Customer Reviews

From a Monastery Kitchen: The Classic Natural Food Cookbook

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

 

 

From a Monastery Kitchen is a cookbook of natural foods, "natural foods" in the sense of simple, vegetarian foods. The cookbook is divided into the four seasons with recipes assigned to the season their ingrediants are most available. Within each season, there are four sections: (1) Soups and appetizers (2) Main dishes (3) Salads and (4) Desserts. The volume is peppered with quotations, line drawings and other delightful tidbits.

To give you a flavor of the variety of recipes presented: for Autumn we have Escarole Soup, Vegetable Fritters, Saint Hubert Fish Stew, Risotto, Eggplant Omelette, Kasha Salad, Bessarian Avocado Salad, Saint Bruno's Coffee Cream, Cold Spring Rice Pudding, Quick Apple Cake. The recipes are simple to follow, simple to make, and simply wonderful to eat.

Variety, simplicity and the lovely stories that go with many of the recipies make this book a wonderful addition as well as a wonderful gift. These soups are great by themselves, and they are also easy to modify- add a little here, a little there to make them all time favorites! I highly recommend this book for the experienced and not so experienced cook.

I really couldn't imagine what would be in this cookbook, but was delighted to find everything easy, delicious, and so healthful. The simple and seasonal recipies call for everything available to the city dweller, and are arranged by the seasons, with beautiful passages that make this cook book a joy to use.

I am inspired by the monks' dedication to preserving the simple way of life, and challenged to find my own solitude within these recipies. My family is excited to sample new fare, and will be blessed by the healthy benefits from vegetarian monastic cooking.

Like all of Brother Victor's books this one is full of really tasty, but fairly simple recipes. He has his recipes sorted first by season and then in categories such as soups, main dishes, salads, etc. His chick pea soup, vegetable cheese casserole, and spinach casserole with tomato topping were requested again by my son. We will by trying his asparagus-stuffed eggs coming up soon.

If you like tasty vegetarian food, or nearly vegetarian food (he has a few recipes for fish) I am sure you will find something to enjoy in this book. Also we all need to eat more vegetables, and Brother Victor has plenty of them in just about everything. Getting your "five a day" will not be problem with "From a Monastery Kitchen."

This is a pretty straightforward collection of recipes. But the fact that it's organized by season makes it handy to take along when I hit the farmer's market. I have only tried a handful of the recipes so far, but I haven't hit a stinker yet. They are also pretty forgiving of shortcuts - using canned tomatoes instead of stewing and peeling them yourself, for example. I enjoyed it.

Attractive book, but some recipes are repeats from 12 Months of Monastery Soups. Also, not enough main meal recipes, I thought. Even though, I was glad to have this book.

Nearly all of the recipes in this book include milk in some form or another. As a person who cannot consume milk, this book is of little utility.