Moosewood Restaurant Daily Special: More Than 275 Recipes for Soups, Stews, Salads and Extras (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Since 1973, The Moosewood Restaurant, well off the beaten path in Ithaca, NY, has been demonstrating how exciting vegetarian cooking can be. Their excellent use of seasonings and the variety of their multiethnic menus have influenced chefs all over the U.S. Customers come from all over the world to dine at this shrine to natural foods at their best. The collective running the restaurant, whose members put together The Moosewood Restaurant Daily Special--their eight cookbook--spread meatless inspiration to home cooks, too.

At the restaurant, everything on the menu changes every day, except the daily special, which consists of a bowl of soup, a salad, and a hearty slab of bread. Here, in more than 275 recipes, you can have comfortable, easily prepared ethnic adventures inspired by places in every corner of the globe, from Tibet to Cuba. Beginning in the east, there's Asian Bean Curd Soup, based on a rich broth, and fanciful Balinese Rice Salad, made with brown rice and a zippy, chutney-spiked dressing. Moving west, you find briskly chilled Golden Gazpacho, made using mid-summer's sunny, yellow tomatoes, and Alabama Hot Slaw, a classic cabbage salad doused in a warmed-up dressing. For accompaniments, there are cloud-light buttermilk biscuits, vibrant curried croutons for enlivening soups and salads, and nine of the restaurant's most popular salad dressings.

Every recipe is accompanied by information-packed notes about its ingredients, a nutritional analysis, suggested accompaniments, and alternatives, such as adding grated cheese, rice, or shrimp to Pepperpot Soup, a stew of greens, sweet peppers, tomatoes and potatoes, spiced with a Caribbean blend of thyme, cinnamon and chiles.

This book is a perfect way to get pleasantly acquainted with a wide variety of grains and vegetables, from millet and South American quinoa to daikon radish and tomatillos. A useful gift for students, beginning cooks, budget watchers (many of the soups require only water, not stock), newlyweds, and everyone who wants to eat well and healthfully, this sweetly illustrated book could live happily in any household. It includes some recipes using fish, as well as a good selection of vegan choices. --Dana Jacobi

From Library Journal

Moosewood, the well-known vegetarian restaurant in Ithaca, NY, offers a different special--soup, salad, and bread--every day. In its eighth cookbook, the restaurant collective presents dozens of recipes for soups, main-dish and side salads, and accompaniments, inspired by a dazzling variety of cuisines, from Algerian Tomato Soup and Grecian Isle Stew to Thai Noodle Salad and Louisiana Black-Eyed Pea Salad. Some of the recipes are vegan, and there are seafood soups and salads for those who eat fish. For most collections.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Clarkson Potter; 1 edition (October 5, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0609802429
• ISBN-13: 978-0965031424
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #36,338 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not Just A Soup & Salad Cookbook, March 8, 2000

By	C. Sullivan (Alexandria, VA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Like to cook? I mean, like discovering new seasonings and playing with interesting ingredients? If so, THIS BOOK IS FOR YOU!

Don't be dismayed that the recipes are all soups and salads. Those are very broad categories! Many "salads" are more like casual meals (such as Bean Puree with Seven Savories, which is pretty much a really cool Middle Eastern-style nachos, using toasted pita wedges instead of tortilla chips, of course). And as for soups... there are SO MANY different recipes here, no matter what your idea of soup may be when you open this book, it'll have expanded ten-fold after you've perused these pages.

The best part is, soup and salad are such forgiving mediums, this book is perfect for the home chef who wants to explore. Helpful text explains unusual ingredients and describes why certain vegetables & seasonings were chosen to enhance flavor and texture in each recipe. At the bottom of every recipe, the Moosewood editors were kind to include a half dozen or so dishes that would compliment it nicely. Makes meal-planning a snap, and so far, they've been right on target, every time.

I got this book for Christmas and many of the recipes have already become "regulars." I have no qualms about trying new dishes, even when serving guests, because you can trust these recipes to need little, if any, tampering. Though I have several Moosewood cookbooks (and I like them all), I can't recommend THIS book enough. Really!

Oh yeah, and I wanted to also mention that Moosewood also includes time estimates & nutritional informaton for every recipe. gotta love that.

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent cookbook for soup lovers, March 20, 2003

By	MishMisher (New Mexico) - See all my reviews

This book is about soup, salad and sides. The soups in this cookbook are imaginative and delicious! Being a vegetarian and loving soup I always get bummed because nearly all soup in restaurants is made with Chicken or Beef stock, with this book I can have soup as much as I want! I have made some of the salads, which were good and several salad dressings which were very good. There are several deterrants from purchasing this book 1. You absolutely need to have a cupboard full of exotic spices 2. You can't be intimidated by long ingredient lists 3. Everything seems to be pureed (best advice-get a hand mixer-cuts time, work and clean-up) 4. Many recipes call for expensive cheese (not good for budget or vegans). If none of this seems daunting then again this is a fantastic soup book. Plus, if you make a big batch it lasts for several days-no cooking! Everything i have made has been oustanding!

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Delicious Soups!, December 26, 1999

By A Customer

I live in chilly northern Vermont and after a long day of skiing there is nothing more delicious than a bowl of homemade soup. This cookbook has lots of recipes and all the ones I have made thus far have been outstanding. This is a good cookbook to have. You'll enjoy it!