oh, glorious cookbooks

I was blasting through my morning ritual of blog reading when I noticed that angry chicken wrote a post about her favorite vegetarian cookbook-The New Vegetarian Epicure by Anna Thomas!

What? I've never even heard of this cookbook! And all along I thought I was being a dutiful vegetarian--gathering all the greatest collections of recipes and shoving them in the small space above my stove to be pulled out once a week for recipe-choosing time. I rushed to my library's website right away and put this one on hold. Whew!

When we first got married my husband did most of the cooking. I enjoyed parts of cooking, but not others (I still can barely cut an onion). Regardless of my like or dislike of cooking, I was downright bad at it. No good. Forget it. I tried, I really did, but somehow the man always ended up slaving over the stove.

I still don't know what happened, but one day it clicked. I wanted to learn how to cook! I still remember cooking my first batch of tofu manicotti-the one where you have to make the marinara from scratch and stuff the soft pasta shells without breaking them. I was so impressed with myself I took pictures. And then began my love for all things of the kitchen. Since then I've made shrimp bisque, soup after soup after soup, homemade pies, sushi, etc. Now I do most of the cooking, and I'm not too shabby at it. I admit half the fun's wearing the apron.

my favorite cookbooks:


Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home
by the Moosewood Restaurant Collective

Absolutely brilliant! My husband's co-worker gave me this book one year as a sort of "ha ha, you're a vegetarian!" joke. She had purchased it for some reason (this woman makes her own sausage, she's no vegetarian), decided years later she didn't like it, and handed it over. Thinking it was some bargain-shelf purchase at first (maybe it was the cover color), I didn't pay too much attention to it. Oh, how I regret all those lost months when I could've been cooking Tofu Sloppy Joe's and Sweet Potatoe Quesadillas! Somehow we realized this book was a winner and so began our love for both creative cooking and Moosewood (we now own two or three others). If you haven't checked these guys out, you must! I demand it. I should warn you, though, there are no pictures-which, I admit, is a bummer.



Vegetarian Times: Complete Cookbook
The Editors of Vegetarian Times

I am in love with Vegetarian Times magazine, so when I heard last year that this book would be coming out I jumped up and down. My husband tipped my parents off, and I ended up at my own "fiesta" birthday celebration, unwrapped cookbook in hand, eating black bean and corn enchiladas from page 214. Boy, was it lovely. This cookbook is full of delicious recipes like spicy stuffed sweet potatoes (see blurry photo on the left) and Mexican lasagna. One of my first vegetarian cookbooks was the 1984 Veg. Times collection that my step-grandmother gave me as a gift, so we've had a special bond since the beginning (their potato soup was the first soup I ever made). This book does have a few pictures in the center, but not enough, as far as I'm concerned. However, there are sections called fast, fast foods as well as the young set (for kiddos) to make up for it. Plus, give it some credit for that beauty of a cover.

There is this saying in my family (and maybe in a lot of people's families) that every cookbook is only worth four or five recipes. I thought it was hogwash until I discovered the joys of cooking and realized that it's true-I only use four or five recipes from almost every cookbook I own. What is it with that, anyway? Is it some subconcious pull in my brain that I can only use this certain amount or is the urban legend a real legend? I'll have to say that these two cookbooks are the closest I've come to using more than a measly five recipes. I am officially on the hunt for a fully-functional cookbook.