Product Description

Excited by the challenge of replacing the mundane and the familiar with truly exciting food, and faced with the need to make dramatic changes in their eating habits, Barbara and Tamar Haspel -- a mother-and-daughter team of accomplished cooks and discriminating eaters -- took on the world of high-risk, high-fat food and made it over into their own.

In this witty and informative look at learning to eat well -- and enjoying it -- the authors show you how the simplest lifestyle changes can help you in your quest to make low-fat meals that taste good. With just a few changes in your outlook and in your kitchen, you can create a momentum in your pantry -- or in the authors' case, the linen closet -- that will have you turning out dish after delicious dish of healthful foods.

In its no-holds-barred approach to cooking, The Dreaded Broccoli Cookbook will help you overcome your fear of eating well with just these basics:

* Pantry Momentum and the Incatenata -- the two components of the great chain of meals: tips on how to make one meal segue into the next and get the most out of the ingredients you have on hand.

* Recipes and techniques for using some of the Haspels' favorite ingredients -- from mushrooms to monkfish, turnips to turkey.

* Commonsense guidance to help you master basics like stock, soups, and sauces -- and even chocolate cake.

* Help and encouragement facing the cook's most dreaded task -- veggie prep!

In 1992, concerned citizens began subscribing to a quarterly newsletter called Dreaded Broccoli, begun by Barbara Haspel when her husband's heart attack prompted a radical overhaul of her cooking style. The newsletter -- like this book -- is full of recipes, food strategies, and lots of no-punches-pulled opinion.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #955399 in Books
• Published on: 1999-04-14
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 320 pages

Amazon.com Review
We want to eat healthy foods and renounce the familiar, artery-clogging staples of our past, but what do we cook instead? "The American culinary scene has become a minefield of strange ingredients and elaborate preparations," writes the mother-daughter author team in Dreaded Broccoli. They show us how to make everyday cooking more healthful and fun, especially for those of us who don't have all day to spend in the kitchen. This is a sprightly and entertaining cooking guide about vegetables and how to enjoy cooking and eating them. For instance, you can simplify preparation by just brushing the dirt off mushrooms and getting your 4-year-old to wash the spinach. Keep your cooking low-fat by steaming, roasting, or sautéing in as little oil as possible. The book demystifies easy-to-cook ingredients such as leafy greens (forget the complicated names: "There are two kinds of greens--little and big"), whole grains (you can eat them without taking on an alternative lifestyle), and legumes ("you just put them in very hot water and leave them there a very long time"). You'll sample the Haspels' favorite recipes, such as Potato and Mushroom Pie with Polenta Crust (14 percent fat) and Nutritionally Correct One-Bowl Chocolate Cake (9 percent fat). Recipes include calories, fat grams, and saturated fat grams. The book is fun to read, plus you'll learn plenty about how to cook healthier without strain or pain. --Joan Price

From Publishers Weekly
The claim that healthy eating can be delicious isn't a new one, but since Americans eat about one hamburger patty's worth of lentils in a year, it's pretty clear we're a tough bunch to convince. Undaunted, this mother-daughter team, also responsible for "The Dreaded Broccoli" newsletter, keeps hope alive in a cookbook that's part recipe collection, part dietary intervention. The elder Haspel, Barbara, starts the ball rolling by describing how she came to healthy eating, namely her husband's heart attack. Influenced by Dean Ornish's diet plan, she realized she would have to make some modifications to get her family to stick with his stringent guidelines for the long term. And her approach workedAher husband lost weight, lowered his cholesterol and, most amazing of all, the food she was serving was so tasty she got her family to change its eating habits. Tamar, whose narratives alternate with her mother's, admits that she tends to think of french fries while eating her quinoa, but she makes her own delicious contributions. Keeping in mind that some people like meat, the authors include suggestions for fat-free beef stock and lots of recipes featuring such hearty meat substitutes as mushrooms (Potato and Mushroom Pie with Polenta Crust). There are imaginative dishes using grains, including Spicy Couscous with Leeks, Chickpeas and Peppers. Improvisation, fun and satisfaction are high on the list for the Haspels in this combination of techniques and recipes for healthy eating. This book is just what the cookAespecially the one in the kitchen every dayAordered.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
After her husband had a heart attack ten years ago, Haspel changed the way she cooked, reading everything about diet and health she could find. Her explorations eventually led to Dreaded Broccoli, a quarterly newsletter she and daughter Tamar have been writing for seven years, and then to this book. The dreaded broccoli refers not only to the drab gray overcooked stalks served up by some restaurants as the vegetable of the day but to any boring, tasteless health food, and the Haspels were determined from the start to avoid it. Barbara, author of most of the text, has a straightforward, no-nonsense style and a sharp-edged sense of humor; Tamars contributions include Whats with All the French? (in the stock chapter) and other essays in a similar vein, as well as a good number of the recipes. There are 100 or so of these, including The Mother of All Soups and All-Purpose Garlic Sauce, but the books greatest appeal will be for those who enjoy reading about food as well as cooking it. For most collections.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

The title doesn't do this wonderful book justice!!
I picked up this book because it was on sale (kind of an 'impulse buy'), but also because I'm trying to cultivate a desire to cook. Thinking the book was really just about broccoli, I let it sit on my bookshelf for a couple of months before even opening it. What a surprise to discover this is a wonderful book, and I love reading it! It's about so much more than broccoli, and I've learned a great deal about putting flavor into healthy food (a skill which doesn't come naturally to me). The authors (a mother and daughter team) are very amusing and informative, and a novice like me would actually feel comfortable cooking with them, rather than feeling intimidated. I would recommend this book to anyone who's not already an accomplished cook or chef ; I'm inspired to go buy a Römertopf (clay pot) and cook up a feast this weekend. (And I'm someone who often eats cereal for dinner to avoid cooking. No longer!!) I like to know how and why you do certain things when cooking, and this book tells you everything you need to know, and it's all fun.

Witty, insightful, a pleasure to read
Unlike other assorted low-fat cranks, the authors of Dreaded Broccoli actually like food, and it shows. The book is witty, insightful and a pleasure to read even if you never cook a single recipe. In fact, its title notwithstanding, it is not really a cookbook at all; the authors' insistence on "recipe independence" means not cooking the recipes is really part of the point.

Well written and Funny like the Newsletter, just longer
I have subscribed to the Dreaded Broccoli Newsletter for several years. It helps that I like to cook, but even if I didn't I would still enjoy reading the Haspels' writing. The Haspels are intelligent, highly literate authors whose ability to turn a phrase (article on cooking low fat buffalo meat at home titled "At Home on the Range") is a constant delight. I highly recommend this book to anyone that enjoys eating, reading or reading about eating.

Eli Becker