Description:
Since 1973, The Moosewood Restaurant, well off the beaten path in Ithaca, NY, has been demonstrating how exciting vegetarian cooking can be. Their excellent use of seasonings and the variety of their multiethnic menus have influenced chefs all over the U.S. Customers come from all over the world to dine at this shrine to natural foods at their best. The collective running the restaurant, whose members put together The Moosewood Restaurant Daily Special--their eight cookbook--spread meatless inspiration to home cooks, too. At the restaurant, everything on the menu changes every day, except the daily special, which consists of a bowl of soup, a salad, and a hearty slab of bread. Here, in more than 275 recipes, you can have comfortable, easily prepared ethnic adventures inspired by places in every corner of the globe, from Tibet to Cuba. Beginning in the east, there's Asian Bean Curd Soup, based on a rich broth, and fanciful Balinese Rice Salad, made with brown rice and a zippy, chutney-spiked dressing. Moving west, you find briskly chilled Golden Gazpacho, made using mid-summer's sunny, yellow tomatoes, and Alabama Hot Slaw, a classic cabbage salad doused in a warmed-up dressing. For accompaniments, there are cloud-light buttermilk biscuits, vibrant curried croutons for enlivening soups and salads, and nine of the restaurant's most popular salad dressings. Every recipe is accompanied by information-packed notes about its ingredients, a nutritional analysis, suggested accompaniments, and alternatives, such as adding grated cheese, rice, or shrimp to Pepperpot Soup, a stew of greens, sweet peppers, tomatoes and potatoes, spiced with a Caribbean blend of thyme, cinnamon and chiles. This book is a perfect way to get pleasantly acquainted with a wide variety of grains and vegetables, from millet and South American quinoa to daikon radish and tomatillos. A useful gift for students, beginning cooks, budget watchers (many of the soups require only water, not stock), newlyweds, and everyone who wants to eat well and healthfully, this sweetly illustrated book could live happily in any household. It includes some recipes using fish, as well as a good selection of vegan choices. --Dana Jacobi
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