Our Favorite Cookbooks, Part II: Francesca’s Favorites

As usual I have waited until the last minute to write my “5 favorite cookbooks” article (Ken writes with ease and in such an interesting, creative way . . . not me, i have a tendency to try too hard with my limited writing skills and I’m too wordy), but since today I need to pick my “Wednesday night dinner” choices, this is perfect timing.

The Complete Vegetarian Cookbook
When Ken and I first started our romance together, I was a strict vegetarian (salmon once a year on my birthday) and he was still eating meat & chicken, supplementing with his love of fish & pastas. Our eating habits soon changed . . . I started eating more fish and he stopped eating meats. Christmas morning at my parents a few years ago, one of the presents to my mom was this cookbook. Ken and I immediately snatched it from her and began to look inside like two little kids. This cookbook offers a variety of creative main dishes, breakfast & brunch ideas, soups, pastas, casseroles, stir-fries, salads, and condiments. Accompanying this storybook of vegetarian cooking is an array of beautiful pictures to feast upon.

Vegetarian Planet
“350 big-flavor recipes for out-of-this-world food every day” . . . filled with little tidbits about some of the more unknown, hard to find, obscure ingredients.

Horn Of The Moon Cookbook
I happened upon this cookbook when planning a self-catering-accommodation vacation to Vermont to enjoy the autumn colors. In addition, we have a border collie whose name is “Moondoggie” and I seem to gravitate to anything with the word “moon” in it. Nonetheless, this is a wonderful little cookbook. The recipes (which come from the restaurant of the same name in Montpelier, Vermont) are quite simple using basic ingredients, yet fun and inventive.

Café Paradiso Seasons
Each chapter is devoted to a particular season – late spring, summer, autumn, winter, and early spring (with a chapter on outdoor cooking as well). At the beginning of each section is a list of the fruits & vegetables grown during that time of year. The pictures are deliciously enticing, the preparation instructions are incredibly vague, but the end results are very tasty and I love challenging my experience in the kitchen.

Moosewood Restaurant Simple Suppers
We have several Moosewood restaurant cookbooks, and this one is definitely my favorite. Excellent every day recipes for a wholesome, well-balanced diet . . . down-to-earth cooking fun.

(See Part I, Ken's favorite cookbooks, on this previous entry.)

Our Favorite Cookbooks

Not too long ago, we got to discussing our favorite cookbooks. As much as we invent and create, we still enjoy collecting and using cookbooks. We even have our Wednesday Night Dinners, where we randomly choose a recipe from one of our cookbooks. (Of course, we always seem to add, subtract, spice differently, or adapt almost any recipe we try. Truly, as I type this, Francesca is making a zucchini risotto that was originally a carrot risotto in the cookbook.)

Ken’s Favorites
(Next week, look for Francesca’s reviews of her favorite cookbooks.)

The Complete Asian Cookbook
If you want just one cookbook covering just about everything Asian – Thai, Japanese, Burmese, Indian, you name it – this should be on your shelf. Authentic recipes, often requiring hard-to-find Asian ingredients that may not be available outside larger cities. Nonetheless, a great book.

Great Dinners from Life
Life magazine used to run a feature on Great Dinners, where the entire meal was presented – appetizer, soup, main, dessert, as appropriate. The recipes were compiled into this book in 1969. I can’t think of another cookbook that has so many successful recipes. Plus, the photos are gorgeous and inspiring.

Moosewood Restaurant Simple Suppers
The Moosewood cooperative has been running a successful restaurant for decades, and producing cookbooks for nearly as long. The food is mostly vegetarian, but the newer cookbooks (such as this) include some fish and seafood recipes. We own several Moosewood cookbooks, but this is my favorite.

Woman’s Day Encyclopedia of Cookery
Old. This 12-volume series was published in 1966, and despite its age is still an incredible reference. If you want to know the history of asparagus, or the basics of how to make a hollandaise sauce, this is great. Probably only available in used book stores or thrift shops.

Horn of the Moon Cookbook
This was a cookbook I resisted actually liking. I found several recipes that sounded good, but they always seemed full of Tofu or earth-hugger grains; or the spicing seemed just too wimpy. Well, consider myself chastised. As we always do in the kitchen, we modify a lot, but the recipes in Horn of the Moon have consistently been excellent.