The Greens Cookbook: Extraordinary Vegetarian Cuisine from the Celebrated Restaurant [Hardcover]

Deborah Madison (Author), Edward Espe Brown (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 17, 2001

The Greens Cookbook is that rarity, a book that truly represents a revolution in cooking. Here are the recipes that helped to create the boldly original and highly successful Greens Restaurant on San Francisco Bay. Not only for vegetarians, this book caters to everyone who seeks delight in cooking and eating. Using an extraordinary range of fresh ingredients in imaginative and delicious ways, it shows how to present a feast for the eyes as well as for the palate.
The Greens Cookbook contains more than 260 recipes for all seasons, all occasions, all tastes. From bright, simple salads to beautifully spiralled roulades, here is a provocative, sophisticated and varied fare, dedicated to elegance and balance, taste and texture, color and freshness.
The Greens Cookbook presents everything you need to know to create and enjoy at home meals that draw rave reviews in the restaurant. Inside you will find: Inspiring menus for spring, summer, winter, fall. Everything from easy-to-prepare dishes for two to meals for a gala feast. The first guide to selecting wines with vegetable dishes. Glossaries of unfamiliar ingredients and useful kitchen equipment. A generous and encouraging text that helps develop your skill and self-expression as a cook. Insightful professional tips heading each recipe, and much more.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Packed with recipes from the boldly original and highly successful Greens Restaurant in San Francisco that regularly please vegetarians and non-vegetarians alike, Greens is this cook's personal favorite cookbook. From New Potato and Grilled Pepper Pizza to Zuni Stew, these recipes are consistently innovative and delicious. --MTB

"I consider Greens to be the ultimate vegetarian restaurant. The cuisine is elegant, inspiring, and astonishingly creative. Many of us have long awaited this major event in cookbook publishing. Congratulations!" --Mollie Katzen, Moosewood Cookbook --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

The founding chef of the Zen Center of San Francisco's Greens Restaurant tantalizes readers with more than 275 stellar vegetarian recipes. Drawing upon a variety of traditionsSouthern France and Italy, Asia, Mexico and the American SouthwestMadison encourages the use of fresh vegetables, herbs and spices, quality oils and other staples, the building of flavors with stocks and the harmonizing of tastes, textures and colors. Mealtimes will be vibrant, sensory celebrations when readers serve up Mexican vegetable soup with lime and avocado, red and yellow pepper tart, goat-cheese pizza with red onions and green olives, zucchini-and-basil filo with pine nuts, blueberry cream-cheese tart and Brazilian chocolate cake. A cornucopia of seasonal menus, extensive directions, wine suggestions, and glossaries of kitchen equipment and ingredients enhance this superior collection. Brown wrote The Tassajara Bread Book, etc. Illustrations not seen by PW.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 396 pages
• Publisher: Broadway Books; 1 edition (April 17, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0767908236
• ISBN-13: 978-0767908238
• Product Dimensions: 7.2 x 1.4 x 10.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (48 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #33,477 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #37 in Books > Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Vegetables & Vegetarian > Vegetables

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

43 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Worth it just for the guacamole..., May 7, 2004

By 

H. Grove "Errant Dreams Reviews" (Maryland, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Greens Cookbook: Extraordinary Vegetarian Cuisine from the Celebrated Restaurant (Hardcover)

When I made a handful of recipes from Deborah Madison's cookbook, "Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone," I wasn't incredibly impressed with the flavors. Well, everything that her other cookbook isn't, this one is. "The Greens Cookbook," based on the cooking of the Greens Restaurant in San Francisco, delivers enough fantastic flavors for any two cookbooks.

Recipes are laid out very well. This cookbook covers the basics right down to brown rice and egg pasta; it never leaves you stranded wondering if you have a recipe for such-and-such. Also included are seasonal menus, wine pairings with vegetarian food, a glossary of ingredients, and a list of useful kitchen tools.

But this cookbook doesn't stop there. There's a Wild Rice and Hazelnut Salad that includes currants and orange juice. There's an Asparagus Soup that's quite good. The Mexican Vegetable Soup with Lime and Avocado is fantastic! There's a Basque Pumpkin and White Bean Soup, a Pumpkin Soup with Gruyere Cheese, a Grilled Tofu Sandwich, Creole Egg Salad Sandwich, Basil Fettucine with Green Beans Walnuts and Creme Fraiche, Spinach Noodle Pudding, Potatoes and Chanterelles Baked in Cream, Squash Stew with Chilies Spices and Ground Nuts, and an absolutely fantastic Cheese and Nut Loaf... among many other fantastic recipes.

This cookbook does occasionally call for the odd hard-to-find ingredient like hazelnut oil, but it doesn't get out of hand, and I think it's quite worth it. Ms. Madison takes her inspiration from all sorts of cuisines to wonderful effect. All in all this is a fantastic cookbook, whether or not you're a vegetarian!

32 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Complicated, but worth it, April 23, 2000

By 

Daniel Bush (Miami, Florida) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Greens Cookbook: Extraordinary Vegetarian Cuisine from the Celebrated Restaurant (Hardcover)

This, together with Yamuna Devi's "The Art of Indian Vegetarian Cooking," is my favorite cookbook.

As has been mentioned in other reviews here, the recipes are somewhat complicated. I am slowly working my way through the book and have already attempted almost 50 of the recipes.

The first few recipes were daunting and I was tempted to give up on the book, but the more recipes I tried, the easier it got. I found that I was learning something.

As others have mentioned, I also don't have all day to prepare a meal, and more often than not, I will only cook from this book on weekends, though to be fair, not all of the recipes are as time-consuming as they seem.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who also considers cooking a hobby and not just a means to an end.

38 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Green Way, November 28, 2001

By 

R. Williams "code slubber" (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Greens Cookbook: Extraordinary Vegetarian Cuisine from the Celebrated Restaurant (Hardcover)

This book is from the ether. Really great cookbooks draw you into a world that you had not understood before. Many people who love the Marcella Hazan book love it because it includes the comfort foods of Italy they are familiar with, but also has tons of wonderful, varied surprises. This book is kind of similar. There are recipes that you will realize are the province of the vegetarian and are very appealing, and then there are new things to be discovered that will make you feel, upon their discovery, almost ashamed. The first recipe I prepared was for the White Bean and Tomato Soup with Parsley Sauce. I just about lost my mind. I had only recently started using the mortar and pestle for prepping garlic and this recipe made use of that technique to stunning effect. With a piece of crusty bread, it is as fulfilling as anything you are going to find to eat with animal parts in it.

I also like DM's 1400 recipe book but this one is more exciting as a cookbook, the other more encyclopedic. The soups section is especially amazing. I've made almost all of them now. Also, as some people may know, many cookbooks have blunt wrong recipes. I haven't had any recipes miss yet from this book.