Product Description

This is the low-fat book cooks who care about wholesome, vegetarian-inspired food have been waiting for.  Each of the more than 280 recipes are as delicious and trustworthy as those in the Moosewood Collective's previous books, and vibrant flavors and generous portions are still a hallmark of every dish. Because the Collective's primary goal is always to make great tasting food they resisted the notion of doing a low-fat book until they were convinced they could make low-fat dishes as flavor-packed as their regular favorites.  "We've mostly been interested in gourmet cuisine at Moosewood Restaurant, not deprivation diet food," say the authors.  "So, it's a happy surprise that the dishes we created for this cookbook don't come off as merely healthful diet foods.  The food is exciting, ethnically diverse, and satisfyingly delicious.  Moosewood Restaurant Low-fat Favorites is as much a celebration of the pleasures of eating as it is about low-fat cooking."

In Moosewood Restaurant Low-fat Favorites the Collective emphasizes a few changes in basic cooking techniques to apply to everyday recipes and they offer tips and ideas for sustaining a low-fat lifestyle. They bake rather than fry, replace high-fat ingredients with healthy substitutes (no artificial ingredients allowed!), and use butter and oil very moderately.  What is lost in fat is gained in bold, intense flavors.  "When fashioning low-fat recipes, taking a nip here, a tuck there, we sometimes need to add a little embroidery, an embellishment such as extra herbs, spices, fruit or vegetable purée, vinegar, sun-dried tomatoes, dried mushrooms, miso, soy sauce, or garlic," explain the cooks at Moosewood Restaurant.  "Our gingerbread gets extra flavor and moisture from chunks of pear rather than from butter and egg yolks.  Two small calamata olives enliven the Caesar Salad Dressing.  A little sauerkraut adds interest to an Italian mushroom stew."

Fat will not be missed in mouthwatering recipes like Guacamole with Asparagus, Chinese Orzo Vegetable Salad, Spring Vegetable Paella, Indian Potato Pancakes, and Creamy Dairyless Rice Pudding. Along with those creative dishes, one of the most appealing parts of Moosewood Restaurant Low-fat Favorites is finding low-fat variations on familiar favorites such as Macaroni and Cheese, Shephard's Pie, and Dark Chocolate Pudding.  An added bonus is that the Moosewood Collective has made sure that the ingredients used in the recipes throughout the book are very accessible--easily found in most well-stocked supermarkets.  

In the nutritional, glossary, and guide sections of  Moosewood Restaurant Low-fat Favorites the Collective gives explanations of nutritional terms, instructions for how to glean the information you need from nutrition labels, a brief overview of vitamins and minerals, and guides to ingredients and cooking techniques. These three important sections, combined with the deliciously appetizing recipes, are a wealth of encouragement for low-fat eating and living a healthy lifestyle. The fourteen chapters range from savory soups and main course salads to creative side dishes and aromatic Mediterranean and Asian-inspired dishes.  With chapters which range from healthy breakfasts and lunch foods to a collection of fish recipes and more than twenty truly delectable desserts, Moosewood Restaurant Low-fat Favorites is sure to set the kitchen standard not only for health-conscious cooks, but also for those who have come to rely on the Moosewood Collective's easy, earthy approach to cooking.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #17939 in Books
• Published on: 1996-10-29
• Released on: 1996-10-29
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 480 pages

From Amazon.com
The first Moosewood Cookbook--loved for its cozy, comforting food--mused oil, eggs, and dairy products so lavishly that it was extensively revised in 1992 to fit our changing diet. Now, the Moosewood Collective takes an even more extreme step: recipes in Moosewood Restaurant Low-Fat Favorites are so intentionally healthful that they put the word right on the cover of this chubby book filled with lean recipes (many dishes get the fat down to a modest 16-17% of their total calories). Still, the 280-plus recipes offer the bold, pan-ethnic flavors that have won the Moosewood Collective cookbooks so many fans.

From Publishers Weekly
The Moosewood Collective delivers toothsome fare for health-conscious carnivores as well as vegetarians in their latest collection (which joins Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant, Moosewood Restaurant Cooks for a Crowd, etc.). With an average of 16% of calories from fat, these 250 recipes rely on fruits, vegetables and grains for high variety, taste and nourishment. A brief introduction gives general tips for low-fat cooking and eating; e.g., use evaporated skim milk in place of cream, applesauce instead of oil. Recipes range from appetizers to savory soups, Mediterranean- and Asian-inspired dishes, main dish salads and desserts. Most appealing is finding low-fat variations on familiar favorites: cottage cheese adds heft without calories to both Guacamole and Macaroni and Cheese; Another Shepherd's Pie is hearty with vegetables, a mashed potato crust and flourless mushroom gravy. Penne with Creamy Walnut Sauce might even fool a fat lover. Herbs and spices are used lavishly and to excellent effect: in Sweet and Sour Lentils, Asian seasonings (ginger, soy sauce, rice vinegar) substitute for curry. Each recipe is followed by nutritional analysis and menu suggestions. Illustrations not seen by PW. One Spirit, Good Cook and Prevention Book Club selections; BOMC alternate; authors tour.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
The Moosewood series of vegetarian cookbooks continues with a new volume that jumps on the current bandwagon of low-fat cookery. Vegetarian cooks haven't always worried about the fat content of their recipes, but now the marriage of vegetarianism to a broader conception of health consciousness has created a new style of cooking that concerns itself not only with the elimination of meats but also with those fats that derive from vegetable sources as well. In the eclectic fashion cooks have come to expect from the Moosewood group, their new book ranges broadly from Armenian-influenced entrees to sushi rice salad. A few recipes for fish and shellfish run counter to the book's vegetarian emphasis. Some attempts to create both a vegetarian and a low-fat version of a classic like cassoulet fall into the category of oxymoronic cuisine, but others have a greater chance of tasting good as well as leaving arteries unclogged. Salads and soups with unusual herbs are especially appealing here. Mark Knoblauch

Customer Reviews

A blessing for vegetarians watching their fat intake!
I got this cookbook because:
1) I am vegetarian
2) I follow a low fat diet
3) I love to cook

I have made many, many of the recipes in this book, and they've been a hit almost every time (well, no cookbook is perfect). There are no glossy pictures -- this is a cook's book. There are several indexes of recipes (10% or less in fat, vegan, children's favorites, etc) as well as "menus" in the back -- new year's, thanksgiving, east asian, tex mex, etc.

Some of the recipes are very time consuming to make (there are quite a few 30 minute or less recipes listed in the back, however), and some of the ingredients are not always easy to find. However, this is *not* meant to be a book of "quick and easy recipes." I have broadend my palate by searching out some of the more unusual ingredients.

The recipes DO call for oil (usually 1-2 teaspoons), low fat cheeses, and (in the dessert section) chocolate. Don't think is a no-fat-no-flavor cookbook. They've kept the feeling of self-denial at bay. There is also a section of fish and seafood recipes, for those so inclined. <><

Moosewood, your roots are showing...
Granted, when you're proud of your roots this isn't such a bad thing, but I sense a definite rut forming here. People's tastes in food are personal and widely varied--and the postings for Moosewood's books indicate a lot of folks like them just fine, but my experience has been much more mixed.
I have three Moosewood cookbooks (New Moosewood by Mollie Katzen/Moosewood Cooks at Home/Moosewood Low-fat). I have chosen to post my review with this title because, while my feelings here apply to all the books, this one in particular I found most lacking. The reason I have three Moosewoods is because two were given to me because the previous owners found they didn't earn their shelf space, the other--my first Moosewood--I bought years ago when collecting vegetarian cookbooks.
To my tastes, the recipes in these books never really paid off. The ones I tried weren't terrible (though a few from the low-fat book were close), but none were memorable and none even came close to making it into my permanent recipe collection. I was surprised at the lack of complex, sophisticated flavors considering the books world-culture approach.
I think Moosewood deserves a lot of credit for introducing new foods and flavors to the American dinner plate years before anyone else I know of was (at least in a mainstream sense), but where Moosewood seems to be very content reexamining the same territory, other cooks have moved the process forward to provide recipes that satisfy our increasingly grown-up tastes and streamlined preparation needs. I have to wonder if it isn't Moosewood's friendly, co-operative philosophy coupled with a general nostalgia that keeps their readers so faithful.

informative, but often hard work for little reward
There's a lot that's good about this book - the nutritional information, the homey and personal feel of the prose, the inspiration to try new things - but I do end up disappointed fairly often. A couple of recipes are favourites - the breakfast section generally, for example - but a lot of the dinner recipes are really pretty complicated for mid-week meals, and then turn out not to be too different from what I could have achieved in far less time with fewer ingredients. A book to try for a few new ideas, but not one to base your new diet on.