Product Description

The potager, or French vegetable garden, represents the very best of French cuisine: fresh, flavorful, and easily accessible for home cooks everywhere. In Vegetable Harvest, Patricia Wells presents a collection of recipes inspired by the garden she tends at her home in Provence.

No one has done more than Patricia to bring the art and techniques of French cooking into American kitchens. Now, in her tenth cookbook, she covers every kind of produce favored by French cooks from north to south. In addition, there are charming profiles of French farmers, home gardeners, and cooks, with sixty-five stunning color photographs.

From arugula to zucchini, Patricia offers up a wealth of dishes that incorporate vegetables, herbs, nuts, legumes, and fruits fresh from the garden. And her recipes aren't limited to summer's bounty—there are plenty for fall squash and winter potatoes, too.

The recipes in Vegetable Harvest include everything from appetizers, soups, and salads, to meats, poultry, and pasta. There are classics like Spicy Butternut Squash Soup, Roast Leg of Lamb with Honey and Mint Crust, and Pea and Mint Risotto, as well as innovative new dishes that are sure to become time-honored favorites, such as Potato-Chive Waffles with Smoked Salmon, Capers, and Crème Fraîche, Tomato and Strawberry Gazpacho, and Zucchini Blossoms Stuffed with Goat Cheese and Basil. To finish your meal with a flourish, there are decadent, fruity desserts like Pistachio-Cherry Cake with Cherry Sorbet, Rhubarb-Berry Compote in Grenadine, and Crunchy Almond-Pear Cake. In addition, there is a chapter on pantry staples that includes Patricia's recipes for Zesty Lemon Salt, Truffle Butter, and Fresh Cilantro Sauce.

And while Patricia's wonderful dishes sound sinful, they are in fact quite healthful, low in fat and calories; nutritional information is given for each recipe.

With Vegetable Harvest, you'll be eating the best nature has to offer—fresh, flavorful produce—all year round.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #21931 in Books
• Published on: 2007-04-01
• Released on: 2007-04-10
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 336 pages

Amazon.com
To dispense with a puzzlement right away--though named Vegetable Harvest, Patricia Wells's marvelous 190-plus recipe collection doesn't center on those edibles exclusively. Rather, it offers a well-rounded dish selection that puts them to brilliant use, often as supporting players (except, of course, in chapters titled "Vegetables" and "Potatoes"). This bit of culinary license shouldn't discourage anyone from buying the book, whose recipes, such as Baby Squid Salad with Garlic, Olives, Tomatoes and Parsley; Penne with Fava Beans, Basil Puree, and Parmesan; and Lamb Couscous with Chickpeas and Zucchini, exemplify all that's remarkable about Wells's approach to modern French cooking. Emphasizing simplicity, ingredient freshness and, yes, ease of preparation, the dishes--including breads and desserts like Lemon and Rosemary Flatbread and Almond Buttermilk Sorbet--will delight any cook who prizes direct yet brilliantly orchestrated flavor. In addition to wine advice, Wells also offers a pantry chapter including sauce and vinaigrette recipes--Creamy Lemon-Chive Dressing is one--nearly worth owning the book for. In works including The Provence Cookbook and Bistro Cooking, Wells brought French cooking to the American kitchen in a way both authentic and relaxed. Vegetable Harvest furthers that approach spectacularly. --Arthur Boehm

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Wells, the author of several cookbooks including The Provence Cookbook, puts vegetables center stage in this appetizing and innovative collection. After surveying the bounty of her backyard garden, Wells became inspired to build meals around vegetables rather than starting with meat, fish or poultry. She tripled the number she served at each meal and tried different cooking methods, looking for the best-tasting, most wholesome ways of cooking each type. She includes nutritional information and an equipment list for each recipe, and selectively offers wine suggestions, translations of French food idioms, and nuggets of folklore connected to the dish or main ingredient. Recipes are plentiful and tantalizing, all with a slightly unusual approach. She moves from appetizers and salads through meats and side dishes to breads and desserts. The section on pasta, rice, beans, and grains is especially appealing, with such offerings as Pumpkin and Sage Risotto, and Roasted Chickpeas, Mushrooms, Artichokes and Tomatoes. Unusually titled chapters such as "The Pantry" and "Eggs, Cheese, and Friends" provide more than a few gems: Parmesan, Pine Nut, and Truffle Gratins, Fresh Figs on Rosemary Skewers, and Zesty Lemon Salt. Wells offers a fresh perspective and wealth of options for making vegetables the centerpiece of every meal. This collection is highly recommended for cooks and gardeners alike. (Apr.)
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About the Author

Patricia Wells is the food critic for the International Herald Tribune and the author of ten books, including The Provence Cookbook, Bistro Cooking, Patricia Wells at Home in Provence, and the Food Lover's Guide to Paris, now in its fourth edition. She is a frequent guest on national television shows. She has lived in France for more than twenty-five years.

Customer Reviews

vegetable harvest; vegetables at the centre of the plate
'a joy to experience' is the only way to describe Patricia Wells "Vegetable Harvest".
As an experienced cook and caterer I applaud the bravery and insight of the author to create this tome which unashamedly champions the bounty of her personal garden .
One niggle was as an Australian I found the lack of metric measurement in recipes a frustration.
Vegetable Harvest" is inspirational in its prose, and entertaining with quotes and wine suggestions. One gets the impression of health and vitality from this book without needing to reckon the calorific value of each recipe which is given with other nutritional info for readers .
I am left with an overwhelming desire to plant my own "vegetable harvest" but failing that, to seek out the best produce that I can afford or find, as the overriding message of this book is one of "reverence for nature and its bounty"
cheers

Giving veggies their place
This book is both a visual feast for the eyes and a salute to vegetables and the farmers/growers responsible. The book, the latest in a number of cookbooks written by this author, is designed around the premise that vegetables should be center stage on the plate. Instead of creating meals around meats, fish or poultry, the author writes in the introduction she began putting the vegetables first and working everything else around that.

The result is a colorful ode to vegetables that provides many different ways of cooking and using them to shake up the meal and your palate. Moving from appetizers, to salads, to soups, to poultry and meats and ultimately breads and desserts with every stage in between, author Patricia Wells creates meal after delectable meal on paper. Almost every single recipe is illustrated, not with a picture of the dish, but instead with a picture of the vegetable or vegetables for sales in the markets near the author's home in France.

Cooks experienced with various types of cooking equipment and utensils will find these recipes simple while those of us with less experience may find some of the more complex ones intimidating. Still, the instructions are straightforward and understandable and each recipe comes with a small amount of dietary information on calories, fat, carbohydrates, etc. Those on salt sensitive diets may wish to do a little research on items within a recipe before actually making the dish as that information is not provided.

At 324 pages, including an index and a detailed section on various things that each cook, according to the author, should have on hand such as homemade chicken stock, basil-lemon dressing, watercress pesto, etc. this book is aimed primarily at cooks that have the time and skills necessary to go beyond the standard fare. As such, this book is interesting, colorful and inspiring and can be used as tool to increase variety at the table.

Kevin R. Tipple (copyright) 2008

I'm a fan of Ms. Wells but...
I own several Patricia Wells books and like them all. But this one...I could be wrong, but rather than the product of real inspiration it strikes me as something that was merely due as part of a multi-book contract. Some of the recipes are so basic as to be only just above the level of how to boil potatoes. At least one recipe calls for INSTANT polenta (when's the last time you made instant polenta?). She can't seem to focus on vegetables without meat products, such as stock. Sorry to be a grouch but I was underwhelmed. And not to pick on the other reviews, but I don't get the impression that folks have actually cooked a selection of the recipes. As for me, I'll stick with Bistro Cooking and the Provence Cookbook.