Gaia's Kitchen: Vegetarian Recipes for Family & Community Review

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(More customer reviews)Vegetarian culinary traditions are as varied and diverse as the climates and geographies from which they originate around the world. Now in a newly revised and significantly updated edition "Gaia's Kitchen: Vegetarian Recipes For Family & Community" features a culinary wealth of delicious vegetarian dishes that range from the simple to the complex, the classic to the exotic. Compiled by Julia Ponsonby with the assistance of friends at Schumacher College, "Gaia's Kitchen" showcases vegetarian recipes from the Mediterranean, as well as California, Mexico, and India. Of special note is the commentary concerning nutritional issues, special diets, and the ecological ramifications of food production. With thoroughly 'kitchen cook friendly' recipes ranging from Leek and Potato Soup; Broccoli & Red Pepper Quiche; No Frills Macaroni Cheese; and Tricolor Rice; to Fennel & Chicory Salad with Orange; Mushroom & Cream Cheese Spread; Pears Poached in White Wine & Blackcurrant; and Julia's Chocolate Cake, "Gaia's Kitchen" is a veritable compendium of nutritious, delicious, natural foods that will please both vegetarian and non-vegetarian palates alike!


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Updating the first edition--winner of the Gourmand World Cookbook award for best vegetarian cookbook of 2001--the cuisine featured in Gaia's Kitchen calls upon the best of Mediterranean, Californian, Indian, and Mexican vegetarian cooking. It celebrates old favorites rich in cheese and eggs and offers a variety of tempting new vegan dishes using ingredients such as pulses, tofu, and tempeh. Besides soups, main courses, and salads, there's a mouthwatering selection of desserts, breads, cakes, and biscuits. Gaia's Kitchen also explores the issues of nutrition, special diets, and the ecological dimension of food production. The recipes are the tried and tested creations of Julia Ponsonby and her colleagues at Schumacher College in Devon, England, which for almost twenty years has been brewing up a unique potpourri of human connections, raising ecological awareness, and stimulating taste buds.

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Cook 1.0: A Fresh Approach to the Vegetarian Kitchen Review

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(More customer reviews)This review is long overdue. I am an omnivore, with a mostly omnivorous family. Imagine my surprise when, two years ago, my teenager announced one evening (after a visit to a lovely farm with adorable baby cows) that she was going to stop eating any land animals. Turns out, there is a word for that:pescatarian. Back then, I didn't know that, and being faced with the prospect of trying to cook healthy vegetarian meals for a developing teenager made me want to pull my hair out. I worried that I would either end up with a malnourished girl, or that the food I cooked would be so unpalatable that she wouldn't eat it. I also didn't want to have to cook one meal for her, and another for the rest of the family. If she would make this journey, then so would we. I tried various vegetarian books, only to find tofu-pushing, bland recipes that I had a hard time tempting my whole family with. Then my sweet sister came to my rescue, telling me that her friend Heidi wrote a little book I might like...and she mailed me Heidi's guide.
I call it a guide because that is what we used it for in the beginning. Heidi takes the time to explain the ingredients, the basics of how to cook them, and advises on the utensils and other things needed. She scatters useful advice throughout - it isn't a book that I just pull out when I need a recipe. I actually sit down and read it for the extra encouragement I need to keep our family on-track. I have two other children, 6 and 8. They loved their hot dogs and hamburgers. I don't know any other children their age who now rave about risotto and mushroom pot pie! My husband is a Food and Beverage Director for a luxury resort. Sometimes, after hearing about the menus he puts together for his hotel, I feel a little intimidated about what I offer him at home. This is a true sign of the success of Heidi's book: my carnivorous, German husband, Mr. Foodie, LOVES these dishes. Yes, he still likes sausages, schnitzel, etc. But he will dig into the corn, coconut, and curry soup like there is no tomorrow...
Now, being more sensitive to the other vegetarians in the world, I always bring a dish from Heidi's book when I attend parties or potlucks. For our first vegetarian Thanksgiving, we were invited to a friend's home. The prospect of dining on Tofurkey didn't seem appetizing, so we made and contributed the mushroom medley fritatta and the roasted sweet potatoes to the Thanksgiving Feast. My kids had to wrestle to get some of the food we brought onto their plates! We ended up bringing home empty food containers, and I noticed there was ALOT of leftover turkey...everybody there just couldn't get enough of our vegetarian dishes.
The best part is the ease with which I can prepare all this food. I enjoy cooking - I actually collect cookbooks. So I can say from experience that Heidi has a great formula with the format of this book. She gives you the basics for the core of the dish, then she offers a chart of various ingredients you can add in order to make different dishes out of that core recipe. It really simplifies things for the reader, and the various ideas for ingredients really make a difference in preventing food-boredom with my children.
Again, thank-you, Heidi, for a well-written, well-planned guide to vegetarian cooking. We are two years into the game now (I thought it would last 6 months) and my well-worn copy of Cook 1.0 doesn't even make it back into my cookbook collection; I keep it out on my counter for quick reference. And my little vegetarian? Her new lifestyle has NOT turned her into the wraith I feared...she is 5'9" now, and a star on her school basketball and volleyball teams.

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Blue Eggs and Yellow Tomatoes: Recipes from a Modern Kitchen Garden Review

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(More customer reviews)I've had this cookbook for a while, and it is a lovely one. The pictures are beautiful, the recipes are varied and sound delicious, and the few that I've made have turned out well. As a cookbook, it's great.
BUT, it's not really about "Recipes from a Modern Kitchen Garden" as the subtitle suggests. This is the first year I've had a kitchen garden myself and have been looking through my cookbooks with an eye for using what is growing like crazy in my garden - greens, summer squash, turnips, broccoli, potatoes, carrots, beets, beans, tomatoes, corn, you know, the usual stuff. I thought this would be a great resource for recipes, but looking at it again, from the perspective of finding recipes that would help me use my bounty, and it's a flop. The book is heavily meat-centric with lots of recipes for seafood, beef and pork (I don't grow any of those in my garden). The dessert section is luscious, but with a focus on chocolate chip cookies, chocolate layer cake, hazelnut coffee cake, and the like, it sure doesn't help use the strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries that my garden is producing. There are some lovely side vegetable dishes (roasted carrots and fennel caught my eye), but many of the salad recipes are based on beans or grains with herbs and cheese and nuts - more things that don't grow in my garden.
So, while I can recommend the book and I agree that it's both coffee-table and kitchen-counter worthy, it isn't as advertised. Don't expect lots of suggestions for using things from your own Modern Kitchen Garden.

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Like many of today's home gardeners, Jeanne Kelley's backyard kitchen garden is a means to indulge her desire for fresh, organic, and flavor-rich produce. Just minutes outside of downtown Los Angeles, this same backyard is also home to Kelley's pet goat and Ameraucana chickens, which provide her with a plentiful amount of milk and sky blue eggs that often feature in Kelley's internationally inspired dishes. Now she shares more than 150 of her recipes, all of which incorporate new and authentic ways to take advantage of local and seasonal foods and incorporate the multi-ethnic flavors into your everyday meals. This remarkable cookbook presents a contemporary version of field-to-table cooking that hails from a region where home chefs prune their kitchen gardens in the shadow of metropolitan cities and year-round farmers' markets provide heirloom vegetables that inspire classic and enticing dishes. Capitalizing on her 20 years as a Bon Appetit contributor, Kelley's recipes are simple and spectacular. With strategies for both weeknight cooking and special occasions, Blue Eggs and Yellow Tomatoes is the essential manual for all who hunger to create quick and healthy meals with flair. In addition to the many mouthwatering recipes, Kelley provides readers with tips and menus for entertaining, plus a thorough kitchen garden primer that celebrates the simple joy of growing your own produce-including discussion on small container and community gardens, raising and keeping backyard chickens, composting, and growing your own exotic ingredients.

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Our Best Bites: Mormon Moms in the Kitchen Review

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(More customer reviews)I just received this cookbook in the mail and I am so in love with this cookbook. It has wonderful pictures, tutorials, and ideas to help tired moms like me have some real life inspiration while still cooking good for you food. I am in LOVE!

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Meet Sara and Kate, two Mormon girls who love to cook. They're also wives and mothers balancing home management, part-time work, church and community involvement, and countless other things just like you! As busy moms, their philosophy is that cooking really good food for your family doesn t have to be complicated. In fact, cooking at home can be a delicious, fun, and easy way to care for your family and friends. Our Best Bites brings together more than 150 family-friendly recipes with mouthwatering full-color photos, step-by-step tutorials, ideas for using leftover ingredients, shortcuts and tips for cooking, and serving suggestions. Sara Wells and Kate Jones began their hit cooking blog, Our Best Bites, in March 2008. In the past two years, their website has grown to more than 40,000 page views a day and around 700,000 page views a month. Over 30,000 subscribers receive their e-mail updates. They have been featured in The Chicago Sun-Times, Mormon Mommy Blogs, and popular cooking blogs such as Café-Mom, Tastespotting, and Foodgawker. Their website was recently listed on The Pioneer Woman's blog as one of the most frequently referenced cooking websites. The authors will be featured in an upcoming edition of Better Homes and Gardens. Includes page-finder bookmark with measurement conversions.

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