wester's Reviews
740 recipes reviewed. Showing 51 to 100Sort by: Book Title 
| Date | Rating | Recipe Title
Trattoria
By Patricia Wells
Kyle Cathie - 1999
More of a starter salad than a side dish salad. Strong flavors - you'll reek of garlic for a week, but it does taste good.
The fancy flower cuts are nice if you have some kind of party, but for everyday use I suppose you could just cut it in 1-inch lengths. Don't skip the iced water though, it makes it very crunchy.
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Not really anything wrong with this, I just had expected it to taste a bit more like celery. Instead, it's some kind of bolognese. Not bad, but just another bolognese.
Tripling the amount of celery and halving the amount of tomatoes did make a nice, although still decidedly unspectacular, celery sauce.
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Today's Kitchen Cookbook
By Stephanie Karpinske, Laurie Dolphin
Meredith Books - 2005
My husband thought this one should have been sweeter, I thought it was fine.
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This is a recipe by Nigella Lawson.
The combination of flavors is brilliant and I'm going to have it again. However, next time I'm not going to bother with rolling everything up into stuffed bundles.
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Thirst
By Nigel Slater
Fourth Estate - 2006
A very basic banana smoothie. Good when you're in a hurry.
I prefer a few more ice cubes in my smoothies, and his "medium" glass is quite large - I made half the recipe and still filled two glasses
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A slightly more luxurious banana smoothie. Very nice, quite sweet.
I prefer a few more ice cubes in my smoothies, and his "medium" glass is quite large - I made half the recipe and still filled two glasses.
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Fragrant but not sweet enough. Slightly disappointing.
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Very fragrant, the flavors combine very well.
I prefer a little bit more orange (or less banana).
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Refreshment with a lot of zing. With this amount of ginger it is quite sharp, but very fragrant and refreshing.
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Thick, creamy and pretty.
I had some trouble getting the blender to blitz this, probably because my yogurt was too thick. I added the juice of one orange and that remedied it.
This is basically the same recipe as the Peach and Lemon Yogurt (60).
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Thick, creamy and pretty.
Do heed Nigel and take a yogurt that's not too thick: I had some trouble getting the blender to blitz this. I added the juice of one orange and that remedied it.
This is basically the same recipe as the Nectarine Yogurt Thickie (56).
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Simple. Lovely.
I put a small squeeze of lemon in, which made it even better. I'm sure other citrus fruits will work too.
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Nice, sweet, pretty, creamy - just not that special. I don't really know what it is doing in the "indulgence" section.
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A bit too sweet for me. Make sure you only put in a little milk, else the shake will be too thin.
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Full, velvety, fragrant. To wake up feeling sunny, or to sip on a hot day. Really lovely.
Works well with frozen mango too, but you will need to keep the blender running for a bit longer.
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As he says: Sweet and creamy with a snap of heat in the background. Worth cleaning the juicer for.
It does make a lot - half the recipe was plenty for me.
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Won't be making this again. The carrot is not the right kind of sweetness to counter the celery. Apple works better.
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I think my pears were too large, the mint and lemon got lost. I used only two of them, and they made three glasses instead of one small one. I might try this again with less pear and probably adjust my rating.
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The combination is fine, but I want a lot more spinach. I could hardly taste it here.
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A great combination, fresh, sweet and bright.
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This was worth trying. A good combination, somewhere halfway between sweet and savoury. Not really a juice to have every day, but when you are in the right mood it's great.
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Sweet as a candy. A summer drink to share with your kids.
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First reaction: Not sure if I like this. Second reaction: Let's make another glass. And now it's definitely in my top three of juices.
Interesting in a good way. Slightly sweet, slightly salty, slightly tart.
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Beetroot and orange is a classic combination, and it works very well in liquid form too. Dark red, even when using ordinary oranges. A good juice when you're feeling a little under the weather.
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Dark pink, sweet-tart, with more than a hint of bitter. This is definitely one you have to be in the right mood for.
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A sunny juice. Light yellow with a hint of rose. Sweet, fresh and fragrant. Children love it too.
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Things Cooks Love: Implements, Ingredients, Recipes
By Sur La Table, Marie Simmons
Andrews McMeel Publishing - 2008
This could use some tweaking. The orange zest is a nice touch - maybe some lavender as well to really get in a Provençal mood? And it does not need that many vegetables - one or two less would be better. A slightly higher oven temperature, especially at the end, to improve browning, would be good as well.
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This is a nicely spicy soup. However, I didn't think pureeing the two halves of the soup separately was worth the trouble, as the results differ very little in color or taste, and making a beautiful swirl with the puree was almost impossible.
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Baby food. Not my thing at all. The ginger makes it a bit less babyish, but still there are plenty of other things I prefer making when I have sweet potatoes.
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A Taste of Heaven and Earth: A Zen Approach to Cooking and Eating with 150 Satisfying Vegetarian Recipes
By Bettina Vitell
Morrow Cookbooks - 1993
Sweet/spicy vegetable stew.
Makes a good soup as well, just add a bit more water and blend.
You don't have to include both carrots and sweet potatoes, either one will do. The cayenne is not needed. You can season with a stock cube (vegetable, or chicken if it doesn't have to be vegetarian) instead of tamari.
Vegan - just vegetarian if you choose to top with sour cream or yogurt.
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I felt this soup should really have been two soups: a summer soup with lemon and mint, and a winter soup with leeks and sage.
I have tried the summer version now (no leeks and sage, white wine instead of red, and carrots instead of parsnips) and that tastes fine. When I get to make the winter version, I will leave out mint and lemon juice, and take a bit more wine to compensate for the missing lemon.
It is quite good, not too heavy and quite aromatic. It looks colorful, too.
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Tassajara Cooking : A vegetarian cooking book
By Edward Espe Brown
Shambhala - 1973
So one day you find burdock root (kliswortel, gobo) in your CSA box/panier/groentetas, or whatever you have that lets the farmer decide what vegetables you're going to have. You go through your big stack of cookbooks and find you have exactly two recipes that use it, plus the recipe sheet coming with the box. You try the recipe from the box first. You remember why you never use those recipes. You take a look at the other recipes. One requires other ingredients you don't have and is very unclear about the cooking time. That leaves you with a single recipe. This one. You cook it and it is both quite easy and surprisingly good.
The flavor is distinctly Asian, but full and rich. The burdock cooks to a meaty/mushroomy morsel which complements the carrot very well.
You only need a few sesame seeds, a table spoon at most.
The Chinese rolling cut is described on page 27. I used normal thin slices.
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Tapas: The Little Dishes of Spain
By Penelope Casas
Knopf - 1985
The anise complements the beets nicely. I think I'd use a bit more of it next time.
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Lovely salad, well spiced. Oil-less, and I didn't miss it at all.
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Colorful - that is, very orange sauce with pink salmon. It tasted fine but not spectacular.
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Meatballs flavored with nutmeg and garlic and stewed with some vegetables and a splash of wine. This recipe does not look spectacular, but boy, is it delicious. Everybody licked their plate clean, and then they scraped the pan. Easy to make and no weird ingredients. A keeper, for sure!
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These were very good. I would have liked to taste the saffron more though.
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Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant: Ethnic and Regional Recipes from the Cooks at the Legendary Restaurant (Cookery)
By Moosewood Collective
Fireside - 1990
A nice thick soup (or light vegetable stew) with a distinct Indonesian flavor. The color is beautiful: golden orange with deep green.
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This was a nice tofu variation, with a good aniseed flavor. Still, next time I think I will make the marinade a bit more concentrated.
Make sure the pan/dish you use for marinating is quite snug, as it's only a cup of liquid and otherwise the liquid level can get very low.
Note to Dutchies, Indonesians, and people with extremely well-stocked cupboards: If you use Ketjap Manis, you can do without the molasses.
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This was OK, nice but unspectacular. The colors were very nice.
I did not think the eggplant was very noticeable in this one, I might just leave it out next time. Also, the sauce was a bit thin, so I will also leave out most or all of the added water.
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A nice fresh light stock. Maybe I would have liked a stronger fish flavor.
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This was very nice, with a distinctly "Slavic" flavor. The "meat" browned nicely and the yogurt sauce (basically a yogurt custard with dill) was a real finishing touch. The sauce did take some time, but it was worth it.
The recipe made a lot: The amount given easily fed five adults and five kids aged 1-5, with a bit of rice and a tomato salad.
I did not bother forming the mixture into balls, but just spread it out over the baking sheet. This worked out fine. I also left out the breadcrumbs, used slivered almonds instead of ground, and replaced the carrots with one yellow and one red pepper.
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As lovely as the ingredients suggest, but not much more. I thought the dried tomatoes were a bit overpowering, I would have liked to taste more of the almonds instead.
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Very tasty, but it needs two things not in the recipe: the juice of half a lime to improve the acid balance, and a pinch of turmeric to correct the unappetizing beige color.
The six people this recipe should feed would be as one of many dishes - with rice and a salad this serves about two as a main dish.
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Step By Step Lebanese Cooking
By Nita Mehta
Snab - 2011
A "sweet" and fragrant spice powder. Combines well with mint and parsley. Also good in couscous or rice.
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Spices of Life: Piquant Recipes from Africa, Asia and Latin America for Western Kitchens
By Troth Wells
New Internationalist Publications Ltd - 1996
This was good, but not very special. The chocolate flavor was very subtle, and I thought something else was missing - a citrus note maybe, or a bit of yogurt? I will try tweaking this one a bit more.
I served this with rice and cucumber with sour cream and cumin, which was a great combination.
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Simple and tasty.
The amount given, with rice and a salad served 3 people, not 4-6.
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The Spice Routes: More Recipes from the World Food Cafe
By Carolyn Caldicott, Chris Caldicott
Frances Lincoln - 2004
Nice, but needs tweaking. Less salt, more acid. Quadruple the spinach. Some sesame oil with the spinach?
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Sorbets and Ice Creams: And Other Frozen Confections
By Lou Seibert Pappas
Chronicle Books - 1997
Strawberry ice cream is always good, but this one is not much more than just good.
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Sophie Grigson's Country Kitchen: 120 Seasonal Recipes
By Sophie Grigson
Headline Book Publishing - 2005
Quite nice but not spectacular.
Needed a squeeze of lemon in the end.
I thought it had a quite "Asian" flavour, and enough so not to pair well with flavours from other regions.
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