Customer Reviews

How to Cook Garden Vegetables

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

If I had realized this book was only about 5x7 inches in size, and contained mostly just basic blanching and steaming instructions, I wouldn't have bothered with it. We have other Cook's Illustrated books that tell you these kind of instructions and more, so this was totally unnecessary. I still love Cook's Illustrated products, but am disappointed with this particular book. Maybe it would be good for someone who has no other cookbooks, has never cooked veggies before, and has a garden?

I have a lot of Cook's Illustrated books and have been happy with all of the others prior to this one. This one is small in size (5 1/4 x 7 1/4) and number of pages (96). I'm trying to increase my vegetable consumption, but the unimaginative recipes in this book didn't inspire me to do so.

This booklet only partially covers very few rudimentary vegetables; they are as follows: green asparagus, green broccoli, green cabbage and it's derivative Brussels sprouts, white cauliflower, eggplant, green beans, greens, peas, red or orange peppers, red tomatoes and squash. These items are then either very basically boiled, steamed, braised, or grilled, as may be preferred by the author. Unfortunately the alternative spice variations don't take the prospective cook very far either. If you're looking to develop your range of culinary excursions, this book leaves you home - it just never takes off.

Searching for illustrations you can only find very few black and white line art drawings, which are not even that helpful. There isn't a single photo anywhere.

This mini book does not inspire, nor does it pretend to give any in depth information about any of the vegetables. The author presumes you're growing these vegetables in your own garden, thus not offering any help in what to look for when purchasing any of these veggies' or offering when they are in season. It omits all canned or frozen vegetables. Likewise it omits the uses of vegetables in forms of mixtures. There are no salads, no casseroles, no quiches, no bakes or soups.

I was very disappointed by it's lack of depth, it's lack of variety on the topic, it's lack of photos, and it's diminutive size of font. The fine print on the back of a check has a bigger type font.

People are mistaking this for a "recipe book". This series is a "How-To" book for you to properly learn a cooking technique. I teach cooking and teach technique...it is about HOW to properly cook or prepare a dish. If all you know how to do is make recipes, you will never learn to cook. Within all recipes is a technique. Learn first the technique and you can properly cook most recipes, if they are written correctly.

How to Cook Garden Vegetables

I bought this in order to get my total order high enough for free shipping, but it's one of my favorite cookbooks now. It gives the basics and several options for cooking a number of fresh vegetables, and I've used it often. It's a small gem.

The content of this book appears to be very helpful in our quest to make vegetables more interesting and tasty. Format of book is small, which may bother people who want to keep it open and read it while preparing the food. But I find it charming and a nice read.

Book Too Tiny Reviewer: A reader from Erie, CO United States I normally am an advocate of any book or magazine published by Cook's Illustrated magazine. Unfortunately, this series of books are too small and the print too tiny to be practical. You have to hold the book too close to your eyes to read it which makes it totally impractical for putting in your cookbook holder to refer to while cooking. I like the recipes but it would be nice if I could read them without straining by eyes.