Product Description

The fresh vegetable sections in most supermarkets, farmers' markets, and gourmet groceries are overflowing with an amazing range of produce, both familiar and exotic. Consumers are tempted by kale and kohlrabi, taro and tomatillos, bok choy and burdock, along with all the familiar choices. Now acclaimed cookbook author and food writer Jack Bishop offers a comprehensive A-to-Z guide to this bounty of produce, complete with selection tips, preparation instructions, and hundreds of recipes for more than sixty-six commonly available vegetables. With Bishop's expert advice, you'll learn how to coax the very best flavor from every vegetable, whether it's a carrot, cauliflower, or cardoon. Wondering how and when to buy the sweetest green beans? Bishop suggests buying at the height of summer, and selecting beans that are crisp and slim (older, thicker beans will be mealy and bland). Confused about how to cook the spring's first sorrel? Bishop offers such unique and delicious dishes as Sorrel and Potato Soup and Sorrel Frittata. These recipes -- like all 350 in the book -- are clear and uncomplicated, ensuring success for even the novice cook. So whether you are looking for a salad or side dish, a vibrant main course, or simply great mashed potatoes, you are sure to find it in this essential kitchen companion. We all know that vegetables are the key to healthful eating -- now it's time to discover how great they can taste, each and every day!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #44939 in Books
• Published on: 2001-04-01
• Released on: 2001-04-03
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 416 pages

Amazon.com's Best of 2001
If you find yourself in daily dread of how to fix those vegetables that Mom always told you to eat, your lifeline is here. Unique and tempting recipes are abundant in Jack Bishop's Vegetables Every Day. Throughout the book's 66 chapters--one for each vegetable he includes in the book--Bishop features the retail availability of the specific veggie, the best season to find the most flavorful choice, and which characteristics to look for in a good specimen. He also includes recommendations for best preparation and which spices and herbs will best support and enhance the flavor of the vegetable of choice.

The recipes range from the basic to the complex, from simple steamed broccoli to rich soups such as Corn Chowder with Leeks and Potatoes. Even traditional recipes get an update, such as sautéed mushrooms cooked with butter, onions, and garlic. In just two simple steps, Bishop's interpretation has the mushrooms taking on an exquisite flavor that can stand alone as a side dish or as a topping for a rich steak. There may be some vegetables that are much less well known and even more difficult to find at the corner grocery store, such as malanga, Jerusalem artichokes, or salsify, but if you're interested, his suggestions might just help you find and tastefully enjoy them. Vegetables Every Day is the solution to satisfying the recommended five servings of vegetables a day. --Teresa Simanton

From Publishers Weekly
This new cookbook by the author of Pasta e Verdura is for cooks who want to broaden their repertoire of side dishes and capitalize on the abundant produce now available in grocery stores. Not sure how to cook fresh beets? Want your family to try mashed malanga instead of potatoes? Bishop gives helpful instructions on selection, seasonality, cleaning and simple preparation techniques (especially grilling, braising and stir-frying). Readers should know that this is not a vegetarian cookbook offering a breadth of entr,es (in fact, beans, except for fava beans, aren't even included), but rather an unadorned volume that offers an exciting twist on foods we know are good for us but often ignore. Simplicity and ease are the hallmarks of this cookbook; however, there are a few idiosyncrasies for the reader to adapt to: the table of contents is alphabetized, but the system is sometimes counterintuitive (squashes are categorized by season--"Winter Squash and Pumpkin" and "Zucchini and Other Summer Squash"--but that's a minor quibble). Many of the salad recipes, such as Moroccan Fennel and Grapefruit Salad with Olives, are inspired, and many ethnic cuisines are represented, though, unfortunately, none in great depth. Cooks who love to read cookbooks will find the streamlined text lacking in historical anecdotes and nutritional information, which would certainly add to the book's health-conscious appeal. Agent, Angela Miller. (Apr.)Forecast: While useful as a guide to selection and basic preparation, this book won't appeal to the many cooks who, pressed for time, look for more comprehensive volumes. However, this title is a natural sell to vegetarians, and enough of them may be interested to produce healthy sales.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Bishop is a senior editor of Cook's Illustrated and author of several other cookbooks celebrating vegetables (Pasta e Verdura). While "definitive" is something of an overstatement, his latest title provides hundreds of recipes and basic information on choosing, storing, and cooking more than 60 vegetables, from the familiar to the still-exotic (calabaza and cardoons, for example). The recipes the majority are side dishes, but there are some main courses, too are quick and simple, just the thing for today's busy cooks. Highly recommended.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

A Great Reference for the Best Way to Cook Veggies
If you love to cook and eat vegetables, this is the book for you. This book does an excellent job of teaching the basics of vegetables, including selecting, cleaning, storing, and preparing. The best way to prepare vegetables is presented, and the recipes are designed to teach the reader how to cook vegetables without having to rely on the book while in the kitchen. I've actually taught people how to roast asparagus spears with olive oil and kosher salt based on what I've learned in this book. The book will also confront some misconceptions about particular vegetables - cucumbers can be cooked! As noted by another reviewer on Library Thing, the vegetables are side dishes, not the centerpiece. But any user will find that the vegetables, well cooked and seasoned, can make a good meal great.

Use this cookbook everyday!
This is probably my favorite cookbook. The organization by vegetable makes trying new things easy. It is also great for when a friend hands you a sack full of - oh, say - turnips and you don't know what to do with them!

Really, really useful book. Not for vegetarians only!

Looks good, but doesn't work for me
I'm trying to improve my family's nutrition by preparing and eating a vegetable side dish with dinner each night. I'm looking for a cookbook with quick (< 15 minute), simple (< 5 ingredients), and healthy (not relying on cheese or cream of mushroom soup for flavor) vegetable recipes that my husband and children will actually eat. This book looked good when I flipped through it at the bookstore, but it hasn't withstood the "do I actually use it?" test. The recipes are interesting, but always seem to have one or two ingredients that I don't keep on hand. Flavor-wise I'd give them 3-4 stars, but I nothing that I've made from this book has seemed worth making a second time.

I do give it good marks for organization and background info on how to choose and store each vegetable. It also describes the best general cooking techniques (roasting, braising, stir-fry, etc) for each vegetable, but I'm not a good enough cook to make a good dish from those hints.