Vegetarian Cooking For Everyone

Vegetarian Cooking For Everyone

Working at Catacombs warehouse, I run across many, many cookbooks, and more often than not take them home to try them out. This cookbook has quickly become one of my favorites. Every recipe — really, every one! — that I've tried so far has been excellent — not just good or successful, but above and beyond what I expected. There's no shortage of material, either; this cookbook is huge, sturdy, and will last a lifetime. Most recipes are very easy, and I love Madison's clarity (at the beginning she tells you what size carrot, onion, or garlic she assumes). The introduction is thorough and relevant for cooks at any level, bringing cooking back to its essence: experimentation, fresh ingredients, and pleasure. And, as Madison states on the cover, you don't have to be a vegetarian to enjoy these recipes; you could add meat to many, and the book is worth keeping for its extensive section on vegetables and side dishes alone. Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone covers most everything you could imagine, including breads, desserts, sauces, soy. If I had a kitchen fire, this is the cookbook I'd rescue.

Recommended by Jill, Powells.com

Six years in the making, Vegetarian Cooking For Everyone expands the spirited approach to vegetarian cooking that garnered awards for Madison's two previous, best selling cookbooks, The Greens Cookbook and The Savory Way. "My students have been telling me for years that there needs to be a reference guide for vegetarian cooking," she says. "This book is for my students and for those home cooks, beginner or experienced, who are inspired by the smell, the taste, the possibilities of fresh vegetables."

With twenty extensive chapters beginning with "Becoming a Cook" and finishing with "Desserts: Ending on a Sweet Note," Madison shares her expertise with warmth and enthusiasm. Drawing on more than twenty years of experience as a chef, cooking teacher, and home cook, she discusses fundamentals such as kitchen equipment, cutting and chopping techniques, basic ingredients from herbs to nuts, and cooking methods like steaming and stir-frying. Vegetarian Cooking For Everyone includes nearly every imaginable category of vegetarian fare, from savory breakfast foods, soups, salads, and sandwiches to flavorful gratins, pastas, tarts, pizzas, grains, eggs, and baked goods. Each chapter contains recipes appropriate for a variety of occasions—from family meals to dinner parties—which can stand on their own or accompany meat, fish or fowl.

You'll find comforting American favorites like Cream of Tomato Soup, Red Bean Gumbo with Greens, Winter Vegetable Pot Pie, and Rhubarb-Apple Crisp, as well as Madison originals such as Winter Squash Galette, Silky Mushroom Pate, Goat Cheese Souffle with Thyme and Spinach, and Herb Torta in a Potato Crust. Madison's travels and exploration of global cuisines are evident in dishes such as Sizzling Risorto Gratin, Glass Noodles with Spinach, Tunisian Tomato and Pepper Stew, and Stir-Fried Bok Choy with Roasted Peanuts. With zesty choices like Black Bean-Smoked Chile Dip, Posole with Red Chile Pods, and Goat Cheese Enchiladas with Corn and Red Mole, she also pays homage to the American Southwest where she resides. Recipes are introduced with a bit of personal lore or hints from the author, giving this admittedly vast cookbook an endearing, personal tone, as if Deborah Madison herself were in the kitchen, chatting with the reader.

The backbone of this indispensable volume is the chapter "Vegetables: The Heart of the Matter" an A-to-Z guide with information on how to buy, store, prepare, and complement the majority of vegetables the modern cook will encounter today, from the familiar such as carrots, peas, and zucchini to the new favorites such as chard, fava beans, kohlrabi, broccoli rabe, and artichokes. If you've ever wondered what celeriac is, or need to identify the differences between mustard greens and turnip greens, Vegetarian Cooking For Everyone has the answers. As Martha Rose Shulman says, "It's not only a cookbook. It's the standard text we've been waiting for."

In short, for those of us dedicated to eating healthfully, who adhere to a vegetarian diet, or simply savor the bountiful diversity, flavor, and texture of vegetables, grains, legumes, and other vegetarian fare, Deborah Madison's sweeping new Vegetarian Cooking For Everyone is bound to become a classic.

Vegetarian Cooking For Everyone
by Deborah Madison
Published by Broadway Books;
October 8, 1997; 752 pages
ISBN: 0-7679-0014-6