Whole Grains Every Day, Every Way [Hardcover]

Lorna Sass (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 7, 2006

Thanks to the low-carb movement and the updated USDA food pyramid, we all know we should be eating more whole grains (the “good carbs”). But what exactly are whole grains? And how can we make them not only what we should eat, but what we really want to eat? In Whole Grains Every Day, Every Way, bestselling cookbook author Lorna Sass demystifies whole grains with a thorough grain-by-grain primer followed by more than 150 irresistible recipes.

In this extensive guide to the wide range of fantastic whole grains available–many of which are gluten-free–Sass introduces home cooks to dozens of grains, including amaranth, barley, buckwheat, hominy, popcorn, polenta, Job’s tears, millet, oats, quinoa, brown rice, red rice, black rice, rye, triticale, sorghum, teff, farro, grano, green wheat, kamut, spelt, wheat berries, and wild rice. She shares tips for buying and storing these grains as well as the best and simplest way to cook them.

And then there are the boldly flavored, contemporary recipes that will truly change the way you cook, covering soups, salads, main courses, and side dishes all the way to quick breads, cookies, and desserts, with a groundbreaking section on whole-grain baking outlining tempting, healthy options. Whole Grains Every Day, Every Way will delight carnivores and vegetarians alike with recipes such as Farro Salad with Prosciutto and Asparagus, Masa Harina–Beef Casserole, Posole with Pork and Chipotle, Millet with Gingered Beets and Orange, and Coconut–Black Rice Pudding.
This is the book America has been asking for: the definitive guide that will make it easy and delicious for us to incorporate healthful whole grains into our diets with innovative recipes for every meal of the day.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this incredibly thorough, A-to-wheat berries guide to whole grains, Sass (Cooking Under Pressure) begins with a thoughtful and extensive primer on whole grains, including detailed profiles and basic cooking instructions for each. She covers no fewer than 20 kinds of rice (Bhutanese red, black Japonica) and just as many types of wheat before launching into recipes for soups and salads, main courses, side dishes, breakfast foods and desserts. The dishes are surprisingly tempting and varied, and the entries are more sophisticated than one might expect in a whole grain book. Thai Chicken Soup with Chinese Black Rice; Quinoa and Calamari Salad; Corn Polenta with Sausage and Peppers; Popcorn-Crusted Catfish; and Wild Rice Medley with Braised Chicken in Balsamic-Fig Sauce. And the sweets and desserts, like Chocolate Chip-Hazelnut Cookies, Popcorn-Almond-Caramel Balls, and Tarragon-Scented Rustic Nectarine Tart, prove that incorporating whole grains into the diet can be downright decadent. (Nov.)
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Review

“Lorna Sass has created a thoughtful and comprehensive guide from amaranth to triticale that manages to be provocative as well as pleasing; we should all think as carefully about whole grains as she has, and we should try to have at least half as much fun doing it. This book is a great place to start.”
—Dan Barber, chef-owner, Blue Hill and Blue Hill at Stone Barns

“Lorna Sass’s new book makes whole grains look absolutely mouthwatering! Putting grains in the company of other good foods, where they should have been all along, gives these recipes such style and panache that they are hard to resist. No longer do grains have to be exiled to some dull place of earnest health. Good for Lorna for giving them the star billing they deserve.”
—Deborah Madison, author of Local Flavors:Cooking and Eating from America’s Farmers’ Markets

“This is an exciting new book for all of us who love good food and want to cook food that’s good for us. Lorna Sass has been our trusted guide to the world of healthful eating for years; now she gives us an indispensable primer, simple techniques, and great recipes for the grains we’ve always loved and the ones we’ve always wanted to learn more about. At last I know what to do with kamut–teff, sorghum, and amaranth, too–and so will you.”
—Dorie Greenspan, author of Baking: From My Home to Yours

“This book is a must for anyone trying to make sense of whole-grain recommendations and labels. It should immediately become an essential tool for cooks, timid or adventurous, who want to make delicious meals from basic wheat and rice or the more exotic teff and Job’s tears.”
—Marion Nestle, professor of nutrition, food studies, and public health, New York University, and author of What to Eat

“The title says it all: Lorna Sass has created an irresistible and wide-ranging collection of recipes that make both familiar and exotic grains easily accessible for everyday meals. I highly recommend this superb and useful cookbook.”
—Paula Wolfert, author of The Slow Mediterranean Kitchen: Recipes for the Passionate Cook

“A first-class, accessible resource for building truly delicious whole-grain dishes into your daily meals.”
—K. Dun Gifford, president, Oldways, and founding member, Whole Grains Council

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Clarkson Potter; First Edition edition (November 7, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307336727
• ISBN-13: 978-0307336729
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 1.1 x 9.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (46 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #34,798 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #16 in Books > Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Cooking by Ingredient > Rice & Grains
  • #64 in Books > Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Special Diet > Low Fat

More About the Author

Lorna Sass is fondly known as "the Queen of Pressure Cooking." She is also a widely published food writer and an award-winning cookbook author. Check out her new blog: www.pressurecookingwithlornasass.wordpress.com

Lorna became interested in pressure cooking during the mid-eighties when most Americans had either never heard of this magical appliance or were afraid of it! Her COOKING UNDER PRESSURE, published in 1989, became a best-seller with over 250,000 copies in print. The 20th-Anniversary revised edition of COOKING UNDER PRESSURE came out on November 3,2009.

Lorna followed COOKING UNDER PRESSURE with 3 other pressure cooker books: GREAT VEGETARIAN COOKING UNDER PRESSURE (VEGAN!), THE PRESSURED COOK, and PRESSURE PERFECT.

During the nineties, Lorna wrote numerous vegan cookbooks, recognizing that a vegan approach to food created a much smaller carbon footprint. This was decades before cookbook authors were writing about the connection between food and sustainability. Her RECIPES FROM AN ECOLOGICAL KITCHEN was published in 1992! Her NEW VEGAN COOKBOOK was nominated for an IACP Award and her latest title in this category is SHORT-CUT VEGAN.

Her fourteenth cookbook, WHOLE GRAINS EVERY DAY, EVERY WAY, published in 2006, was awarded the prestigious James Beard Award in the "healthy focus" category. Her latest cookbook, WHOLE GRAINS FOR BUSY PEOPLE, focuses on quick-cooking recipes for cooks on the go.

Lorna has often found herself ahead of her time. While studying for her PhD in medieval literature at Columbia University, she wrote four historical cookbooks that were published by the Metropolitan Museum of Art--decades before anyone was studying food history!

Lorna's food articles have been published in dozens of prominent newspapers and magazines, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Gourmet, and Bon Appetit. In addition to her own blogs, she has blogged for The Huffington Post and Green Fork, and wrote a monthly recipe column for localharvest.org.

She is a member of Slow Food, The Author's Guild, and the Women's Culinary Alliance and an alumna of Les Dames des Escoffier, an organization of the top women in the food industry.

Lorna's current passion is to make healthy food available to all, and she is especially eager to help people grow their own food on rooftops and in community gardens in NYC.


For further information, visit www.lornasass.com.
BLOGS: www.pressurecookingwithlornasass.wordpress.com www.lornasassatlarge.wordpress.com

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

131 of 132 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Looking for flavor? Looking for information? Looking for recipes that WORK?, November 7, 2006

By 

LoveToCook (Atlanta, GA, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Whole Grains Every Day, Every Way (Hardcover)

Lorna Sass's latest book, "Whole Grains Every Day, Every Way" is a real winner! I was privileged to test a few of Ms. Sass's recipes and was impressed with their robust flavors, aromas, and textures. Some folks are turned off by the idea that a recipe is "healthy," thinking that it means bland flavors and straw-like textures (haven't we all encountered *those* recipes?). Not so here! These recipes will find a home in any good cook's recipe collection.

As in all of her previous books, Ms. Sass has a unique, almost minimalist approach to seasoning. She pares down the lengthy ingredient lists of many ethnic recipes and uses just a few of a cuisine's defining herbs and spices to create deep, complex, and extremely satisfying flavors. Her taste buds are right on target. Some examples of her on-the-mark flavoring techniques are found in Thai Curried Chicken Soup with Brown Jasmine Rice, which has become a staple at our house, as have her Oat and Turkey Soup with Tex-Mex Flavors and her Ethiopian Chicken Stew with Teff Polenta.

Her Roasted Brown Rice Pilaf with Leeks incorporates an interesting method for making a very flavorful and versatile pilaf -- using only 4 ingredients. That's hard to beat!

Ms. Sass's delicious desserts are too numerous to mention. One our favorites is Brown Basmati Rice Pudding Custard. It is so fragrant and delicious that it satisfies diners who love custards and flans, and also those who love rice pudding at the same time. Her Biscotti were lighter than many I've had and beautifully crunchy without being teeth-shattering.

This is a book that will rise to the top of my "Favorites" in my cookbook list.

136 of 141 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars meat based recipees, November 28, 2006

By 

Glenda J. Pinkham (Viroqua, wi USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Whole Grains Every Day, Every Way (Hardcover)

I love her cookbooks and own most of them. I was just surprised at the amount of meat based recipees in the cookbook. It is great for ideas to cook whole grains and incorporating into a standard diet. If you were looking for vegetarian or vegan it is not for you. Her books always make cooking sound easy and fun and I enjoy them. I have tried many of her ideas and recipees and have liked the finished product. I especially like her practical suggestions for beginners.

67 of 71 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent and educational cookbook, March 5, 2007

By 

Chicago Book Addict (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Whole Grains Every Day, Every Way (Hardcover)

I have always loved food and cooking. Recently, I've become more health conscious and have been monitoring my calorie intake as well as trying to include more healthful foods like fish, whole grains, and lots of veggies. After reading so many positive reviews I checked this out from the library to educate myself on whole grains. What I love about this cookbook is that it is far more educational on most. There is a lot of background on each variety of grain including basic cooking instructions, what it pairs well with, and history and background info. This is wonderful for those of us cooks who want to not only make something great, but to also learn in the process. The pairing advice is especially wonderful for those who want to branch beyond executing a recipe to experimenting. The book also includes quite a breadth of recipes including some with and without meat so there are a lot to try here. My only complaint, and the reason I give it 4 and not 5 stars, is that there is no nutritional information for the recipes!!! I would assume that many of us who are interested in whole grains in the first place would tend to be more health conscious, so I would appreciate things like fat, calories, fiber, vitamins & minerals, etc. I can calculate this myself using the many calculators online, but prefer to have it right there for me.