Product Description

Eating the Moosewood Restaurant way every day has never been easier.

Whole grains. Fresh fruits and vegetables. Lean, nutrient-rich fish. We all know the virtues of a well-balanced diet—of choosing foods that nourish our bodies and respect the environment—but as the world around us gets busier and more complicated, we also know how difficult it can be to prepare a wholesome, satisfying supper. With an emphasis on healthful natural foods, Moosewood Restaurant has operated successfully for more than thirty years and has been acclaimed as a driving force in the world of creative vegetarian cuisine. Now the Moosewood Collective goes back to basics with Moosewood Restaurant Simple Suppers to deliver fresh, imaginative, and quickly prepared dishes for the weeknight table that are also delicious and reliable.

Shortcut Chili. Creamy Lemon Pasta. Warm French Lentil Salad. Pine Nut–Crusted Fish. Mocha Sorbet. From soups and pastas made with just a few pantry essentials to crisp salads, stir-fries, sandwiches, and desserts, these easy-to-prepare recipes are brilliant as is. However, the folks at Moosewood realize that flexibility is the cornerstone of weeknight cooking, so you’ll find clever ingredient substitutions, alternative cooking methods, and serving suggestions alongside the recipes in Simple Suppers—it all depends on what’s in the fridge and what sounds appetizing at the moment. Make extra Fresh Tomato and Mozzarella Salad on Monday and toss leftovers with hot pasta for Tuesday’s supper. No onions for Black Beans with Pickled Red Onions? Try the beans over rice with Quick Avocado and Corn Salsa instead. The 175-plus recipes in Moosewood Restaurant Simple Suppers are as flexible as they are flavorful—the perfect go-to for a quick, healthy meal any day of the week, any time of year.



We crave simple food.
We want cooking at home to be a small pleasure—relaxed enough that we can enjoy the process as well as the results. When we mentioned to friends that we were thinking of doing a book of recipes for simple suppers, inevitably they exclaimed, “That’s the one I need” or “Write that book for me.” The idea of simple suppers strikes a chord within us all. We hope this cookbook will help make suppertime a welcome, peaceful time of your day. —from the Introduction

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #27180 in Books
• Published on: 2005-10-25
• Released on: 2005-10-25
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 304 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780609609125
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
For many baby boomers, Moosewood Restaurant is synonymous with vegetarian cooking, thanks to Mollie Katzen's 1977 classic cookbook, which brought the joys of hummus, tofu and other veggie staples to home kitchens. The Ithaca, N.Y., establishment now publishes books in the name of the collective; this is the 11th. By emphasizing ease of preparation and reliance on as few ingredients as possible, the authors must stretch to find new twists on the vegetarian repertoire they've covered previously. They include new dishes such as Indonesian Sweet Potato and Cabbage Soup, and Cranberry Bulghur Pilaf—but it's ultimately familiar fare like Warm French Lentil Salad that is most appealing. The book's only real surprise is a section devoted to fish, the sole animal protein included. Working parents and students will welcome the consistent use of canned and frozen ingredients, but the quick and easy approach combined with the preponderance of dishes like Corn on the Cob, Greek Salad, Coconut Rice, and Easy Egg Rolls result in a book that might've been better in an inexpensive paperback format than a glossy hardcover. Those seeking a cheap, simple vegetarian supper are better off pulling that old, dog-eared paperback off the shelf. Photos. (On sale Oct. 25)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
The Moosewood Collective adds to its growing list of indispensable titles with this compendium of delicious, healthful recipes that aim for simplicity and speed. As in many Moosewood titles, the recipes are mostly vegetarian, with the addition of a seafood section. Included are sections focusing on pasta, eggs, grains, beans, soups, salads, and desserts as well as an unusually large section of homemade sauces and dressings to enliven basic staples and encourage experimentation. Each chapter begins with helpful tips about even the most basic foods (there's a double-page spread just about corn on the cob, for example), and there's also shopping advice, as in the pasta chapter's explanation of "why made in Italy matters." Every recipe is followed by ideas for variations and menu planning. Moosewood devotees will recognize the familiar blend of cultural influences represented here--Asian, Middle Eastern, French, African, Cajun, and more--and an appendix offers detailed explanations of the elements in "a well-stocked pantry." Timely, reliable, and inventive, this is sure to inspire harried diners to reach for the cupboard doors rather than the takeout menus. Gillian Engberg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author
Recipients of three James Beard Awards and numerous nominations, the Moosewood Collective has now branched out into prepared foods, which are available in natural food stores and supermarkets nationwide. Moosewood Restaurant Simple Suppers is their eleventh cookbook.

Moosewood, Inc., and the authors who contributed to this book have donated one percent of their earnings from Simple Suppers to the Robin Whittlesey Social Justice Fund, which provides emergency support to individuals and children in the Ithaca community who are undergoing hardship or who have special unmet needs.

Customer Reviews

Modern, easy, fast, fresh
I own all of the Moosewood books, and this one is already a favorite (along with Cooks at Home and Daily Specials). Simple Suppers reads like an updated version of Cooks at Home- the recipes are straightforward and easy to prepare, but original in the combinations of flavors and textures. Green Bean and White Bean Gratin contains green beans, pureed white beans and whole white beans layered with cheese and breadcrumbs for a filling winter meal. Navajo Stew combines roasted sweet potatoes with black beans and a quick blender tomato-chipotle sauce. Tortilla Melts are quick sandwiches of roasted mushrooms with pesto, tomatoes, and cheese. I made all of these in the past week and my husband and I both liked them a lot- good, unfussy food.

My only quibble is that it would be nice if nutritional information had been included. Many of the recipes are decidedly not light as written, but could be lightened fairly easily.

More great ideas from the Moosewood people
If you're looking for food that's healthy, tasty and easy to prepare, I don't think the Moosewood cookbooks can be beat. While I've only tried a couple of recipes from this new cookbook, they've both been good and simple to put together, and I'm looking forward to trying many more. I love to cook, and I love to try new dishes, but I'm also interested in staying slender and in not spending too much time in the kitchen: Moosewood achieves all of that for me. I especially appreciate their "serving and menu ideas," in which they make suggestions for what you may want to serve with the current recipe to make a whole meal -- very nice for entertaining. If you don't own any Moosewood cookbooks, the "Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home" is probably the one to start with. With that one and this one together, however, you'd have a formidable collection of recipes. Enjoy!

My least favorite from the Moosewood Collective -- but still a winner
I love all of the Moosewood cookbooks; unfortunately I have to say that this one is my least favorite.

Still, it gets four stars because all of the recipes are exactly as advertised: fresh and simple (mostly) vegetarian meals that you can throw together for a hungry family. They are also all delicious -- again, something you can count on with any Moosewood cookbook -- and provide a lot of variety in flavors, textures, and types of meals included. The authors also make suggestions for menus as well as including tips and ideas for parents, which is a plus.

My complaints with this particular cookbook are mostly little petty things, like the fact that the photos of the Collective members and the hand-made, folksy artwork have been mostly replaced by glossy color photographs. Also, these are not complex, stunning culinary creations -- they are all *very* simple -- which of course is part of the charm of this book. You don't have to spend an hour or two on a meal with this cookbook; it is most definitely a "weeknight" sort of cookbook. While this is most excellent for beginning cooks, if you already are relatively experienced you don't really need a recipe for some of these things. Like the Poached Huevos Rancheros -- delicious, but do you really need a *recipe* for that?

Despite my complaints, I still recommend this book, especially because it rounds out the rest of the Moosewood Restaurant collection by providing a simple, inviting set of recipes for the rushed cook.