The Moosewood Restaurant Cooking for Health: More Than 200 New Recipes for Delicious and Nutrient-Rich Dishes [Anglais] [Relié]

Admittedly, when I see "Healthy" as a description in a cookbook's title, I get a bit skittish. My head thinks healthy is wonderful, but my palate sometimes disagrees. Moosewood Restaurant Cooking for Health has exceeded all expectations and does not sacrifice taste for health. It's has opened up a new world of delicious and yes, quite healthy, food for me and my family.

Cooking for Health has loads of nutritional information at the beginning of the book. It's followed by cooking methods, then the recipes. It's your typical all-around cookbook with chapters on: Breakfast, Eggs, Appetizers, Salads, Soups, Sandwiches, Burgers, Stir-frys & Sautes, Tofu, Savory Pastries, Beans, Pasta, Stews, Veganism, Raw Foods, Grains, Side Veggies and Desserts.

I cook a lot, and own a selection of quality cookbooks. After buying this cookbook and making some of the recipes, I now use this as my Go-To cookbook. I've made the Savory Asparagus and Mushroom Bread Pudding, Pasta with Broccoli and Thai Red Curry. They all came out so delicious, my husband and I loved them. The Asparagus and Mushroom bread pudding was only 222 calories per serving too! It certainly didn't taste like a low calorie dish, and I can't wait to make it again.

My favorite things about the Moosewood Restaurant Cooking for Health are the "extras" given for each recipe. They describe each recipe at the beginning, plus give variations, helpful suggestions, and serving ideas. The serving ideas can be food-related, or enhance the visual presentation.

This is the kind of cookbook you can take to bed and read, or just start cooking with. The ingredient lists are not overly lenghty, nor are the instructions for cooking. Every recipe lists "Hands-on Time" and "Baking Time" so you know how long a recipe takes and can plan accordingly.

Each recipe has a nutritional breakdown consisting of Calories, Protein, Carbohydrate, Dietary Fiber, Total Fat, Saturated Fat, Monounsaturated Fat, Cholesterol and Sodium. Also listed is the total number of servings, plus the volume yield, so you can easily dole out proper portion servings if you're watching your weight.

The cookbook has vegetarian, vegan and raw selections to choose from. They also give variations on some vegetarian recipes to make them vegan. (But if you're vegan, you often know how to adjust recipes your own way too.) The recipes also come with "Serving and Menu ideas" which can be suggestions on food pairings, or adjusting a lighter meal to make it heartier.

The one change I'd like to see with any Moosewood cookbook is photos. I understand that Moosewood likes to keep their style, but I'm one of those people who loves photos of food.

Over the years, cookbooks from the Moosewood Collective have evolved quite a bit. I'm already the happy owner of a few (definitely get Sundays at Moosewood to expand your cultural cooking repetoire). This new cookbook is quite large and packed not only with very healthy recipes, but loads of information on the foods in that chapter. Some of the information is a bit pedestrian, but it seems to be targeted at folks who might be new to vegetarian or healthy-eating lifestyles.

What I really like about this cookbook goes beyond the recipes (and I'll get to that next). The layout, often forgotten by cookbook publishers, is an important part about using cookbooks. Moosewood Restaurant Cooking for Health goes a very long way toward making cooking easier for its readers. The ingredients are set aside in a pleasingly shaded box and the ingredients themselves are bolded. These are important elements for folks who may have the book resting in another part of kitchen while cooking and have to run back and forth to the book to see what comes next.

Importantly, the ingredients are presented in the order in which they are used. Don't laugh! Some books forget about this and make it hard for cooks to deal. Also, very important, most of the recipes are very simple, and the directions are limited to one side of an open spread. I find that very useful. One of the design flaws that bugs me the most is running the recipe to a turned page (especially during a portion of the recipe that requires care).

The recipe pages also include the very handy nutritional information (calories, serving size, fat, etc.). Additionally, swap-outs and other recipe suggestions are included.

OK, now for the recipe info. I tried out the Apple-Blueberry Crumble on page 316. It is very easy to make, and I even added pumpkin and sesame seeds to the crumble topping to customize it. It came out perfectly, and didn't take longer than the projected baking/hands-on times listed at the top of the recipe (another great feature of the book).

I'm looking forward to working my way through the recipes as I have done with other Moosewood books. I recommend it for new and experienced healthy eaters interesested in changing up some classics as well as learning a wide variety of new recipes.

I bought "The Moosewood Restaurant Cooking for Health" because I love "Low Fat Favorites" and other titles by the same group. I was disappointed to find that this book devotes a great deal of space to discussion of health research and significantly less space to the celebration of vegetarian food. In contrast to other Moosewood books that I've seen, this one takes a relatively medicalized approach to eating (in which foods are described and valued for their nutritional components rather than for their flavor, beauty, or sustainability). This approach also interferes with the quality and clarity of many of the recopies. (Ex: some of the baked goods call for imprecise amounts of stevia rather than using molasses, honey, brown sugar or some other sweetener.) This book might work for people who want to eat vegetarian foods for health reasons, but it offers less than usual to those who pursue cooking as a hobby or social activity.