Product Description

With three bustling restaurants located throughout the Los Angeles area, Real Food Daily boasts a loyal clientele of ravenous vegetarian diners and health-conscious celebrities, trendsetting young hipsters and members of Southern California 's culinary community at large. After 10 successful years as a cherished destination for lovers of delicious and naturally wholesome cuisine, this eclectic hot spot continues to thrive under the stewardship of its pioneering founder, Ann Gentry, who raises the standards and expectations of nutritious, meat-free cooking through her unique brand of California cuisine. In THE REAL FOOD DAILY COOKBOOK, you'll find recipes for 150 of the restaurants' most popular dishes, such as Lentil-Walnut Pâté; Country-Style Miso Soup; Tuscan Bean Salad with Herb Vinaigrette; Southern-Style Skillet Cornbread; Tofu Quiche with Leeks and Asparagus; Acorn Squash Stuffed with Sweet Rice, Currants, and Vegetables; and Coconut Cream Pie with Chocolate Sauce. After years of getting floods of recipe requests from her loyal customers, Ann is delivering in full force, not only to her patient fans, but to everyone who yearns for delicious, healthful, real food in their daily lives.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #42935 in Books
• Published on: 2005-10-04
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 232 pages

From Publishers Weekly
When Gentry opened her first vegan restaurant, Real Food Daily (RFD) in Santa Monica, Calif., in 1993, naysayers said a meat-free, dairy-free restaurant with a focus on organic produce would never make it. But Gentry knew she could serve "real food"—satisfying, nutritious and delicious cuisine—without animal products. Three RFD restaurants later, she presents this cookbook, a reflection of what she has learned about seasonal, organic, macrobiotic and vegan cooking. Gentry doesn't break new ground—sandwiches made with tempeh instead of meat, and nut cheeses like cashew cheddar will be familiar to most vegans—but she provides clear and comprehensive directions on how to make them more interesting and flavorful. For example, she adds tofu ricotta cheese to her Reuben sandwich and enhances Lentil-Walnut Pâté with fresh basil and thyme. Gentry explains the basics without preaching or condescending to readers, and discusses nutritional benefits without unnecessary jargon. Beginning cooks and those new to veganism will find much to enjoy here. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
This vegan cookbook springs from Gentry's experiences at her Southern California restaurant chain. Gentry has attracted a host of followers to her vegan lifestyle by cooking with carefully chosen and imaginatively seasoned fresh, organic ingredients. In making pasta salad, Gentry uses spelt pasta rather than the customary wheat version. With this salad's julienned peppers, broccoli, mushrooms, olives, and toasted pine nuts in balsamic vinaigrette, one needs no extraneous meat. Soymilk substitutes in many recipes for cow's milk, and tofu cheese makes up for the absence of dairy cheese. She transforms hackneyed green bean-canned mushroom soup casserole by steeping fresh green beans in vegan mushroom gravy and topping them with homemade fried onion rings. Tempeh substitutes for meat where necessary. Since many devoted vegans avoid refined sugar, desserts call for maple syrup and swap in vegetable oils for butter. Gentry advocates using only seasonally available fresh ingredients, preferring not to prepare any dish that calls for an item not immediately locally available. Mark Knoblauch
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

From the Author
A collection of 150 vegetarian recipes from the wildly popular, Los Angeles-based Real Food Daily restaurants, featuring fresh ingredients, and bold, bright flavors.

Includes more than 50 full-color photos; chapters on equipping your kitchen; "real food" kitchen basics; and the philosophy behind Ann 's cooking that makes it nurturing to both body and spirit.

Presents macrobiotic, gourmet vegetarian, vegan, ethnic, and raw cuisines in an easily accessible style.

Customer Reviews

Slim volume that packs a lot of flavor
You will find lots of innovative ideas for vegetarian appetizers, salads, sandwiched, other entrees and dessert in attractive book. Based on the RFD philosphy and cafe, the book has some winning recipes and combinations and you are sure to find something that will catch your eye, even if every single recipe is not to your taste. Certainly worth checking out from the local library or browsing through for a leisurely read.

A great book if you have way too much time on your hand!
This is a solid cookbook for vegans or anyone who would like to venture a little bit out of their "ingredients comfort zone." What I clearly did not like about this cookbook was that the recipes were very time consuming! Sometimes you even had to prepare some ingredients, like for example, Tofu Whip (another two-page, two-hour recipe), in order to make a small snack. While I love to cook even if it takes effort and time this book pushed me a bit over the edge.
One final thing I thought was quite amusing was that the author claims in the introduction, that organic produce contains more vitamins than regular produce. While that might (or might not) be true it is slightly beside the point. I choose to eat organic food because of the things it DOES NOT contain (pesticides and the like) and because it saves our environment.
Anyway, I would not recommend this book unless you don't mind spending hours on preparing these dishes.

Excellent product!
Book was delivered in excellent time and in the condition specified. Packaging was neat and professional.