Customer Reviews

Rodale's Basic Natural Foods Cookbook

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

 

 

I turn to this book again and again to get recipes for herb and spice blends, such as curry powder. The Herb and spice reference table is invaluable when you need to make a substitution to accommodate your cupboard. The "Before You Start to Cook" section has great info for beginners and chefs. Each section begins with guidelines for buying, storing and serving. If I have a question regarding anything to do with food , I'll pick up this book first.

I love this cookbook, and it's not even for the recipes.

This book has the "Basic" information you need for cooking with natural foods, whole foods, and unusual ingredients. How many "Basic" cookbooks have a whole chapter on how to use sea vegetables (with 27 recipes)?

This book is what I've seen called "encyclopedic" in its scope. There isn't a single-ingredient whole food I've heard of (and I am a very adventurous cook & shopper!) that is not here. How long to cook quinoa? Why you should soak wakame? How about salsify? What if my neighbor's garden yields so many green beans that she gives me a bushel to "put up," but I don't know whether to can or freeze?

First, this is what you won't find: processed (white or brown) sugar, convenience foods as ingredients (none call for "canned cream of mushroom"!) or highly-processed grains (no "cake flour"). Sometimes you can substitute like another reviewer mentioned regarding the white/brown rice recipe (when I have run out of honey and put sugar in its place on these recipes and they work fine).

What I love about this cookbook is it addresses so many home cook's needs. I need to know how to use whole foods, not just in recipes, but in a more basic sense. I need to know about food safety: how long to cook meats & poultry & seafood, how to blanch veggies for freezing, why certain canning methods are safe for some foods and risky (even deadly) for others. I need to know how much water to add and how long to cook a wide variety of whole grains. I need to know how many small eggs are equal to how many jumbo eggs. I need to know which seasons are best for specific produce, and how to tell if fruit is ripe (pomegranates? guavas?) I need to know how to make a custard, how to dry apples, how to filet a fish, how to make cottage cheese, how to make flour out of sprouted wheat.

You could take away every "recipe" in this book, and it would still be the most important cookbook in my collection, because it tells me How and Why. That's not to say the recipes are worthless, they are good, really good. But good recipes are not so hard to find, especially with the internet. But the charts & tables & introductory information in each chapter are priceless.

One caveat: I picked up a hardcover edition of this book at a library sale, only to discover that there were none of the MANY helpful charts I love (some examples: Guide to Sprouting Seeds, Storing Dairy Products, Roasting Times for Poultry, Simmering Fresh and Dried Fruits, Characteristics of Selected Herb Teas, and my favorite: Guide to Cooking Grains.) There are several hardcover editions, so maybe one of them has the charts, but the one I picked up did not, so I donated it back to the library for the next sale!

This is by far THE BEST cookbook I own (& I have a lot!) - several years ago when my family decided to change our eating habits for the better, we chose this cookbook from the shelves of a very large bookstore, hoping the variety & detailed information were what we needed. Boy, was it--just about every cooking or food question I've had over the years has been answered in these pages. . .there's detailed charts on different types of foods (veggies, spices, etc) & information about uncommon foods (natural sweeteners, soy products, etc) but most importantly are the actual recipes. From the basics to the unusual, this book has something that I can either use directly or easily adapt to how I eat or what ingredients are on hand. Whether you're vegetarian, vegan, limiting carbs, or just wanting to eat better, this book belongs in your kitchen.

If I could only have one cookbook, this would be it. Every food group is covered, from "Herbs, Spices and Condiments" to "Nuts and Seeds" to "Meats" and many more. Each chapter offers pages of detailed, in-depth information particular to the chapter. For instances, "Sauces" includes: White and Brown Sauces, Liquids, Thickeners, Enrichment and Flavoring, Emulsions Sauces, Light Sauces, Butter Sauces, Marinades, Storing Sauces and Gravy for Meat and Poultry. Recipes are available for every type of sauce.

As a novice cook interested in learning more and increasing my proficiency in the kitchen, I found the "Before You Start to Cook" chapter invaluable. I love this cookbook. I had checked out around 20 cookbooks from the library to find just the right one with a comprehensive amount of information and this one is it.

The only reason I did not give this cookbook five stars is the quality of the paper and some ink blotches on some of the paper. The cookbook I checked out from the library had heavier quality paper and no printing mistakes that I could find.

Aside from that minor complaint, this cookbook is awesome and I highly recommend it to anyone with a kitchen.

I don't want to repeat the comments that are already here, but do have to say this cookbook is EXCELLENT. There is LOTS of info here besides recipes. Altho there are meat dishes, there are tons of vegetarian dishes as well. I love that the chapter on desserts shows how to make treats a little more healthy, and there are many that are just so EASY, I've tried several in the past week alone.

Also have to mention I used to know this great Italian deli that made the best rice balls but I moved far away from that neighborhood a few years ago and always missed them. I hadn't been able to duplicate them on my own. In this book I found a dish called Suppli al Telefono... I finally found a recipe that tastes just like the rice balls I loved from the deli! Altho I do use white rice the recipe calls for brown.

I love the recipes they give for peanut butter sauces too. (Excellent peanut butter soup too.)

I decided on 5 stars because it really is a cookbook I will keep for all the years to come and hand down to my children when they move out on their own.

This book has so much helpful information for someone like me who is just beginning to learn to cook for real (meaning NOT using Cream of Chicken soup, meals in a bag, and other processed foods). Each chapter begins with an informative section that discusses the basics of working with a particular type of food (vegetables, legumes, grains, etc.). There are also helpful tables like the one in the vegetable section that tells you when each vegetable is in season, what to look for when purchasing, how to store, how long it will keep, how to cook, popular uses and complimentary herbs. This particular chart has been extremely helpful when I experiment with new vegetables.
I really wish the book had color pictures of the dishes and also nutritional information. I've also found that a few recipes I tried weren't detailed enough in their instructions. It would instruct me to put something in a saucepan and cook until tender, but it didn't give me any indication of how high the heat should be. For someone who's not a seasoned cooking veteran, this can cause a few problems.
Despite these little issues, I'm excited to have this great cooking resource and I plan to continue experimenting with more whole food dishes.

I love this cookbook. It shows you how to make exciting dishes that turn out perfectly, just the way they should. Everything is made from scratch and the herbs and spices are included with each recipe.

I have not had a single menu go wrong using this cookbook. They have a refreshing twist on old favorites. They put together ingredients in recipes that I would have never thought about.

They have large sections in each chapter explaining about fresh foods and everything you want to know. This is a MUST HAVE for the serious cook who doesn't want to cook out of cans of boxes, this is made from scratch and excellent.

This book get major points for its goals: information, nutrition and taste. In our culture, "eating well" has come to mean eating rich foods or eating expensive foods. It's easy to forget that eating is not just to sustain health today but to build the foundation for bodies that are growing or aging. Personally, however, I didn't find many recipes that appealed to me. The only recipe I've tried is the one for making pie crust (that's a whole other discussion). I'll wait for the vegetarian equivalent of this book. Then I'll get an extra copy to store away for my child.