Friendly Foods - Softcover

Friendly foods, according to Brother Ron, a Franciscan friar who is also an award-winning chef, are "foods that are friendly to our bodies, our pocket books, our busy schedules, and our environment." He offers these recipes as encouragement for people who are beginning to transform their diet in the direction of natural foods. Although the recipes - meatless, sugarless, and without dairy products - are presented appealingly and accompanied by an extensive introduction, people who are just starting to depart from the traditional American diet may find them somewhat daunting-, their ingredients often include such unfamiliar items as kombu, seitan, barley malt syrup, and agar flakes. Unless you have a larder well-stocked with natural foods, you won't be able to plunge into one of these recipes without making a trip to the health food store, where the necessary ingredients cost considerably more than the ordinary chemical-ridden processed foods at the supermarket. In spite of their strange ingredients, however, the dishes resulting from these recipes - at least the ones tried out by this reviewer - do not taste strange at all. They taste good. You would not know, either from their appearance or their flavors, that they were made with things like soy milk and brown rice syrup rather than cream and sugar. There is great variety here, and great inventiveness. Brother Ron has won many awards at the Culinary Olympics, and includes some of those prize-winning dishes such as Southern Blackened Tempeh with Tomato-Apricot-Ginger Coulis, and Garbanzo Parsnip Gnocchi, and Beet Sea Vegetable Quenelles - in a special section for the intrepid. -- From Independent Publisher

Pickarski, a professional chef who is also a Franciscan brother, brings his considerable culinary expertise to this sophisticated collection of vegan recipes (vegetarian dishes that exclude eggs and dairy foods as well as meats and fish). Experienced and savvy vegetarian cooks especially will enjoy trying out the volume's elegant dishes: e.g, a tofu seitan Wellington with Bordelaise sauce or a decorative leek aspic with tahini lemon sauce. However, most recipes are designed as daily fare, such as Pickarski's version of the Hungarian classic Sezekle gulos, which he serves with noodles and cabbage, or a meatless New England boiled dinner. Several recipes require ingredients generally available only from specialty sources, such as natural foods stores or oriental supply shops. For example, a creamy ginger dressing calls for white miso, Sucanat (a natural sweetener) and Szechuan peppercorns,pk while a delicate carrot sauce is made with silken tofu, white miso and packaged vegetable base. However, cooks interested in sampling these unusual flavor combinations and determined enough to identify and track down the ingredients (Pickarski helps with a glossary and an annotated list of mail order suppliers) will find these recipes worth the effort. Illustrated.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.