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241 of 254 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The best vegan book I've ever owned!, January 31, 2004
This review is from: The Candle Cafe Cookbook: More Than 150 Enlightened Recipes from New York's Renowned Vegan Restaurant (Paperback)
I have a total of 11 vegan cookbooks, and the candle cafe cookbook is the one I always use. I have been so disappointed in other vegan cookbooks because they either have hard-to-find ingredients, are too time-consuming to make, and are bland and boring. This cookbook is none of that! Almost every ingredient can be found at your local supermarket so it's not too expensive to purchase these items. Secondly, being a mom to a toddler gives me very little time to spend in the kitchen, and this book offers delicious meals that are easy and quick to prepare. And most of all, everything I have made from this book has been just like eating a gourmet meal! This is a MUST HAVE for everyone who is vegan or is even thinking about trying a vegan meal. I made the lemon tofu cheesecake with blood-orange glaze, and gave some to my carnivorous husband. He is the type of person who won't touch tofu with a ten-foot pole. And he ate every bite of it and thought it was great. I also made the chocolate cake with chocolate ganache frosting, and everyone LOVED it! Also, recently I prepared the seitan piccata with white wine and caper sauce. I only had the "chicken-style" seitan and used that instead. I have to tell you that it tasted like fried chicken in a wonderful brown gravy sauce! It was excellent! This cookbook is one of those "everyday" cookbooks, but with gourmet flavor. I am not a woman who likes to cook much, and I do not have much experience in the kitchen, but being vegan I have to cook my own meals once in a while, and I have been using this book every day, and every day I have a new favorite dish! I have been writing disappointing reviews on every cookbook I've tried, but this one I would give 10 stars if I could. If you are even thinking of buying this book, please do. You will not be disappointed!
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162 of 170 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great restaurant, book could be better, September 22, 2003
By A Customer
This review is from: The Candle Cafe Cookbook: More Than 150 Enlightened Recipes from New York's Renowned Vegan Restaurant (Paperback)
The Candle Cafe is one of my all-vegan family's top favorite restaurants in NYC. so I was excited about the prospect of making some of their recipes at home. Somehow, the cookbook is a disappointment, mainly due to inaccuracies in the recipes. I was all set to make the Asian Baked Tofu, for instance. The instructions say to cut the tofu into 3 blocks, then marinate. The recipe is supposed to serve 4, but there is no further instruction on how the tofu is to be cut further. The chocolate mousse pie came out well, but the proportions of the ingredients are enough to make 2 pies; also I'm glad I left out 1/2 cup of water called for in the cake crust, or it would have been too moist and soupy. not to go on, though there are other such examples. These little innacuaracies can make or break a recipe, so though I'm looking forward to trying a few more, I feel I need to be wary. The photos in the middle of the book are lovely, but the pages and layout of the recipes are pretty dry, The small fractions sent me running for my reading glasses. For me, the book rates three stars, but I'm giving it four for the general devoted veg/vegan reader, plus the fact that I'm such a fan of the cafe that I don't have the heart to give it just three stars.
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105 of 109 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Owners: If you want this book to represent your restaurant, please check the recipes -this is NOT the stuff you offer in NYC!, April 23, 2006
This review is from: The Candle Cafe Cookbook: More Than 150 Enlightened Recipes from New York's Renowned Vegan Restaurant (Paperback)
I totally agree with what some people have already said here:
These recipes never saw a test kitchen.
Not only that, whoever wrote them didn't think twice with many of them. The proportions are so outrageously wrong one would think they used some computerized formula to adapt their industrial-kitchen quantities to a 6-serving scale. Take for example their Coconut-peanut sauce. When we had it with their tofu-satay at the Candle Cafe, we thought it was just amazing. Look at the ingredients: 1/2 cup peanut butter, 1/2 coconut milk, 1/4 brown rice vinegar, a thai chili, 2 tbsp chopped cilantro, 2 tbsp chopped mint, 1 tbsp fresh ginger... what could go wrong? Well, add a 1/2 cup of soy sauce and that's what's wrong. All these delicious (and not cheap) ingredients go down the drain because after adding so much (light!) soy sauce the only thing you taste is salt! Of course you blame yourself for not having used your common sense but then... Who edited this book???
I'm sorry, I love the restaurant, but now I cannot wait to go again and ask them that same question to their face.
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