wester's Profile

From: Soesterberg, Utr Netherlands

Joined: September 24th, 2009

About me: I love cooking, I love eating, I love discovering new recipes. I have so many cookbooks I sometimes lose track of which recipe is where - though this site helps a bit. I have gone low-carb in 2010, so that's different recipes to explore again. This also means I may not agree with my own reviews anymore if they were written in 2009 or before. ------------------ I have a lovely husband and ten-year old twins who also love eating. ----------------- You can also find me on LibraryThing, BookMooch and EatYourBooks, using the same handle.

Favorite cookbook: The Complete Meze Table by Rosamond Man

Favorite recipe: Melissa Clark's Roasted Broccoli with Shrimp

Daond Pasha (Meatballs with Pine Nuts and Tomatoes) from The Complete Meze Table

The meatballs were very tasty, but I did not really like putting all the pine nuts together - it made for fussy cooking and I think I would prefer finding a pine nut here and there instead of finding them... read more >

recipe reviews (741)
book reviews (74)
useful review votes (327)

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wester's Reviews

9 recipe(s) reviewed. Showing 1 to 9Sort by: Title | Date | Rating

Moosewood Restaurant New Classics

By Moosewood Collective
Clarkson Potter - 2001

Nice creamy "apple pie" flavor. Really easy to make.

It separates a bit after a while, so it's better to drink immediately after making it. I would also put in a bit more milk to make it creamier, but this way it's great too.

useful (0)  

Nice. Sweet. Creamy. And not much more.

useful (0)  

I didn't much care for this. The color is very pretty, but the taste isn't that special and I didn't like the mouth feel much either.

useful (0)  

OK, but not great. Needs some caraway seeds. And maybe a bit more (yes, even more) butter.
It needs a lot of stirring to prevent scorching.

useful (1)  

The fennel adds a nice touch, but not enough to really lift this out of the ordinary.

useful (0)  

There was nothing special about this soup. It wasn't creamy, it didn't have a distinctive flavor, and it looked a bit muddy.
When I think of all the other lovely things I could have done with these vegetables, this is not one I'm going to repeat.

useful (0)  

This was a good twist on roasted vegetables. Fragrant but not too hot. Easy to make, but do take care you mix well, and don't underestimate the time needed for prepping all those vegetables.

I served this with couscous with raisins and flaked almonds (as suggested in the book) and it was a great combination.

I think it does not matter that much which vegetables you use for this. I left out bell peppers and replaced the sweet potato by thinly sliced normal potato, and the result was fine.

There is a very large amount of spices here (almost three tablespoons in total) but that worked out fine. I did find it was a bit too salty, though. Next time I'll halve the amount of salt.

useful (2)  

Very good. Pasta with cauliflower and Sicilian influences - pine nuts, currants, saffron.

I prefer using both grated cheese for saltiness and fried bread crumbs for crunch. I don't know what kind of dried tomatoes they are used to, but mine certainly don't mimic anchovies. I actually might put a couple of anchovies in if I make this for non- (or demi-) vegetarians.

And I don't know where they got the 1 1/4 hour cooking time - I took a very leisurely 3/4 hour and I think it can be done in 1/2 hour.

useful (0)  

Sweet-spicy, very fragrant. It reminds a bit of Thai food, probably because of the basil-lime-ginger combination.

The only problem is I don't really know what to serve it with. The suggested beans mainly reminded me of the beans with pineapple I used to eat as a student, and I'm not sure fish would fare much better, although it would very much depend on which fish. Just some taco chips? A chunk of feta and some nice bread? I'll let you know when I find something.

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