zone
By Chris Schlesinger, John Willoughby, Alan Witschonke
William Morrow & Co - 1994
We thought this was so-so, bland-tasting. My note suggests adding things like veggies, ground cumin, a pinch of cayenne.
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Country Egg, City Egg
By Gayle Pirie, John Clark
Artisan - 2000
This is supposed to be a camping recipe, so I guess that's the excuse for it being a bit, um, under-elaborated. A good idea, but it could use a bit more interesting flavor. Of course, everything cooked outside tastes better, so maybe I'm being over-critical.
It is an interesting idea to warm the tortillas right on top of the eggs.
I think it's probably better to consider this recipe as a starting point. You could add all kinds of bits of veg to the onion and tomato, e.g., bell pepper, cooked potatoes, etc., and lots of spices to give it a bit of zing.
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Moosewood Restaurant Low-Fat Favorites: Flavorful Recipes for Healthful Meals
By Moosewood Collective
Clarkson Potter - 1996
I made a half recipe with 2/3 of the "sauce" and all of the cornmeal. We thought there was way too much honey.
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This was good enough, but I have a similar recipe that's the same idea, but much better. Mixing fish and shrimp might help this.
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Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home: Fast and Easy Recipes for Any Day
By Moosewood Collective
Simon & Schuster - 1994
Well, what do you expect from a cake that you throw together in 6 minutes (excluding oven preheat time)? It's not great but good enough.
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The Perfect Scoop: Ice Creams, Sorbets, Granitas, and Sweet Accessories
By David Lebovitz
Ten Speed Press,U.S. - 2007
Mixed emotions about this one. The rice took much longer to cook than written. My oven was at 350F/175C (as selected on oven and shown on a separate thermometer), but the rice took much longer to cook than indicated (in pyrex bowl). I think it was at least an hour uncovered, an additional 30 minutes, a bit annoying when you're trying to finish before bedtime to have it ready for the next day.
I used all yolks as written (rather than whole eggs). We both liked the finished ice cream. I thought the orange taste was a bit strong; my DH thought it was fine; but we both have colds right now, so who knows? I thought it might be nice without the orange, maybe with a dab of almond extract (or even ground almonds?).
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The Moosewood Cookbook
By Mollie Katzen
Ten Speed Press - 1977
We liked this but found it too sweet. 1tbl honey would be more than enough. Also, we thought there were only 4 servings, not 6.
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A good start on a recipe but way too bland. I made a 1/2 to 2/3 recipe, with all the spices and it was not spicy at all.
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Tasty, but does not want to make pancakes.
Note to self suggests baking it in a flat casserole.
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Tasty but looked awful. Two rolls might be tidier.
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How to Cook Everything Vegetarian: Simple Meatless Recipes for Great Food
By Mark Bittman, Alan Witschonke
Wiley - 2007
This is a variation on Creamy Cauliflower (or Broccoli) Soup. I've made the base recipe as Creamy Broccoli Soup. We definitely prefer the Indian Cauliflower variation. Easy to make. Handy to have in the freezer for those nights when you don't feel like cooking. Heat up, stir in yogurt, and enjoy.
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Uncommon Fruits & Vegetables : A Commonsense Guide
By Elizabeth Schneider
William Morrow Cookbooks - 1998
I made half a recipe to serve two as a main course. Of course risotto can also be an entrée or side.
At least with the favas that I buy in Europe, the quantities given in the recipe make no sense. Schneider expects 2 pounds of favas to give 1-1/3 cups of beans. I think I'm lucky to get 1 cup, and usually count on 2/3 cup, from a kilo/2.2#. For a half recipe, that is a generous amount of beans, so 2 pounds might be a good amount for a full recipe, but don't expect 1-1/3 cups of them.
The first time I made this I was over-generous with the sage; this time I was more careful with the measurement (~1tbl with 3/4cups of beans) and it was better. I wonder if it would be better to add the sage with the cooked bacon, so that it has more of a chance for the flavor to soften and merge into the dish, rather than socking you with I-am-sage flavor occasionally? (There's a similar recipe in Schneider's http://www.cookbooker.com/title/2061/vegetables-from-amaranth-to-zucchini-the-essential-reference-500-recipes book that calls for savory rather than sage.)
Anyhow, the recipe is good enough to make again. Risotto is nice, favas are nice, good tastes.
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Mediterranean Light: Delicious Recipes from the World's Healthiest Cuisine
By Martha R. Shulman
William Morrow Cookbooks - 2000
Tasty enough, but texture too smooth. Probably better if you chop the roasted eggplant or put it through a food mill, rather than processing or blending.
Also, start by adding only half the lemon juice you squeeze from 2 lemons, then add more as needed.
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The Grains Cookbook
By Bert Greene
Workman Publishing Company - 1988
For a main, for the two of us, I made a half recipe of this. Elsewhere, I read that buckwheat noodles are typically three parts buckwheat flour to one part white flour, so I used that ratio in my cut-back recipe (3/4 cup buckwheat flour and 1/4 cup tipo 00 flour), rather than half buckwheat flour that Greene prescribes.
I mixed the dough in the food processor as Greene suggests, but I really don't see the problem with mixing by hand. When I started making pasta "by hand", I did use the processor for the mixing, but there are so many bits of the processor to be washed, whereas if you mix by hand, there's just a big bowl and maybe a fork to get things started.
(Also, using the processor, I've never had the dough come together in a ball all by itself. I usually have to dump it out and make a ball. If I then put it back in the processor, it stays together and cleans the sides as they always say it does.)
Using my cut-back recipe, I should have needed no more than 1-1/2 tablespoons of water. I'm sure I added more than that, and it could have used a bit more.
Lacking access to soba noodles for another recipe, I made these as a substitute. They were very tasty and I'd definitely do this again when the earthy kind of taste that buckwheat adds is needed.
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Cover & Bake (Best Recipe)
By John Burgoyne, Daniel J. Van Ackere, Carl Tremblay, Editors of Cook's Illustrated magazine, Cook's Illustrated Magazine, Cook's Illustrated Magazine, John Burgoyne, Daniel J. Van Ackere, John Burgoyne, Carl Tremblay, Daniel J. Van Ackere, Cook's Illustrat
America's Test Kitchen - 2004
This is a variation on the Chicken Tagine with Olives and Lemon. I happened to have a surplus of zucchini in the house, so chose this option.
The recipe calls for chicken thighs, but the intro says you can substitute a whole, cut-up chicken, which I had, while reducing the cooking time so as not to dry out the breast parts. (Also, the intro says to discard the wings, but I left the first joint on the upper half of each breast bit, since it's fairly meaty and my DH likes this bit.) I was a bit puzzled why, if it takes 75 minutes to cook 8 thighs, it takes only 45 minutes to cook 8 parts of the whole bird. So I ignored the timing, and indeed the breasts were a bit dry, but the thighs and legs were gorgeous. I would not use a whole bird (or mixed white/dark meat) for this again. This is the kind of recipe where you can let it cook away for quite a while and it seems silly to worry about the time for the sake of the white meat, when the dark meat takes so much better to this kind of treatment.
The recipe instructions are clear and the dish is easy to make. With dark meat only, this would be a good company dish, since it sits in the oven for quite a while and timing isn't really critical, leaving you free for other things.
I reduced the honey in this variation to only 1 tablespoon, rather than 2. We thought that was enough sweet. Also, the recipe calls for 1 medium zucchini weighing about 12oz. Maybe I mis-remember the size of US zucchini, but I think that might be 3 zucchs. I used two, smallish French ones that totalled 12oz.
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Lorenza's Pasta: 200 Recipes for Family and Friends
By Lorenza De'Medici
Pavilion Books - 1997
I made this with frozen artichoke bottoms, so comments should be taken with a grain of sand. Good but not wonderful.
- The sliced mozzarella clumped up; I think it would be better to grate it coarsely, then you'd have a better chance of making a "sauce" of it.
- I left the garlic in the pan; if you don't like garlic, you should take it out.
- Contrary to instructions, I stirred the thyme leaves (lemon thyme from the garden) into the sauce; much prettier if you sprinkle on top of the plated dish.
- Made more or less the whole sauce (only 3 artichoke bottoms) as a dinner for two over fresh fettucine from 1cup flour plus 2 eggs.
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The Perfect Scoop: Ice Creams, Sorbets, Granitas, and Sweet Accessories
By David Lebovitz
Ten Speed Press,U.S. - 2007
I made a half recipe of this with a short slog of vodka. Nice watermelony taste. I didn't add the chocolate chips, but added a broken up square of good chocolate at serving time. The choc bits make it look like a watermelon with black seeds. Can't say either of us were especially taken by the chocolate-watermelon combination though. I can see the watermelon bit would make really good popsicle.
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Website: Cooks Illustrated
Ten minutes to heat the oven and prep the chickie. Then two times 25-35 minutes. Then rest for 20 minutes. Weeknight?
It was good enough, but hardly worth all the fuss, I think. A bit salty, and the pan sauce too.
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Cooking Know-How: Be a Better Cook with Hundreds of Easy Techniques, Step-by-Step Photos, and Ideas for Over 500 Great Meals
By Bruce Weinstein, Mark Scarbrough, Lucy Schaeffer
Wiley - 2009
Another recipe from the chapter on pasta in cream sauces. I served the sauce over linguine; spaghetti might be better.
Flavors interesting, a little odd. Our first reaction was a bit doubtful, but it grew on us. We're thinking it's the vermouth that was the odd note. (Maybe the sweetish flavor of sherry would go better with the sweet carrots?) The goat cheese topping went surprising well with the curry.
I served this as a main course with salad, but we both thought it would make a nice side with a faux-Indian or -Asian kind of meal. Maybe next to skewers of grilled dark meat chicken or pork with some Indian-ish flavors.
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The Top One Hundred Pasta Sauces
By Diane Seed, Robert Budwig
Ten Speed Press - 2004
Quite tasty, and easy, but the mozzarella didn't want to melt into a sauce. Maybe I should have grated it, or made smaller cubes, but with lots and lots and lots of stirring it ended up a stringy mess that would have been quite acceptable on a pizza, but not in a pasta sauce.
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Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone
By Deborah Madison
Broadway - 1997
Made a half recipe for two. Pretty good. I used chipotle flakes instead of regular red pepper flakes -- don't recommend this. Also used cavatappi isntead of farfelle -- not a good choice; better would be farfelle, orichiette, etc., something that "meshes" with the chickpeas better.
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Not as good as expected. Tarragon was a bit iffy.
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NB: Green chiles like poblanos, etc., are decidedly *not* available in my local grocery and I haven't started growing them yet.
We thought this was a good taste idea, but the stuffed chiles were a bit useless. For two, I'll do this again with 4 eggs and a 4-oz can of chopped chiles, well-drained and mixed with cheese, cilantro, scallion; all added to the omelet at the end as you'd do with a regular cheese omelet.
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