Claire's Classic American Vegetarian Cooking: 225 New and Favorite Homestyle Vegetarian Recipes (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The bland-looking cover of Claire's Classic American Vegetarian Cooking conceals a world of food as appealingly creative as it is classic, offered in 225 dishes full of bold flavors and inspired combinations. And its definition of American cooking happily includes a melting pot of ethnic dishes. The recipes range from a truly All-American Fresh Fruit Cobbler to authentic, crusty, cheese-filled Sicilian Rice Balls, and fiery Thai Vegetable Soup to Greek Lima Beans, Artichoke Hearts, and Scallions with Orzo, Feta Cheese and Spinach. (You will cook and consume this aromatic, dill-and-garlic seasoned sauté faster than you can repeat its name.) Reflecting Criscuolo's Italian heritage, her Riso E Fagioli is lovingly long-cooked and includes broken spaghetti.

For exciting twists on familiar classics, look for polenta with fresh corn and chopped tomato studding the steaming cornmeal, and Sweet and White Potato Burritos topped with exquisitely creamy, gently fiery Avocado-Jalapeño Sauce. Criscuolo devises unexpected ideas for using veggie burgers. For Chicken-Fried Veggie Burgers, they are in dredged in flour and pan-crisped, then bathed in properly creamy Sawmill Gravy. Her Vegetable Burger au Poivre is elegantly imbued with Cognac, while tangy sauerbraten-style burgers are served on bed of noodles and topped by the properly sweet-tart sauce made with gingersnaps and German spices that should accompany this dish. Soy foods, from tofu and soy milk to sausage and other meat alternatives, are used liberally in dishes as simple as Beet and Tofu Salad with tangy balsamic vinegar dressing and as sophisticated as sausage-studded, saffron-gold Garden Paella, bright with 10 vegetables. (This book includes generally outstanding vegan food, though some may object to its generous use of margarine.) Vegetarians will find new pleasures in this exceptional collection of recipes, and lovers of Italian cooking will be particularly well-rewarded. --Dana Jacobi

From Library Journal

Criscuolo and her husband have run a vegetarian restaurant in New Haven, across the street from Yale, since 1975. The follow-up to Claire's Corner Copia Cookbook (Plume, 1994), this new collection includes more homey, healthful recipes. Many are dairy-free and vegan; others give vegan variations. Some would appeal to anyone, vegetarian or not, but a surprising number call for fake bacon and sausage, meatless hot dogs, and the like (to satisfy those hungry college students?): a salad of apples and tofu hot dogs with a dressing of curry, lime, and dairy-free mayonnaise, for example, sounds like a rather unfortunate combination, and New England Boiled Dinner is made with "fat-free veggie dogs" and "veggie back bacon." For libraries where the first book was popular.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Plume; Reprint edition (June 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0452277906
• ISBN-13: 978-0452277908
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,070,082 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great cookbook, March 18, 2001

By	Rachel S. Stein (Bronx, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Claire's Classic American Vegetarian Cooking: 225 New and Favorite Homestyle Vegetarian Recipes (Hardcover)

This cookbook serves as a continuation of the wonderful recipes from the Claire's Corner Copia Cookbook. Claire presents delicious and fairly simple recipes which use lots of fresh vegetables (as well as whole grains and beans). The recipes are health-conscious, but use dairy and eggs where appropriate for flavor. The finished products always bring back fond memories of eating at Claire's Corner Copia in New Haven, Connecticut (FYI--which is certified kosher by the local Young Israel rabbi Michael Whitman). Try the pumpkin pie recipe (made with tofu)--delicious!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wow!, July 20, 2001

By	Drew Balazs (Indianola, WA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Claire's Classic American Vegetarian Cooking: 225 New and Favorite Homestyle Vegetarian Recipes (Hardcover)

I bought this book as a gift for my wife and wow, we love it. The recipes for the soups are fantastic, easy to follow, and delicious! The split pea recipe is particularly good (even if we do tend to throw a smoked ham shank into it)! One word of caution, however, the soup recipes make a LOT of soup. If you are only cooking for 1-2 people, you might consider in halfing the recipe.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not what I had hoped, February 9, 2007

By	K. Burnside (Baltimore, MD) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I've had this cookbook for quite some time - looks like an older edition than is sold here. I had never really used it, but recently found some tasty recipes that I wanted to make. I have to say I was rather disappointed by the end result of all three recipes I made last week. They lacked real flavor and, on top of it all, were really labor intensive. Not meals you'd want to make after a workday. I feel that I find so many more interesting vegetarian recipes elsewhere.