Cooksbakesbooks' Reviews
207 recipes reviewed. Showing 1 to 50Sort by: Book Title | Date | Rating | Recipe Title 
Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant: Ethnic and Regional Recipes from the Cooks at the Legendary Restaurant (Cookery)
By Moosewood Collective
Fireside - 1990
This is a very moist banana bread with a strong lime syrup flavor to it. It makes very good muffins, too (at a farmers' market stall I sold them at, a woman bought one, ate it, then came back and bought all 6 more, sat down, and ate them all, on the spot!). Some people do find this bread very delicious, me included.
I often leave the coconut out. I think it's little better without the coconut, just because it''s smoother then. But leaving the coconut in doesn't ruin it.
useful (2)
This is a very yummy vegetarian split pea soup. It has no added fat at all, which makes it lean in the mouth, which is just what you might want sometimes. It is very well flavored with parsnips, turnips, celery, onion, carrots, allspice, cumin, marjoram and thyme. If you want to make it richer, you can add the optional heavy cream. It is very good that way--nice for a holiday for vegetarians.
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This makes a very nice vegetarian pot pie. It is a fair amount of work to make, but a vegetarian would love you if you put this together for him or her. It makes a good holiday item, but maybe not as the centerpiece. It is kind of a humble and yummy pie.
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Maida Heatter's Book of Great Cookies
By Maida Heatter
Knopf - 1977
The caption reads: "These are Austrian. They are coal-black, chocolate, black-pepper cookies--buttery, crunchy, and spicy." I liked these a lot. They were unusual but not challenging in their flavor. It turns out that chocolate and black pepper, surprisingly, can be a good taste combination.
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Chocolate Lover's Cookies and Brownies
By Beatrice Ojakangas
Crescent - 1990
For a while, I made these many, many times in a row. They were my favorite cookie for a long time, and still rate very high. The sunflower seed coating on these makes them truly fantastic. The 1/2 whole wheat flour also gives them a great texture and flavor. These are much better than regular chocolate chip cookies, in my opinion.
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The Cake Bible
By Rose Levy Beranbaum
William Morrow Cookbooks - 1988
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Baking with Julia Savor the Joys of Baking with America's Best Bakers
By Dorie Greenspan
William Morrow Cookbooks - 1996
This makes an excellent white bread, made in loaf pans, and good for slicing for sandwiches or toast. The recipe is by Craig Kominiak, and the instructions are written well. Some nice black and white photographs accompany the recipe.
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Martha Stewart's Cookies: The Very Best Treats to Bake and to Share (Martha Stewart Living Magazine)
By Martha Stewart Living Magazine
Clarkson Potter - 2008
These are good, and easy to make, but the chunky ingredients (white chocolate, oats, sweetened coconut, golden raisins, walnuts) somehow didn't play off each other masterfully. I used Valrhona white chocolate and even that didn't make these outstanding. I think there are too many ingredients and they end up clashing, even though none is very assertive to begin with.
Here's a link to the recipe.
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Ice Pops: Recipes for Fresh and Flavorful Frozen Treats
By Shelly Kaldunski
Weldon Owen - 2011
This was a good pop--refreshing and just sweet enough to be a treat. The lime flavor is just right, not overpowering nor too subtle. Putting the rind layer on is a nice touch, but it would be just as good if made with only the pink part of the watermelon through and through.
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Maida Heatter's Book of Great Cookies
By Maida Heatter
Knopf - 1977
The flavor and texture of these are outstanding. The crust is not hard, like a usual Linzer bar, it is tall and cake-like, with a pronounced but not overwhelming cinnamon flavor.
I have made these with raspberry jam as well as homemade rhubarb compote and both versions were excellent.
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The Cooking of the Eastern Mediterranean: 215 Healthy, Vibrant, and Inspired Recipes
By Paula Wolfert
William Morrow Cookbooks - 1994
This dish is a lot of work to put together, but worth it for a special occasion. The flavors are strong and distinctive. You must like tarragon to like this dish. You can make a platter of the kibbeh sitting on a bed of the salad and it is very enticing looking. These are good leftover. It makes quite a bit, but could easily be halved. These would be nice on a table of a wide variety of mezze.
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The Moosewood Cookbook
By Mollie Katzen
Ten Speed Press - 1977
This is kind of a throw-back, hippie kind of vegetarian dish, the kind I taught myself to cook many years ago, and I occasionally crave that kind of thing. It certainly is good for you, and you can use whatever vegetables are on hand, so it's wonderfully flexible. It takes a little while to put together, but it's worth it if you're looking for a substantial vegetarian main course casserole. It can easily be made vegan by replacing the butter for a good-flavored oil.
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Moosewood Cookbook
By Mollie Katzen
Ten Speed Press - 1992
I am always on the look out for a good vegetable stew. I like a veg stew to be very vegetable-y, well seasoned and a bit tangy with a semi-thick sauce around it, so that it is clearly not a soup. This one is all of those things. It also has a little bit of molasses in it, and the sweetness it imparts makes the flavor unique. Using the optional red wine is important to deepen the flavor and give it some non-tomato-based tang.
If you don't have all of the vegetables listed, you can easily substitute similar vegetables in the same quantities called for with excellent results.
It's good eaten with any freshly-baked bread.
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The Moosewood Cookbook
By Mollie Katzen
Ten Speed Press - 1977
This is a good main course, vegetarian stew. It is delicious if made the day before or so, with some bread and some of the Burgundy you made it with. It is a little bit sweet from molasses and, to me, that is a huge flavor booster for the dish.
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The Martha Stewart Cookbook: Collected Recipes for Every Day
By Martha Stewart
Clarkson Potter - 1995
These are quite easy to make and very well-flavored with thyme. Cooking the apple slices right in the same pan as the pork chops is a great idea because the apples are so warm and freshly-cooked and very well flavored by the pan juices.
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Cookies
By Editors of Reader's Digest
Readers Digest - 2004
The ingredients are: an egg, peanut butter and white sugar. When I first made these cookies, I was not very impressed by the flavor. But after they had sat for several hours, the flavor and texture improved so that they became very tasty and excellent.
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Maida Heatter's Book of Great Cookies
By Maida Heatter
Knopf - 1977
These are really outstanding. They are crisp and chewy and so delicious. When I made them, everyone in the family was trying to be judicious and not eat them all at once, but all of us kept coming into the kitchen to have another one and another until they were quickly gone. But note that you have to use -very fresh pecans- to make them so excellent.
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The Moosewood Cookbook
By Mollie Katzen
Ten Speed Press - 1977
This makes a nice sauce to accompany hummus, felafel, plain pita, or tabouli. It has quite a bit of parsley in it, so it is fresh and herby. The consistency is somewhere between thick and thin; just right for drizzling over other things, and it has a good tang from buttermilk or yogurt. Be sure to use absolutely fresh tahini paste, or the sauce will be bitter.
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Ostensibly, this is Middle Eastern, but it is really an American take on a Middle Eastern salad, from what I have learned over the years. For one thing, it is heavy on the wheat. Authentic or not, this is yummy to have when having other Middle Eastern dishes like hummus, felafel, pita and such. It offers a nubbly texture, and a piquant, herby flavor to go with those other things. Also, it can be made ahead, and this recipe makes quite a lot, so it can be made for a large group, or halved easily.
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Still Life with Menu Cookbook
By Mollie Katzen
Ten Speed Press - 1988
These green beans are crunchy and well flavored with sesame oil, garlic and crushed red pepper. Once you clean and trim the beans, the recipe is a snap. It's quick to make and even the kids find them tasty if you leave the chili flakes out.
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Madhur Jaffrey's World-of-the-East Vegetarian Cooking
By Madhur Jaffrey
Knopf - 1981
What a delicious, refreshing drink this makes. I have added 1 cup of frozen strawberries to this and an extra 1 1/2 tablespoons of sugar, and it's outstanding. Adding the optional rose essence is recommended if you have it on hand, for depth of flavor.
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Martha Stewart's Cookies: The Very Best Treats to Bake and to Share (Martha Stewart Living Magazine)
By Martha Stewart Living Magazine
Clarkson Potter - 2008
These have good flavor from the cardamom (which you should use freshly-ground if you can, for the best flavor) and from the sprinkling of pistachios and coconut on them. They make kind of a crisp and slightly flaky cookie with a nice square or rectangular shape, and they have a good butteriness to them.
Here's a link to the recipe.
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Moosewood Restaurant Daily Special: More Than 275 Recipes for Soups, Stews, Salads and Extras
By Moosewood Collective
Clarkson Potter - 1999
This is a good minestrone recipe. I simmer it with the rind of a wedge of Parmesan just to enhance the flavor a bit, and I often grate a little Parmesan on top as I'm serving it, too.
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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
This is the blueberry tart recipe I always use. The tart shell is pre-baked, and some of the blueberries are cooked down to a jam-like state, then some are added just at the end of the cooking time. Then you add more raw ones in after the blueberry sauce has cooled, so you have blueberries in three different states in this tart. Biting into the jam, the partially cooked berries and the raw berries in each bite is outstanding. Eaten with whipped cream or crème fraîche, this is a dessert you could serve to impress somebody.
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If you like figs and dates by themselves, you will love this. I alter the recipe a little by rolling the stuffed fruit in honey before rolling in shredded unsweetened coconut. I often put together a few of these just for snacking on the weekend. It is healthy and satisfies a sweet tooth completely.
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Stir-Frying to the Sky's Edge: The Ultimate Guide to Mastery, with Authentic Recipes and Stories
By Grace Young
Simon & Schuster - 2010
This recipe was just about magical. It was so easy to put together--getting the ingredients measured and ready was the main part--and so quick to cook, and the result was super tender, excellently flavored, and unlike any other salmon I've ever had. The light velveting on the salmon was perfect. I used sliced, fresh button mushrooms instead of the straw mushrooms called for, and they were such an amazing part of the dish, so mushroomy in their taste, somehow more than usual. When I have the time to put the ingredients together, this will be my preferred way to cook salmon from now on.
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I had some beautiful bok choy on hand and looked in this book for a recipe and, lo and behold, there was an easy one for which I had all the ingredients already on hand. I trimmed and rinsed the choy, got the other ingredients ready to go and the dish was done, start to finish, in just a few minutes. It was so delicious that even my little kids asked for more.
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Moosewood Restaurant Daily Special: More Than 275 Recipes for Soups, Stews, Salads and Extras
By Moosewood Collective
Clarkson Potter - 1999
This is a good minestrone recipe. It gives some options for substitutions and omissions, and so it's easy to gather the ingredients for it. I usually cut the fennel seed down to 1/2 teaspoon, and that's plenty to my taste. I simmer it with the rind of a wedge of Parmesan just to enhance the flavor a bit, and I often grate a little Parmesan on top as I'm serving it, too.
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Vegetarian Epicure Book Two (Book 2)
By Anna Thomas
Knopf - 1978
The mix of vegetables in this soup (split peas, sweet potatoes, onions, carrots and celery) along with the seasonings (dried marjoram, dried basil, ground cumin, fresh garlic, salt and black pepper) and butter, are the perfect combination, to my taste. This is a sweet soup with a bit of spiciness to it. I find that the white wine is an optional ingredient. It tastes great with it, and great without it.
Lately, I have been trying other split pea soup recipes, some with ham in them, others vegetarian, and this remains my favorite.
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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
This is meant to accompany the Baked Stuffed Potatoes from this same book (p. 305), and is delicious with those. It is also good on rice, or many other dry Indian side dishes. It has onions, chilis, cumin, coriander seed and tomato in it.
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What a delicious brew this makes. It calls for black tea that you steep in a spice-infused water (cinnamon, fresh ginger, cardamom, peppercorns, cloves, coriander seeds). Then you add milk and sugar. A wonderful chai.
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The Moosewood Cookbook
By Mollie Katzen
Ten Speed Press - 1977
This makes a delicious spanakopita. I clean, stem, lightly salt and steam the spinach ahead of time, and then assemble the dish in the next day or two. Breaking up the work like that makes it do-able when you're busy. I sometimes even freeze it for a few days before baking it, and that breaks up the time needed each day even more. This dish is worth the effort and the expense. It's garlicky, juicy, very savory, with a crisp, buttery filo topping. I usually use about 1/2 butter and 1/2 olive oil between the layers of filo and it has a delicious flavor and texture. Be sure to use fresh, stem-on spinach for this dish! Enjoy your time working with it and it will pay you back many-fold!
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Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone
By Deborah Madison
Broadway - 1997
This is delicious and thrifty. Made too much skinny spaghetti last night? Don't throw it away! Save it and make this well-flavored frittata the next day, for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Flavored with marjoram, parsley, garlic, and lemon zest, it's a yummy twist on a gremolata flavoring--good enough to serve to guests.
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Moosewood Restaurant Daily Special: More Than 275 Recipes for Soups, Stews, Salads and Extras
By Moosewood Collective
Clarkson Potter - 1999
This makes a moist, not-sweet, buttermilk-based cornbread. It has a great cornmeal flavor. Very quick and easy to put together.
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The Cake Bible
By Rose Levy Beranbaum
William Morrow Cookbooks - 1988
If you want a sweet, streusel-covered, non-yeast coffee cake, this is a really excellent one. It's cinnamony, moist, tender and rich. There are lots of nuts in the streusel topping, which gives it a crave-making flavor. So, if you are after a yeast-based coffee cake, you may find this one too rich and lacking in a toothsome quality. There is no chewiness or breadiness to this cake, and it is very sweet.
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Joy of Cooking: 75th Anniversary Edition - 2006
By Irma S. Rombauer, Marion Rombauer Becker, Ethan Becker
Scribner - 2006
This is a go-to snickerdoodle recipe. If it's snickerdoodles you want, you'll get a good one if you make them from this recipe. It works really well with Penzey's Ceylon cinnamon. The cinnamon, the egginess and the soft, chewy texture make this cookie so fabulous, so it's really special if you use very good cinnamon.
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Smoothies: 50 Recipes for High-Energy Refreshment
By Sara Corpening Whiteford, Lori Lyn Narlock, Mary Corpening Barber, Amy Neunsinger
Chronicle Books - 1997
This is a good basic smoothie. It's useful for getting the proportions of frozen fruit to juice right, so you can improvise from there. This is one of the few recipes in the book that calls for ingredients that many people may have on hand. There's no added sugar in it, which is a plus for a breakfast item.
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The Martha Stewart Cookbook: Collected Recipes for Every Day
By Martha Stewart
Clarkson Potter - 1995
A very tasty appetizer. I made them for a party once, and a 12-year old boy couldn't stop eating them. I think he may have eaten more than a dozen. I ate several myself. You have to bake the scones, then split them, then assemble the sandwiches, but it's not too time-consuming.
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Not that you really need a recipe for this, but I decided to follow it once just to see how the proportions came out and the salad was well-proportioned with lots of cheese and tomatoes to go around, and it was well-seasoned. This salad, as are all salads, especially, is very ingredient-dependent. Only make this at the height of tomato season, use good-quality cheese and very freshly-picked basil, and you'll have one fine dish.
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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
This is a very simple pasta dish with just broccoli, garlic, cheese and oil. It's quick and yummy, and inexpensive to make.
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Joy of Cooking: 75th Anniversary Edition - 2006
By Irma S. Rombauer, Marion Rombauer Becker, Ethan Becker
Scribner - 2006
This makes a quick dinner entree if you have all of the ingredients on hand (and it is much better with tahini than with peanut butter). Be sure to use the hot chili oil, or add some hot sauce, to give it some depth of flavor. Serving it with cucumber, as is suggested, is a nice way to have it. The cool crunchiness counters the paste-based topping in a welcome way.
It's a light kind of dish, but still satisfying, and can be served with many variations of side dishes.
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The Modern Baker: Time-Saving Techniques for Breads, Tarts, Pies, Cakes and Cookies
By Nick Malgieri
DK Publishing - 2008
This made a nice, dense-textured semolina bread. I adore semolina bread, and this was a good one. The sesame topping was a nice touch.
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201 Muffins
By Gregg R. Gillespie
Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers - 2001
This scone had a good flavor from the nutmeg and the whole rolled oats, but the texture was way too crumbly. My kids' plates were a heap of crumbs, and they couldn't grip the scone to eat it before it fell apart. Adults can gingerly pick it up but, still, it's not a nice, firm scone that you can take a neat mouthful of.
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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
This makes a very good cornbread. Brown sugar is optional, though I think that many people from the Southern US would say that unsweetened is traditional. I am from the North, so I add the full 1/4 cup of optional brown sugar (and then sneak in a few more pinches). I have made it unsweetened, and it is also very good that way.
This is best eaten right away. It gets dry rather quickly after baking. If you end up with quite a bit of dry cornbread for some reason after you have made it, you can make cornbread stuffing out of it. There is a recipe in this book that you could use (p. 631).
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Ladle, Leaf and Loaf: Soup, Salad, and Bread for Every Season
By Lisa Cowden
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt - 2000
I was skeptical that this would turn out well, so I was bowled over when this bread was not just good, it was outstanding. It is not pasty at all, like quick breads sometimes can be, and this recipe was tested perfectly, because the balance of flavors is spot on. The bread has a good herb and onion flavor, and it is very moist. It has some cheese in it, but its flavor is in the background, and helps give the bread its great dense, moist texture.
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Vegetarian Epicure Book Two (Book 2)
By Anna Thomas
Knopf - 1978
This is a very assertively flavored soup, and quite acidic. If you like sauerkraut and tomatoes, you may well like it very much. I do add a bit of baking soda and sugar to it to cut the acidity a bit. This is a hearty, winter time soup, with caraway, dill, red wine, paprika, olive oil and butter. It's great with rye bread. If you're in the mood for sauerkraut, make a half batch of this soup and see if it takes care of your craving.
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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
I often make these for winter holiday meals. It is a simple dish of lightly-cooked green beans in a sour cream roux-based sauce, with dill. Very tasty.
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Pot Pies: Forty Savory Suppers
By Beatrice Ojakangas
Clarkson Potter - 1993
This pot pie was great. It was almost good enough to give it 5 stars, but I decided to give it 4 because it was just a tiny bit dry, and could have used a little pepper. I think that next time I make it, I will use 1/2 cup sour cream and 1/2 cup heavy cream, and that should moisten it well.
The crust was outstanding. It was a lemon juice & egg-enriched pastry, and was so tender and flaky. I didn't use a food processor or mixer to make it, just put it together by hand, and it was a snap.
I made the pie from start to finish one weekday evening and it was a little time-consuming, but enjoyable to put together, and loved by all but the 2-year old, for whom it was a brand new food.
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Vegetable Harvest: Vegetables at the Center of the Plate
By Patricia Wells
William Morrow Cookbooks - 2007
This was very quick and easy to make and very delicious. I served it at a party with some firm, creamy-white cheeses, and it was a wonderful combination. The little tang from the vinegar cut the cloyingness of the honey. The bit of saffron taste was marvelous. I loved this so much that I ate the remainder of it every morning with gobs of Greek yogurt, and it was even better that way. I will definitely make this again.
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Perfect Recipes for Having People Over
By Pam Anderson
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt - 2005
These are very good made with grocery store-bought ingredients. If you use excellent chocolate, they will be outstanding. They take about 15 minutes to make, so would be great if you had to make something in a hurry.
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