The Heart of the Plate

Starred review from July 1, 2013
Katzen elevated vegetables from canned side dish to main act in her ground-breaking The Moosewood Cookbook. This collection again shines the spotlight on the glories of vegetables, but focuses on their natural flavors rather than rich accompaniments such as butter, cream, and cheese. Katzen does an admirable job, not only in lightening and simplifying but in creative recipes that combine everyday vegetables in appetizing ways. Her soups, both hot and cold, are particularly satisfying and are reason enough to buy the book. Mushroom wonton soup, tomato-coconut soup with Indian spices, and cucumber-melon-peach gazpacho round out a tasty array of options. Salads abound, including kale Caesar and fattoush. Grains, burgers, and pasta complement stellar chapters on superb stews with equally fabulous accompaniments such as very simple lentil stew with cottage cheese dumplings and black-eyed pea, squash, and shiitake stew with ginger-pecan mini biscuits; cozy mashes that include broccoli, parsnips, and peas; and vegetables with a twist such as brussels sprouts with cranberries, flash-fried kale with garlic, almonds and cheese, and twice-cooked Italian broccoli. While suppers from the oven might conjure images of tired casseroles, Katzen provides refreshing options such as mushroom popover pie and asparagus puff pastry tart. Desserts are equally appealing, from fruit-studded madeleine cake to olive oil-walnut-pomegranate baklava. As an added bonus, more than half of these recipes are vegan. Katzen once again reminds us that simple, fresh, and flavorful vegetables can be inspirational as well as nutritional. Agent: Steve Troha and Jeff Kleinman, Folio Literary.

August 1, 2013

Over the years, well-known vegetarian cookbook author Katzen's (The Moosewood Cookbook) recipes have become lighter, trading generous glugs of heavy cream for flavorful stocks, sauces, and garnishes. Her newest collection of recipes (many vegan and a few repurposed from previous publications) has an easy elegance reminiscent of titles by Deborah Madison and Alice Waters and includes meat-free burgers, vegetable mashes, savory pancakes, soups, desserts, and more. Each recipe (e.g., winter lasagna, soba-seaweed salad) lists alluring "optional enhancements" like a dab of salsa verde or a side of celery-almond-date saladita. VERDICT A dependable compendium of unfussy, home-cooked vegetarian meals.

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2013
Already renowned in vegetarian circles for her groundbreaking Moosewood Cookbook (1977), Katzen has productively spent the intervening decades expanding her repertoire and has retuned her remarkable cuisine to twenty-first-century tastes. Incorporating grains in novel ways, she offers a rich version of Stroganoff: mushrooms stewed with cabbage, and served atop dumplings made from barley. A plethora of pasta dishes address the heartiest appetites. One-dish meals ease dinnertime for the busy cook. Katzen clearly appreciates texture's role in producing food that's not just palatable but truly satisfying, incorporating crunchy and crispy accents to enhance what might otherwise be predictable vegetable fare. Desserts include homemade ricotta cheese. Where feasible, Katzen instructs on reformulating recipes to conform to vegan criteria. Thanks to increased public awareness of the importance of consuming more fruits and vegetables and cutting back on meat, there is built-in demand for Katzen's innovative vegetarian cooking even among staunch carnivores.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)