Since opening Vegetables from Amaranth to Zucchini: The Essential Reference approximately an hour ago, I’ve raved about it (and practically drooled on it) to seven people now. I haven’t actually tested any of the recipes yet — although I’m planning to as soon as possible — but their names alone: Salad of Crunchy Artichoke and Endive with Honeyed Lemon, Oven-Crisped Large Oyster Mushrooms, and Cranberry-Glazed Long Red Italian Radishes, to cite a few — are making me hungry.
Elizabeth Schneider really does seem to have created the ultimate reference guide for vegetables, and I should know — those books are amongst my favorite cookbooks, as a vegetarian. (Though the stars of these recipes are vegetables, many also include meat.) At 777 pages, with tons of gorgeous color photography, any vegetable you can think of — really, I dare you — has its own loving tribute, plus quite a few that I, at least, had never heard of — African horned cucumber, anyone? Chickweed? Tindora? Besides the photographs for easy visual identification, Schneider lays out the history and provenance of the vegetable, its basic use, selection, storage, and preparation information (which is detailed and thorough), and then lists several recipes, which manage to be both elegant and generally simple.
More here.