Customer Reviews

The New Enchanted Broccoli Forest (Mollie Katzen's Classic Cooking)

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Many different ethnic and cooking styles are represented in this beautiful cookbook. As with The Moosewood, this book is richly illustrated with hand drawings and includes color photos. The fat, dairy and egg content of many of the recipes has been significantly reduced without sacrificing taste! There is even a list of all the vegan, low-fat and nonfat recipes in the back of the book for easy reference. Chapters include: Soups, Salads, Breads, Sauces, Dips and Spreads, Entrees, Desserts, Menu Planning Notes, Improvisation Notes (for those chronic experimenters), and Bean and Grain Cooking Charts. Each food section has a list of recipes in the beginning in addition to the complete index in the back of the book. It is sure to become a favorite in your kitchen.

This is a beautiful book. Written in an engaging style and filled with excellent recipes, "The Enchanted Broccoli Forest" by Mollie Katzen has become my favorite cookbook. I received "The Enchanted Broccoli Forest" as a birthday present a few years back. The recipes range (just to use the soups as an example) from basic fare-Tomato soup, to exotic-Sesame Eggdrop soup. I dove right in. My first attempt was the Curried Peanut soup. It got scary towards the middle of the cooking time (The smell of the onions and spices being sauteed was wretched). But in the end, the soup was excellent! In fact, every recipe I have made from this book has not only tasted great, but has been fun to cook. I heartily recommend this cookbook.

Imagine these foods: Fresh potato bread, tangy marinated pasta salad, oven-baked carob swirl bread, sweet glazed muffins, calzones filled with onions, zucchini, and mozzarella cheese, AND spicy enchiladas with sauce - all delicious and healthy! This has to be my favorite cookbook. I never thought I could find recipes for foods that my two vegan cousins would eat. There is even a recipe for mayonnaise without eggs! This book makes it easy to be a vegetarian

What an amazing cookbook! It takes foods that I never thought I could make, like different types of breads and gives detailed directions and for those of us that still get confused it draws some pictures on how to do it. It had amazing recipes with tons of flavor. I have not run into any problems attempting to find the ingrediants it calls for. If you've ever questioned how to make a good souffle or a fantastic bread this is the book for you.
It is divided into 6 sections: soups, salads, breads, sauces, entrees and desserts so whatever you are in the mood for, you will find something that pleases you. It has a huge amount of soups without any of the added sodium one would normally get purchasing soups. If you own any cookbooks, the Enchanted Broccoli Forest is a great place to start!

i have many vegetarian cook books (ive been veg for over 7 yrs) & i use this one the most frequently.
it's simple, delicious, & lots of cooking basics, like pie crust & the (BEST, EASIEST) Indian flat bread, that most veg cookbooks leave out. We have also made delicious enchiladas, upside down vegetable cake, and more. My boyfriend is not vegetarian but he loves the delicious food too. The recipes in this book hold up even with major improvisation & experimenting which I love to do. There are also wide margins to write your cooking notes right next to the recipe.

Yes, many of these recipes take longer than heating up a veggie burger in the microwave but if you are concerned enough to eat vegetarian you should be interested in how to eat right, and sometimes that takes time.

There are 2 things I dislike: 1)the "prep" time listed for a recipe is too short in many cases- but once you make it you get an idea of how long it takes for next time. 2) the pages are regular paper, not glossy, so splashes always seem to find their way onto my book. However, its cheap enough & it dries fine, so just buy it & find your new veggie favorites :)

The vegetarian recipes in this wonderful cookbook reflect many different ethnic cooking styles, and use a wide variety of ingredients. The charming illustrations guide you through blintzes, enchiladas, breads, cheesecakes, and more. Yummy!

One of the top three cookbooks I own. The book was a gift to me in 1995, and since then numerous recipes have become staples in our house and for entertaining. Every recipe is unusual in its combination and number of ingredients, each packed with flavor, and all healthy. While the number of ingredients in each recipe and their preparation may seem daunting, it's well worth the effort.

A fun cookbook to look through but when you start making the recipes, its actually a disappointment, especially considering how many gazillllllion copies have been sold of Ms. Katzen's books. Shows what the right marketing can do. The recipes that I tried were VERY hearty but not in a good way, too much fat and rich ingredients and strange combinations of these ingredients too . The Enchanted Broccoli Forest recipe is just a dish of rice with broccoli stuck into it, nothing special. I gave up after the 3 or 4th recipe. This is NOT one of the best veggie cookbooks out there, in spite of the hype!

I own the original Enchanted Broccoli Forest, so this review is actually of that book. I felt that I needed to write my own review because of some of the earlier reviewers who claim that the book is awful. The book is not awful. It is, in fact, one of the most inspiring cook books I own, and I own quite a few.

I could not disagree more with the earlier reviewers who describe the recipes as being greasy and uninspired. Nor can I agree with the assertion that the ingredients are difficult to find. I have found the recipes in this book to be inspiring to me, both in the sense that they inspire me to actually prepare them, and also in the sense that they have inspired me to experiment with my own cooking and variations on Ms. Katzen's recipes. I would classify many of the recipes as being "comfort food." So, if you're looking for a strictly low fat or lean diet type cook book then this book is not for you. On the other hand if you're looking for a cook book which includes vegetarian recipes that are filling and satisfy that part of you that still wants to eat a bowl full of spaghetti and meat balls then this is the book for you. A note on the ingredients: any whole foods market or well-stocked supermarket will have 99 percent of the ingredients. The rest can be left out or substituted for. But seriously, there's nothing in the book that I have not been able to find at my neighborhood whole foods market.

Although this is the second book Katzen wrote, I would recommend it over the original Moosewood Cookbook (or the revised, for that matter) for the new vegetarian or new cook. This is a better source for basics.

She gives an exhaustive- but still fun- explanation of the most basic of basics, bread (well, before everyone, including myself, developed an intolerance to wheat). Half white/half wheat bread, whole wheat bread, challah, rye, pumpernickel, potato, quick breads, zucchini bread, brown bread, oat bread- and then shapes them into rolls and other funny shapes on top of it! And then the muffins, including the beloved blueberry muffin. You will never have to go to subsist on cafe fare again.

No need to live on bread- there is an amazing vareity of soup to go with it. Yes, there are the classics such as tomato, vegetable, potato-leek and corn chowder, but there are also the more experimental garbanzo, curried apple, potato and chile and cream of fresh pea. You could probably combine the soups and breads for a year and not have to eat the same dinner twice.

Too hot for soup? Don't worry, there's a plethora of salad recipes as well, including a few variations on potato salad.

Do you have questions about quiche? Pasta? Ideas for how to cook tofu? How to cut vegetables? You will find your answers here.

So why not five stars? Because the dessert section is, in comparison to the other sections, a hodge podge and not nearly as comprehensive. She gives a recipe for chocolate pudding, rugelach and baked apples, but otherwise everything else is a strange combination of edgy and overly wholesome- ricotta cherry mousse, amaretto cheesecake and whole wheat poppyseed cookies. Those just aren't the things I reach for when I want a good homemade dessert.

But otherwise? This will see you through most nights and a bunch of afternoons.