The Greens Cookbook (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Packed with recipes from the boldly original and highly successful Greens Restaurant in San Francisco that regularly please vegetarians and non-vegetarians alike, Greens is this cook's personal favorite cookbook. From New Potato and Grilled Pepper Pizza to Zuni Stew, these recipes are consistently innovative and delicious. --MTB

"I consider Greens to be the ultimate vegetarian restaurant. The cuisine is elegant, inspiring, and astonishingly creative. Many of us have long awaited this major event in cookbook publishing. Congratulations!" --Mollie Katzen, Moosewood Cookbook --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

The founding chef of the Zen Center of San Francisco's Greens Restaurant tantalizes readers with more than 275 stellar vegetarian recipes. Drawing upon a variety of traditionsSouthern France and Italy, Asia, Mexico and the American SouthwestMadison encourages the use of fresh vegetables, herbs and spices, quality oils and other staples, the building of flavors with stocks and the harmonizing of tastes, textures and colors. Mealtimes will be vibrant, sensory celebrations when readers serve up Mexican vegetable soup with lime and avocado, red and yellow pepper tart, goat-cheese pizza with red onions and green olives, zucchini-and-basil filo with pine nuts, blueberry cream-cheese tart and Brazilian chocolate cake. A cornucopia of seasonal menus, extensive directions, wine suggestions, and glossaries of kitchen equipment and ingredients enhance this superior collection. Brown wrote The Tassajara Bread Book, etc. Illustrations not seen by PW.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 416 pages
• Publisher: Broadway; 1 edition (April 17, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0767908236
• ISBN-13: 978-0767908238
• Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 7.2 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (44 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #115,820 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Worth it just for the guacamole..., May 7, 2004

By	H. Grove "owling6683" (Maryland, USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Greens Cookbook: Extraordinary Vegetarian Cuisine From The Celebrated Restaurant (Hardcover)

When I made a handful of recipes from Deborah Madison's cookbook, "Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone," I wasn't incredibly impressed with the flavors. Well, everything that her other cookbook isn't, this one is. "The Greens Cookbook," based on the cooking of the Greens Restaurant in San Francisco, delivers enough fantastic flavors for any two cookbooks.

Recipes are laid out very well. This cookbook covers the basics right down to brown rice and egg pasta; it never leaves you stranded wondering if you have a recipe for such-and-such. Also included are seasonal menus, wine pairings with vegetarian food, a glossary of ingredients, and a list of useful kitchen tools.

But this cookbook doesn't stop there. There's a Wild Rice and Hazelnut Salad that includes currants and orange juice. There's an Asparagus Soup that's quite good. The Mexican Vegetable Soup with Lime and Avocado is fantastic! There's a Basque Pumpkin and White Bean Soup, a Pumpkin Soup with Gruyere Cheese, a Grilled Tofu Sandwich, Creole Egg Salad Sandwich, Basil Fettucine with Green Beans Walnuts and Creme Fraiche, Spinach Noodle Pudding, Potatoes and Chanterelles Baked in Cream, Squash Stew with Chilies Spices and Ground Nuts, and an absolutely fantastic Cheese and Nut Loaf... among many other fantastic recipes.

This cookbook does occasionally call for the odd hard-to-find ingredient like hazelnut oil, but it doesn't get out of hand, and I think it's quite worth it. Ms. Madison takes her inspiration from all sorts of cuisines to wonderful effect. All in all this is a fantastic cookbook, whether or not you're a vegetarian!

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Complicated, but worth it, April 23, 2000

By	Daniel Bush (Miami, Florida) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Greens Cookbook: Extraordinary Vegetarian Cuisine From The Celebrated Restaurant (Hardcover)

This, together with Yamuna Devi's "The Art of Indian Vegetarian Cooking," is my favorite cookbook.

As has been mentioned in other reviews here, the recipes are somewhat complicated. I am slowly working my way through the book and have already attempted almost 50 of the recipes.

The first few recipes were daunting and I was tempted to give up on the book, but the more recipes I tried, the easier it got. I found that I was learning something.

As others have mentioned, I also don't have all day to prepare a meal, and more often than not, I will only cook from this book on weekends, though to be fair, not all of the recipes are as time-consuming as they seem.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who also considers cooking a hobby and not just a means to an end.

39 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not the right cookbook for me, March 4, 2003

By A Customer

I'm sure every recipe in this cookbook is delicious, but I seldom use it and regret buying it. This would be a good book for people who see cooking as a hobby: something they do occasionally, for fun, without worrying about time, convenience, health or expense. For everyday cooking, it's pretty much useless. The recipes are all quite time-consuming and complicated, requiring, for instance, special stock which must be homemade and for which store-bought substitutes would be unacceptable. Lots of the recipes are heavy on the butter and cream, which is fine for special occasions but not the way I want to cook on a regular basis.

I would recommend this book to anyone looking for special-occasion recipes. Everything I've cooked out of it has turned out great, and I would definately consult it for dinner parties or similar occasions. But I don't think it will be a particularly useful cookbook for busy people trying to eat in a reasonably healthy manner.