Rating: 
Summary: Kind of like "Joy of Cooking--Veggie Style"
Review: Is this a "new classic" and what's in this book for the average cook who wants to cook vegetarian food? This heavy tome is packed with useful recipes and is all over the map, both ethnically and in types of recipes. As other Moosewood cookbooks, this is a vegetarian cookbook, but with asides into fish, which I don't mind--being one who limits meat but has not problem eating it. Some people do view fish as living creatures, which, of course, they certainly are. What's also new here compared to the dairy-laden earlier books is a venture into a few vegan recipes that leave out all milk, egg and other animal-source product, including a recipe for very useful mock sour cream. So there's a little something for everyone, vegetarian, limited vegetarian and even vegan. The recipes tend to the family-style rather than super-gourmet. One of the most useful recipes for me is a vegetable broth. This is a very good recipe base all kinds of soups. I despise the taste of canned broths and it's a nuisance to make chicken stock from scratch. Vegetable stock freezes well and this recipe makes a particularly flavorful version, using carrots, onions, celery, potatoes and garlic. The potatoes, in particular add consistency to the broth. The recipe offers either sweet potato or carrot for that sweet-spicy element and the sweet potato version also adds body to the broth. There is a version for mock-chicken broth, and an Asian ginger flavored broth base as well. Italian dishes dominate the recipes, lots of pasta sauces, including a vegetarian kind of Bolognese (meat gravy), a good basic tomato sauce, frittatas, risottos and cioppino fish stew. There are also plenty of diversions into novelties such as an interesting peach salsa. The breads lean more to biscuits and cornbread than to yeast breads and the dessert section is loaded with cookies. There are also sections on sandwiches, wraps and mock burgers. In summary, this is a very good vegetarian-based home cooking book, maybe something like Joy of Cooking - Veggie-Style. In that respect, this is a new classic, and certainly found a welcome home on my cooking bookshelf.
Rating: 
Summary: Unfortunately not good
Review: Of the two Moosewoods cookbooks I own, this one just doesn't remotely compare to the other, Moosewood's Daily Specials. I feel like they made these recipes up. They are weird, the recipes don't seem like real recipes. The baked goods I've made haven't turned out well at all. Adding water to cookie dough really made the cookies bad-i got poor reviews from everyone who ate them-and I normally have rave reviews. I think that the only recipe I truly love is "Tofu Hijiki Burgers", which are AWESOME. The "tofu sloppy joes" however, were not great. It's really too bad but I have found much better versions of these same recipes in other cookbooks.
Rating:
Summary: Now one of my most favorite cookbooks!
Review: The best Moosewood yet -- tons of recipes for today's lifestyle & diet preferences. Nicely organized too -- for easy to make, special occasions, etc. I've made several recipes from the book already, and was pleased with them all. This will be one of the first cookbooks I look to for recipes & ideas.
Rating: 
Summary: Others by them are better
Review: This book could be great, like so many of their others, but I think that it's gimmicky in that they rely way too much on soy products in this one. I'm all for adding soy to foods if it belongs there, but not if it is added just to add nutrition only. It can really ruin the texture of a dish, but they claim repeatedly that "no one will even know it's in there!" I think that if you have to hide something in your food, maybe it shouldn't be there at all. The one good thing about this, though, is that there are a lot of dishes for vegans in here. Where they don't rely on the soy gimmick, the food has been really wonderful, as always. Try these: lemon ricotta pancakes, Indian curried potato wrap, marinated feta with pita, and Muhallabia (cardamom-cinnamon) ice cream.
Rating: 
Summary: good for the healthy vegetarian
Review: This book is a pretty versatile book with tons of recipes that has something for every occasion.
That being said, my favorite part of the recipes are something that's quite northeastern in taste, or what your local healthy vegetarian has. It definitely introduces hereto unfamiliar ingredients to me, such as quinoa and barley. In my opinions those and those that uses a substantiable farmer's market vegetables often comes out the best.
I have 2 quips about the book: one is their heavy reliance on soy, which a previous reviewer has already noted. My objection is that too often soy felt just throw-in for the meat substitute. As a Chinese I often feel soy is underappreciated as a culnary item but overused as a substitute, and this book unfortunately follows that trend. The soy recipes here certainly not only failed to highlight soy as its own and distinctive cooking category, but their ubiquitous presence take away from what could have been truly creative recipes using the best of the vegetable kingdom.
My second complaint is the recipes here tend to be fairly blend when they venture out into the world cuisine section. While that isn't a problem for most american recipes, the Thai and Southeast-inspired recipes taste rather limpid.
However, overall this is still a pretty good cookbook, with many good recipes. Overall, if you're not someone who adore their chilis or who are overly picky about soy, then this definitely has value.
Rating:
Summary: Lots of great creative recipes
Review: This has quickly become one of my favorite cookbooks. Almost all of the recipes we have made are wonderful- the squash and tomatillo soup, the Indian curried potato wrap, the mushroom pecan burgers- all are great and easy to prepare. Many of the recipes draw from world cuisine, some even combine ingredients from several cultures. Sure, some of the combinations sound strange, but they manage to come out wonderfully. This book is full of creative main and side dishes.
Rating:
Summary: Lots of great creative recipes
Review: This has quickly become one of my favorite cookbooks. Almost all of the recipes we have made are wonderful- the squash and tomatillo soup, the Indian curried potato wrap, the mushroom pecan burgers- all are great and easy to prepare. Many of the recipes draw from world cuisine, some even combine ingredients from several cultures. Sure, some of the combinations sound strange, but they manage to come out wonderfully. This book is full of creative main and side dishes.
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