Book Review: Moosewood Cookbook, 40th Anniversary Edition
The 40th Anniversary Edition of Mollie Katzen's Moosewood Cookbook is a delightful and tasty read. This hardcover edition is definitely a plus! I grew up eating various recipes from the original cookbook, and I have fond memories of carefully opening the book and turning the pages because years and years of use had separated the cover from the remainder of the cookbook. The new anniversary edition retains many aspects of the former version, including the hand-written text and cute drawings, which make this cookbook stand out from many others, even those that have artistic, color photographs.
Although I am by no means a vegetarian, I do prefer to consume a plant-rich diet. Overall, the recipes require easy to find (mostly fresh) ingredients, available at "regular" grocery stores, specialty stores, or even farmer's markets. I was pleased to re-discover that there is a good balance between cheese and no-cheese recipes; several members of my family (myself included) are lactose intolerant and many plant-based recipes contain copious amounts of cheese. It was fairly easy for me to skip past the cheese-based recipes and find others that would suit. I also appreciated the "butter light" nature of the recipes - most recipes contained olive oil (or another oil) with the option to include butter. The "optional" inclusion of additional ingredients is also well-noted, and adding (or abstaining) from these ingredients in no way detracts from the deliciousness of the final result.
While I attempted many of the recipes in this book, to varying success with my husband's palate, I particularly liked "Chinese-Style Stir Fry Vegetables," "Vegetarian Chili," and "Vegetable Stew." The Basic Stir Fry Sauce is very tasty, and the potentially high sodium content of the soy sauce is diluted by the addition of water, sesame oil, apple cider vinegar, and rice wine. I have yet to find a better stir fry sauce. Both the Vegetarian Chili and Stew are similar to my "tried and true" recipes, but the inclusion of the many fresh veggies really improve the flavor of both of these dishes. The texture of the stew, in particular, is wonderful due to the mixture of potatoes, eggplant, celery, broccoli, carrots, zucchini, and mushrooms. Lastly, I have to mention that the four Tofu-Based Sauces are wonderfully dairy-free and very flavorful. Two of the sauces (Greek Lemon Sauce and Horseradish Sauce) have been updated to remove the eggs -- key for those with egg allergies.
Overall, I am looking forward to continuing cooking my way through the 40th Anniversary Edition of the Moosewood Cookbook!
I received a free copy of this book from the Blogging For Books program in exchange for a fair and honest review.