Cookbooks: Fresh Vegetable Recipes
Seasonal Produce in Main Dishes, Side Dishes, Soups, and Salads
These 3 titles offer tasty, easy recipes that make cooking with fresh, in-season fruits and vegetables a pleasure regardless of the time of year.
What could be more convenient than a cookbooks written especially for seasonal fruits and vegetables? These three cookbooks will make sure you're armed and ready when the farmers' market has okra for sale, or when the ubiquitous zucchini threaten to take over the kitchen. Each is unique in its approach and recipe arrangement, but all three are sure to please anyone who enjoys cooking with fresh produce.
Those familiar with the cookbook More with Less will recognize Simply in Seasonby the same publisher. The book was commissioned by the Mennonite Central Committee "to promote understanding of how the food choices we make affect our lives and the lives of those who produce the food."
- This colorful book opens with descriptions of 91 fruits and vegetables: how to select, store, prepare and serve them, as well as their nutrient values and equivalent measures.
- Recipes are arranged by season.
- The edges of the pages are color-coded, and the fruits, vegetables and produce used in the recipe are highlighted in the margins.
- Two bindings are available: soft bound or a spiral binding that allows it to lay flat on the counter.
From Asparagus to Zucchini: A Guide to Cooking Farm-Fresh Seasonal Produce
This cookbook is in its third edition, published by the Madison (Wisconsin) Area Community Supported Agriculture Coalition. Recipes were created by growers, farm members, home cooks and chefs "passionate about fresh food and seasonal cooking."
- The front of the book's "Food for Thought" includes ideas for thinking outside the shopping cart, information on Community Supported Agriculture and easy ways to incorporate more local and seasonal food into one's diet.
- Two to three pages of recipes with history and nutrition information are arranged alphabetically for each vegetable.
- Over 50 vegetables and herbs are featured, as well as recipes for seasonal combinations and for kids' cooking.
- Large (8.5x11) softbound
Recipes from America's Small Farms: Fresh Ideas for the Season's Bounty
Joanne Lamb Hayes, Lori Stein and Maura Webber collected and tested recipes from CSA members and growers "for those of you who know somewhere in the back of your mind that you need to be involved in keeping the food chain safe and local but don't know how to start."
- Book begins with cooking and preserving methods for 49 vegetables and basic recipes for sauces, gratins, stocks, etc.
- Recipes are arranged according to "type" of vegetable, such as leafy greens, roots and tubers, and stalks and stems.
- Farm stories and food facts are woven throughout the book.
- Softbound 8x8
For more terrific cookbook ideas, see this Suite101 article on Must Have Cookbooks or these Cookbooks for Children.
