Mollie Katzen's Recipes: Soups: Easel Edition [Spiral-bound]

Mollie Katzen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2007

Mollie Katzen has been credited with moving vegetarian cooking from the fringes of American society onto mainstream dinner tables, and her celebrated soups have been mainstays for vegetarian and nonvegetarian home cooks alike for decades. Marking the 30th anniversary of her enormously popular MOOSEWOOD COOKBOOK, this charming easel-backed cookbook brings together her classic hot and chilled soups, along with some new and tasty recipes, for the first time. Each recipe is lovingly hand-lettered and illustrated with Mollie's distinctive pen-and-ink drawings, making this timeless soup collection the perfect kitchen countertop companion.A delectable collection of 50 soup recipes from the best-selling author of THE MOOSEWOOD COOKBOOK, in a sturdy, compact easel format for easy reference while cooking. Includes perennial favorites from THE MOOSEWOOD COOKBOOK and THE ENCHANTED BROCCOLI FOREST, plus five new sophisticated, easy-to-prepare soups from Mollie's current repertoire. First in the MOLLIE KATZEN'S RECIPES easel book series, with salads and desserts to follow. THE MOOSEWOOD COOKBOOK is one of the top 10 best-selling cookbooks of all time, according to the New York Times. Mollie Katzen's books have sold more than 6 million copies.Watch Mollie Katzen, author of The Moosewood Cookbook, speak at the JamesBeard Foundation Cookbook Hall of Fame awards

 

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

* A delectable collection of 50 soup recipes from the best- selling author of THE MOOSEWOOD COOKBOOK, in a sturdy, compact easel format for easy reference while cooking. * Includes perennial favorites from THE MOOSEWOOD COOKBOOK and THE ENCHANTED BROCCOLI FOREST, plus five new sophisticated, easy-to-prepare soups from Mollie's current repertoire. * First in the MOLLIE KATZEN'S RECIPES easel book series, with salads and desserts to follow. * THE MOOSEWOOD COOKBOOK is one of the top 10 best-selling cookbooks of all time, according to the New York Times.

About the Author

MOLLIE KATZEN is a cookbook author and artist who has profoundly shaped the way America eats. Mollie is a consultant and cocreator of Harvard's groundbreaking Food Literacy Project. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Product Details

• Spiral-bound: 120 pages
• Publisher: Ten Speed Press (September 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1580088775
• ISBN-13: 978-1580088770
• Product Dimensions: 6.3 x 1 x 7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #93,415 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #54 in Books > Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Meals > Soups & Stews
  • #81 in Books > Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Vegetables & Vegetarian > Vegetables

More About the Author

With more than six million books in print, Mollie Katzen is listed by the New York Times as one of the bestselling cookbook authors of all time. A 2007 inductee into the prestigious James Beard Cookbook Hall of Fame, and largely credited with moving healthful food from the "fringe" to the center of the American dinner plate, Mollie has been named by Health magazine as one of the "Five Women Who Changed the Way We Eat."

In addition, she is a charter member of the Harvard School of Public Health Nutrition Roundtable and an inaugural honoree of the Natural Health Hall of Fame. An award-winning illustrator and designer as well as a bestselling cookbook author and popular public speaker, Mollie is best known as the creator of the groundbreaking classics Moosewood Cookbook and The Enchanted Broccoli Forest. Her other books include the children's trilogy Pretend Soup, Honest Pretzels, and Salad People (referred to as the "gold standard" of children's cookbooks by the New York Times), and a collaboration with Walter Willett, M.D., of Harvard, on Eat, Drink, and Weigh Less.

Since 2003, Mollie Katzen has been an adviser to Harvard University Dining Services, and cocreator of their new Food Literacy Project. This is the first volume of her new Get Cooking series, continuing Mollie's lifelong mission to spread cooking knowledge and food literacy as broadly as possible. Please visit the companion video-based website, www.get-cooking.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Solidly good vegetarian soups, December 12, 2007

By 

H. Grove "Errant Dreams Reviews" (Maryland, USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Mollie Katzen's Recipes: Soups: Easel Edition (Spiral-bound)

Mollie Katzen's Recipes: Soups is produced in an interesting format. It's a small ring-bound book tucked into a board sleeve so it'll sit well on a shelf. Once you take the book out, you move a couple of things around, tuck one thing into another, and you end up with an easel. The idea is that you set it up so it only takes up a few inches of counter-space and your recipe ends up standing up in front of you, making it easy to read while you cook.

In this it works fairly well. The angle is fairly steep, so you'll need to set it down on a perfectly level surface or risk pages falling closed on you. I also felt that this worked better for cooking than for looking through the cookbook to find recipes, which was a bit more awkward. And once you've set it up as an easel, it'll never quite collapse back all the way again; while you can slip it into its sleeve to fit on a shelf, at least, it's still a bit awkward to work with in other ways. Other folks might find this format perfect; it just didn't quite work for me.

The handwriting font is attractive, but when it comes to cookbooks my personal preference is for something plain and clear. There are no photos, but I tend to think photos are pretty unnecessary with soups. The directions are clear and simple; these are not overly complex recipes.

The table of contents and index are quite handy; the ToC lists recipes in order, while the index lets you look for things by ingredient, both of which are useful.

It seemed to me that the flavors in these soups weren't balanced entirely well. Some seemed under-seasoned while others seemed over-seasoned. The spices in the curried squash soup smelled to-die-for while cooking, but the soup was flavored strongly enough that I found it a bit unpleasant, and that's unusual for me (I'm a flavor junkie!). I also found some of the soups didn't reheat very well (without mentioning this in the directions), which is a tad unusual for soups.

The soups aren't vegan, as a number of them use dairy, but it would be simple enough to substitute soy products and the like.


If you're die-hard looking for a source of healthy, vegetarian soups, this is certainly a good option. As a cookbook in general, however, I'd say it's good but not great. On the other hand, many of the things I wasn't so fond of will be taste-dependent.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of my favorite cookbooks!, January 6, 2010

By 

K. Hammer (denver, co, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Mollie Katzen's Recipes: Soups: Easel Edition (Spiral-bound)

This cookbook is fabulous - especially if you are trying to sneak more vegetables into your diet. I've tried about a third of the recipes and look forward to trying the rest! I make one or two soups a week and bring them to work or reheat them at night for a quick dinner. I am an amateur cook and had no problem following the instructions in this book and making great soups. The easel format is a big bonus - it's easy to read the recipe without having to hold the page open. If you're not familiar with the typical Moosewood format: the presentation is friendly and the font is hand-written for a homey, personal feel. The instructions are easy and for the most part the ingredients are widely available. Most of the recipes take about 30-60 minutes of prep and cooking time (less if you are using a food processor to chop veggies, or if you are a super competent chopper - I am not).

FYI to my fellow newbie cooks: soups (in general) often require a food processor or blender. If you don't have one of those two things, about half the recipes in this book will be irrelevant to you. I use a pretty basic blender (two speeds: on and off) and it works fine.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Cookbook, July 4, 2010

By 

Dody (Upstate New York) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Mollie Katzen's Recipes: Soups: Easel Edition (Spiral-bound)

This is a must for the winter. So many great soups to make, and all so yummy! You really HAVE to have this one. And the price is fantastic.