In my kitchen A collection of new and favorite vegetarian recipes

Madison (Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone), a doyen of vegetarian cooking, shares her favorite recipes, some of which are revised and revamped to reflect how she cooks today. She begins with advice on choosing vegetables, learning to use a knife, and composing a vegetarian menu. She lists dishes alphabetically, from artichoke and scallion sauté over garlic-rubbed toast to zucchini cake. Appealing dishes feature black-eyed peas, kale, and rhubarb. Broccoli with roasted peppers, feta, olives, and herbs combines earthy with briny for a wonderfully bright dish, and yeasted buckwheat waffles are a pleasant wake-up dish or breakfast-for-dinner option. Her savoy cabbage, leek, and mushroom braise on toast with horseradish cream is hearty and comforting; the roasted cauliflower with romesco sauce and a shower of parsley is almost too beautiful to eat. Madison's salad of citrus and avocado with lime-cumin vinaigrette and shredded greens is a vibrant blend of acidity, bitterness, and tang. She provides flavors for every palate and every course, including appealing desserts such as olive oil, almond, and blood orange cake; rhubarb-raspberry compote; and walnut nugget cookies. Eye-catching full-color photos further enhance this stellar collection. One glance will quickly show why the dishes here are Madison's go-to meals, and they will soon become readers' favorites as well. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Vegetarian cooking expert Madison (Vegetable Literacy) pairs updated classics from her decadeslong career with new favorites from her home kitchen. Simple recipes, many of them vegan or gluten-free, are ordered alphabetically by ingredient or dish (e.g., beans, broccoli, cheese souffle, pasta) and include such delights as a roasted Jerusalem artichoke soup with sunflower sprouts and seeds, potato and green chile stew, and sweet potato (or pumpkin) pudding with silky persimmon puree. There are wonderful sauces, spreads, and compound butters to spice up crudités and starters, and elegant fruit desserts that won't leave diners feeling overfull. Madison's clear instructions almost always include presentation tips-home cooks will be able to produce dishes that look as stunning on the table as they do on the page. VERDICT This highly recommended, beautifully understated cookbook makes it easy to show off the bounty of a garden or farmers market. © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

INTRODUCTION I started cooking for others decades ago. I cooked at the San Francisco Zen Center, Tassajara Zen Mountain Center (and resort, come summer), Green Gulch Farm, Chez Panisse in Berkeley, Greens in San Francisco, Café Escalera in Santa Fe, and the American Academy in Rome. I began cooking when vegetarian food was weird--sincere, but stodgy--and when there were few resources available to help one learn about how to put vegetables in the center of the plate. Now I am cooking at a time when vegetarian food is part of a great mash-up of taste, values, and experiences. It is finally much more accepted and really not such a big deal. One doesn't have to defend one's position nearly as often or as fiercely as one used to; and in any case, one's position can be quite fluid--vegetarian one day, omnivore the next. So much has changed in these decades, from values to ingredients, that it's sometimes hard for me to tell what people value when it comes to their own cooking. I look at a magazine that one week rates snacks at Trader Joe's and a few weeks later tells about the wonderful pastries you can make with brioche dough--a challenging dough to make--or how to butcher a lamb--something that's not easily within the reach or desire of most people. My guess is that one's cooking life can be very fluid, too, that many people go to the effort to make something by hand--to cook--and probably the same people do plenty of assembling from premade foods. There may be lots of people who make their own pizzas--I know one man who has made that his expertise--but pizza places have also gotten much better (not the chains, but small independent businesses) that perhaps it's not as compelling to make your own as it was when there were no alternatives and we were curious. Fresh pasta used to be so important to make at home; now many of us can buy good fresh pasta, and there are some really excellent dried pastas now available, too. Other prepared foods, from salsas to fermented foods, tortillas to breads, have also gotten better, so why not use them? Good food matters and so does being able to make it ourselves. But when my cooking is helped by some of the products that are now available--foods that are often made by people who care passionately about their craft--I'm happy to support their efforts just as their products support mine. I cook every day, but when I recently looked at my notes, I realized that I hadn't made pasta by hand for some time, or pizza. I decided to revisit both, and it's been a pleasure, but it's also helped me realize that I prefer much simpler foods and preparations than I used to. We change as our culture changes, and I found I have been cooking in a more straightforward, less complicated fashion--one that is, for the most part, no less delicious. Fresh pastas, yeasted dough, pies and tarts both savory and sweet, or an involved dish that proudly takes the center of the plate--these still have their place. But some can be radically simplified without loss of flavor; or lightened, perhaps through the choice of one grain over another; or recast in light of the ingredients we have today that we didn't necessarily have in the past--coconut oil, berbere, freekeh, chia seeds, smoked paprika, truffle salt, real balsamic vinegar, and heirloom beans, to name but a few. If you garden, even a little, there's a host of interesting plants to grow and cook with, and some of those that come up by the zillions in springtime can be a source of exotic greens and garnishes. I've also started to make use of some of the wild plants that are good to eat and are growing in my yard, and that has added to my kitchen vocabulary. Musk mustard in an herb, and wild green salad is a treat. ARTICHOKE AND SCALLION SAUTÉ OVER GARLIC-RUBBED TOAST Serves 4; V When I was spokesperson for the California Artichoke Board, boxes upon boxes of artichokes would arrive on my porch. I'd hear them land with a thud, heaved there by the UPS driver. Of course it was a thrill to be the recipient of so many of these glorious, large flower-vegetables, but where to put them? They went into big coolers with plenty of ice. Then I got busy developing recipes, many of which have ended up in my various books. This little sauté, which I cooked frequently on TV, is one, and it has stood up as a favorite. Happily, it can also incorporate asparagus if you wish to add some (briefly parboiled), making for a more complex seasonal spring stew. Use large artichokes if you like, or the babies I've used here. Because they grow low down on the large branches where they get little light, the so-called babies never develop a choke, or much size. They're very easy to work with, which I appreciate a lot.  Spoon these artichokes over garlic-rubbed toast and you have a good vegan supper sandwich. Sometimes I add a smear of chèvre flavored with pepper and a bit of orange zest. You can also serve this sauté over pasta, polenta, or another grain, either alongside another dish or by itself. 20 to 24 baby artichokes Juice of 2 lemons  Sea salt 1 tablespoon mild vinegar 2 cloves garlic  2 heaping tablespoons of parsley Zest from 1 large lemon  1 heaping tablespoon tarragon leaves 2 tablespoons olive oil, for cooking 1 bunch scallions, including an inch of the greens, thickly sliced 1⁄2 cup dry white wine 4 slices of strong country bread for toasting Best olive oil, for the toast Freshly ground pepper Chives and chive blossoms, if available Trim the top third off the artichoke leaves and discard them. As you work, put the trimmed artichokes in a bowl with the lemon juice and enough water to cover. When all are trimmed, drain them, and then simmer them in salted water to which you've added the vinegar (or use more lemon juice) until tender-firm, about 10 minutes. Drain the artichokes and slice them lengthwise into halves or quarters.  Finely chop one of the garlic cloves with the parsley, lemon zest, and tarragon, and set aside. Heat the oil in a large skillet over high heat. Add the artichokes and sauté until they begin to color in places, after several minutes. Add the scallions and wine. When the wine boils off, add 1 cup of water and half the herb mixture. Lower the heat and simmer until the artichokes are fully tender, between 5 to 10 minutes.  Meanwhile, toast the bread. Cut the other garlic clove in half and rub it over the toast. When the artichokes are done, add the remainder of the herb mixture and season with salt and pepper. Tip them, with their juices, over the toast or onto a serving plate and garnish with snipped chives and chive blossoms if you have them. Excerpted from In My Kitchen: A Collection of New and Favorite Vegetarian Recipes by Deborah Madison All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.