Mar. 7, 2008 - The Vegetable Dishes I Can't Live Without -- Cookbook Review.
The Vegetable Dishes I Can't Live Without by Mollie Katzen
A Cookbook Review
Last week I was reading a blog, and found a very nice review of the cookbook Deceptively Delicious by Jessica Seinfeld. I was very interested, because I just purchased the book and have not tried any recipes yet. I have since decided I am going to check out all cookbooks from the library before I buy them. I wish I had thought of that sooner! Reading such a detailed review was very helpful to me, and I thought maybe some of you would benefit from our cookbook experiences as well. My husband is what I call a "self-trained chef". I know, I know, he does not qualify for the title Chef according to iron chef definitions. However, if you ate at his table every night, you would know what I mean! So, one of our fun things to do together is read new cookbooks and try new recipes. This has become especially important since we have discovered that our four year old cannot have gluten or dairy. My Mom and I spent three weeks baking every gluten free bread recipe we could find; and who found the best recipe? You guessed it. My husband. While listening to the food show on NPR; he heard about this cookbook, The Vegetable Dishes I Can't Live Without by Mollie Katzen. He came home very excited, because this seemed like a great solution for our daughter. If you can't have bread or cheese, why not have some really interesting vegetable dishes? So we bought the book. The cookbook is very cute and feminine, with 127 "hand-written" recipes. We have now tried four recipes from this book, and our family has mixed reviews. Not one recipe is liked enough to make it into our permanent repertoire. We still have several recipes we plan to try, but I will give you our thoughts on what we have eaten so far.
Spaghetti Squash with Caramelized Onions and Crisp Sage Leaves - I love this dish! Unfortunately, I and my two year old are the only two of seven who appreciated the texture and flavor. We made a few alterations to the dish right up front, using a butter substitute in place of butter, and leaving out the sage leaves after finding that crisping them made them taste like burnt leaves. We could probably do better on that part next time. This dish takes a huge amount of time to prepare; and my husband says if I want it again I have to like it enough to make it myself. Counting baking times, it took over two hours to complete! This is just not very practical for my family. Still, I really enjoyed the stringy, buttery flavor and my little one and I ate all the leftovers.
Farfalle with Arugula Gremolata, Gorgonzola, Golden Raisins, and Walnuts -- This pasta salad was a complete failure in our family. The arugula gives it a very strong taste of cilantro, so they must be related. We just cannot handle that much "cilantro" taste. A little in our guacamole goes a long way. I think with spinach instead of arugula, I would really like this dish.
Tarragon-Pecan Asparagus -- Wow! This is another dish I absolutely loved. The tangy sweet sauce of vinegar and honey on the asparagus was fascinating. I liked this so much, my husband made it for me again to complement our salmon on Valentines Day. I am the only person in my family who really liked it; although it was tolerated. I think we would all love this preparation on green beans though.
Feta - Walnut Stuffed Cucumbers -- Hmmm... I amnot a fan of cucumbers to begin with so I did not expect to like this dish. Interestingly, my mother-in-law*, who loves cucumber, did not appreciate this presentation of it. I liked the filling, and thought it made eating cucumber tolerable... Two of my children loved this dish, so it might be something we fix again. We used authentic goat feta for this dish.
*Bless her heart, my Mother-In-Law was visiting the entire time we tried out this new cookbook; so she had to be one of our taste testers! That's why I mentioned seven people instead of six.
The bottom line is; We try not to insist on parent-led learning or gravitate toward child-led learning. We try instead to focus on God-led learning and ask for His input and perspective on every aspect of our home school. That way, when others fuss about what Dan and I are doing and make me second guess our decisions -- I can go back to our decision process and find God's fingerprints, reminding me that this is His way.
