The Unofficial "Other Cookbooks Not Listed" Thread
Posted by Tweety on Jul 27, 2010 · Member since Jan 2003 · 3135 posts
I thought I would start a thread for recipe reviews of cookbooks that don't have a thread, and probably don't need a thread.
So if you are using older cookbooks, or cookbooks without a thread, I'd love to hear from you here.
Candle Cafe Cookbook
Tuscan White Bean Pate Sandwiches with Arugula and Tomatoes - I made these with kale and re-hydrated sundried tomatoes. Very good! The pate has such a tasty and mild flavour, which for some reason surprised me. I like the subtle sweetness that the dates add to it.
Lentil Chowder - Good! It reminded me more of a stew than an chowder, and it's more butternut squash-y than lentil-y, but whatever. I liked it a lot.
Apple Pie - I made the crust to this recipe. I think that it turned out pretty good. It wasn't flaky or anything like that, but I'm not too sure it was supposed to be. I liked it. I made a chocolate pudding pie with half of the recipe.
Paradise Casserole - A fave! I make this quite often. It is so simple, but SO delicious.
Candle Cafe Cookbook
Tuscan White Bean Pate Sandwiches with Arugula and Tomatoes - I made these with kale and re-hydrated sundried tomatoes. Very good! The pate has such a tasty and mild flavour, which for some reason surprised me. I like the subtle sweetness that the dates add to it.
Lentil Chowder - Good! It reminded me more of a stew than an chowder, and it's more butternut squash-y than lentil-y, but whatever. I liked it a lot.
Apple Pie - I made the crust to this recipe. I think that it turned out pretty good. It wasn't flaky or anything like that, but I'm not too sure it was supposed to be. I liked it. I made a chocolate pudding pie with half of the recipe.
Paradise Casserole - A fave! I make this quite often. It is so simple, but SO delicious.
I've had the paradise casserole at the restaurant and the recipe seems so simple to make at home. Do you really cook the canned black beans for an hour??
Spanish Lentil and Pumpkin Stew with Roasted Garlic from The New Spanish Table:
I really like this.. and it surprises me. :) This is a Spanish stew with lentils, butternut squash (I subbed instead of pumpkin) and roasted garlic. I subbed 1 cup passata (strained tomatoes) for the fresh tomatoes. As I made this, I had a second thoughts as I dumped in 4 cloves of raw garlic in addition to the 10 cloves of roasted garlic into the stew. It was garlicky initially, but the leftovers totally mellowed and it is perfect.It is both sweet, yet savoury... hearty, yet light.. comforting and delicious.
Caribbean Vegan
Lasagna - For some reason I thought more of the Caribbean spices would come through in this but it didn't. It's just an average lasagna which is fine but nothing to rave about.
Candle Cafe Cookbook
Tuscan White Bean Pate Sandwiches with Arugula and Tomatoes - I made these with kale and re-hydrated sundried tomatoes. Very good! The pate has such a tasty and mild flavour, which for some reason surprised me. I like the subtle sweetness that the dates add to it.
Lentil Chowder - Good! It reminded me more of a stew than an chowder, and it's more butternut squash-y than lentil-y, but whatever. I liked it a lot.
Apple Pie - I made the crust to this recipe. I think that it turned out pretty good. It wasn't flaky or anything like that, but I'm not too sure it was supposed to be. I liked it. I made a chocolate pudding pie with half of the recipe.
Paradise Casserole - A fave! I make this quite often. It is so simple, but SO delicious.
I've had the paradise casserole at the restaurant and the recipe seems so simple to make at home. Do you really cook the canned black beans for an hour??
Honestly, I'm lazy and just used canned XD I have no idea if it makes a difference. I've never been to the actual restaurant so I have nothing to compare to.
Spanish Stew from Moosewood Restaurant Cooking for Health:
This is a stew with lima beans and green beans with a light broth with sweet paprika. Not too spicy, but I thought it was flavourful. They suggest serving it with a romesco sauce, but I didn't make it... my favourite way to eat it has been atop a bed of baby spinach, topped with some toasted slivered almonds. Yum!
Chipotle chile-rubbed southwest tempeh from The 30-Minute Vegan
I enjoyed this a lot. I loved the marinade which was made from tomato paste, lime, soy sauce, water, olive oil and garlic. The rub was chipotle chili powder, cumin and a tad of cinnamon. I actually liked the sauce so much I kept most of it and rather than rub just mixed the rub into the sauce with the onions and kept it saucy.
http://a7.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/189656_1699566847835_1197836956_31491080_4382342_n.jpg
Chili Fest Chili from Moosewood Restaurant Cooking for Health:
I modified the original recipe by increasing the onions, red bell peppers and carrots while omitting the celery. I used the sweet paprika and Aleppo chili flakes for the heat (and omitted the chipotles in adobo sauce). I mixed up the bean variety by using both red kidney beans and black beans. But, the best addition, the secret ingredient, was bulgur! The result was a hearty chili with the mix of savoury flavours. Not my favourite chili, as something was a bit off and I prefer my chili with a bit more robust tomato flavour. Next time I might add some tomato paste. The bulgur, though, was excellent and a healthy way to get the mouth-feel of ground meat, without any meat at all
Azuki Bean and Spinach Soup from Moosewood Restaurant Cooking for Health:
Not entirely thrilled with this recipe, but I could have mucked it up with my modifications. I missed where it said to cook with 4 cups water and 4 cups broth, so I cooked it in 5 cups water AND I threw in extra beans for another dish. I ended up adding in another 3 cups water because it definitely needed it. Instead of broth, I used a piece of kombu, 4 dried shiitakes and some shiitake stems. After the beans were ready, I removed the kombu and stems to be discarded. The dried shiitakes, I removed and choped up the caps to be returned to the soup. Instead of spinach, I threw in 200g chopped watercress and 200g chopped enoki mushrooms. I ended up increasing the tamari and rice vinegar in the broth. I liked the soup, it just isn't as mind blowing as I was hoping. I also used a mixture of azukis (the loose ends from a few bags of beans), so I think my beans didn't all cook through properly which is one of my problems.
Multigrain Cereal from The 30-Minute Vegan:
Yum! I was interested in trying out a new combination of grains for breakfast. I have never cooked kasha before, but I really liked this combination. Good texture. I added in sweetened soy milk and a chopped banana. Didn't feel like it needed more sweetener. Yum!
From Caribbean Vegan
Bajan Pepper Sauce - A mustard-based hot sauce that is good. It calls for scotch bonnet or haberno and I used habernero and it was super hot. A little goes a long way, but it supposedly will keep six months (it has vinegar in it) in the fridge.
http://a1.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/196326_1704792978485_1197836956_31497999_6837762_n.jpg
Barbadian Pelau - One of those "OMG this is so freakin' good" dishes. I always have issues with converting white rice dishes to brown rice using my rice cooker, but this was easy. I just cooked everything separate and mixed in the rice and my veggies were nice and crunchy. I used chicken seitan from La Dolche Vegan, pigeon peas and the tomato based spicy sauce was amazing.
http://a7.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/197216_1704792618476_1197836956_31497998_2514525_n.jpg
I was just checking that recipe out the other day Tweety. I made up the bajan pepper sauce so I was looking for some recipes to make it in. I'm going to try it next week since you like it =)
Cool. You probably won't be as gaga over it as I was, but I'm sure you'll like it.
Caribbean Vegan
Curried potatoes and pumpkin - Islanders call butternut squash "pumpkin" which is what I used. A lot of things went into this and it was good.
Pineapple Barbecue Sauce - This was interesting and not too bad. I deviated from the recipe in that she calls for a whopping 3/4th cup of brown sugar. I used only 1/4th cup and upped the hot pepper sauce some. She also called for adding a cup of water and then some thickener which I didn't do since I left out all that sugar I felt it didn't need any water. I served it ontop of some chicken seitan.
http://a3.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/188922_1710108751376_1197836956_31499940_2951660_n.jpg
Caribbean Vegan
Creole spaghetti - When the sauce is cooking it smells nasty and doesn't taste that great either but just let it do it's thing and simmer down. After mixing it in with the pasta, all the flavors really come together and this ends up tasting different but so good! I added some mushrooms and green beans to make it more nutritious.
Vegan Diner
Pastrami seitan - This is freaking awesome!!! I can see myself investing in a 'meat' slicer just for this recipe to use in sandwiches. It has all kinds of spices in this- ground caraway, ground fennel, paprika, onion powder, and garlic powder. It is so flavorful and I really liked the sprinkling of coarse pepper on the outside of the log. It gives the seitan a little punch.
Nonna's Italian Kitchen
Spinach ricotta dumplings - I've never had anything other than potato gnocchi so it was nice to try something different. I really enjoyed this but it is a bit time consuming so this is a plan ahead dish to make sure everything is refrigerated properly. Top it with some homemade pasta sauce and you're good to go.
Caribbean Vegan
Trinidad doubles - This recipe is up there with some of the best foods I've ever tried. I'm not even exaggerating, this was amazing!! It was incredibly flavorful and made a ton so halve the recipe if you don't want a bunch of doubles sitting around.
Cucumber chutney - Tasted awesome on top of the doubles! It's really spicy but refreshing.
Curried rice - This was a kickass rice! Full of flavor and even better that you could just dump everything in the rice cooker and let it go.
Onion gravy - Eh, no one was a fan of this. It has more of a sweet taste that we felt took away from the rice.
Orange-Cucumber Salad with Wakame from The Natural Vegan Kitchen: I liked this. I don't normally make side salads, but a cucumber found my way into my lap. A bright, refreshing salad.
Green Soup with Ginger from Love Soup: Delicious! A sweet potato makes this a creamy soup, and you add nearly a pound of greens with some ginger. The caramelized onions really add a nice sweetness. I preferred it chunky, but as a pureed soup it works well too and is completely different (and not nearly as photogenic).
Recipe also posted here: http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/green-soup-with-ginger-recipe.html
Spicy Indonesian Yam and Peanut Soup from Love Soup: My friends were throwing an international-themed potluck so I offered to bring this soup (my first time cooking Indonesian). I was drawn to this recipe because it didn't have coconut milk and only 1/3 cup peanut butter (for 8 servings). The soup is filled with yam, parsnips and carrots with an abundance of ginger (1/2 cup). Along with some garam masala and cumin, you get a nice kick in the soup while being completely wholesome with all the veggies. My friends liked it, and I even got asked for the recipe, which is always a compliment. :)
Caribbean Vegan
Everyday vegan ham - Divine!! This tastes exactly like the ham I used to eat on Thanksgiving. Make sure you do the glaze- it adds extra flavor and makes it even tastier.
Chickpea curry - This was good but it kind of had a little bit of a sour taste.. I'm wondering if it was from the mustard? Anyway, this was grubbed down with no complaints.
Spinach rice - Simple and enjoyable, goes really well with the chickpea curry.
Gingery Enoki Mushrooms with Carrots from Kansha:
I really liked this dish. Simple, tasty, and completely Japanese. Zippy from the ginger. I served it overtop warm silken tofu (in chunks). I would double the recipe to serve with 1 lb of silken tofu. This would serve 4 as a main.
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