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Bean By Bean: A Cookbook: More Than 175 Recipes For Fresh Beans, Dried Beans, Cool Beans, Hot Beans, Savory Beans, Even Sweet Beans! (2012)

by Crescent Dragonwagon(Favorite Author)

3.86 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

0761132414 (ISBN13: 9780761132417)

languge

English

genre

Food & Cookbooks

publisher

Workman Publishing Company

review 1: Briefly (and this is probably due a revisitation and elaboration later on), I adore this book, and it has made me very enthusiastic about beans. It does not have pictures of the dishes, but I didn't find this a deterrent. I do think how well you like this cookbook will depend on your personal tastes, although it's entertaining to read. 80-90% of the recipes intrigue me personally, but, for instance, Ms. Dragonwagon is clearly far fonder of olives than I. I've made a dozen or so of the recipes thus far(dahl, panch dahl, navy bean pie, fava bean soup alla romana, three sisters salad, a variation on the old-fashioned Baked Beans, Boston Brown Bread, one of the tofu marinades, beans greens and pasta, neo-traditional falafels, "Greek-style" green beans, tanzanian black-eyed pea... more and coconut soup w/ bananas) and liked pretty much all of them, except maybe the brown bread. The beans, greens, and pasta, in some variations moreso than others (I like kale and beans and pasta; a polenta/black-eyed pea/mustard greens variation didn't go over as well) and the Greek style green-beans (although I can hardly get enough tomato...plus I like to add a potato that I've pre-cooked with the beans) are indeed worthy of the praise heaped on them.As others have noted, there are perhaps a lot of recipes that include green beans, but as I am not terribly fond of tofu thus far (and rarely have it on hand), I sometimes get a bit disappointed when a recipe includes only tofu and no other forms of beans. There are also several recipes for chickpea flour/besan, and two primary recipes which don't exactly include legumes. (one for bean shaped Italian cookies, and one for king cake--to which is added a single bean so that the person who gets that slice receives especially good luck or something.) The other non-bean recipes are several complementary breads and some condiments closely associated with recipes. There's one recipe which you'd think didn't have beans in it if you weren't well versed in traditional Japanese soy products. (peanut-butter brownie points if you figure out which I'm talking about) She does include peanuts in the legumes the book covers, although except in the dessert chapter they don't make a lot of appearances without more typical beans being included.N.B. One error I've noticed in both my and the library's copy is that numerous references to the Fauxjoada (which I have not made) refer to various incorrect page numbers. It is actually on page 196.
review 2: I have seen other reviews of this book, and my curiosity was peaked. My family doesn't eat lot of beans, but I would like to incorporate more of them into our diet. (I like black beans, refried beans, kidney beans, white beans myself.)This is a comprehensive book about beans. The author starts with Bean Basics, discussing the many variety of beans and the basic cooking methods for each type: what to look for in a good green bean, shell beans and how to cook them, soaking beans- whatever you need to know about beans is covered here, no more need to fear them.The ten chapters cover such topics like Hummus & Starters, with such recipes as Gotcha-Hotcha Sweet-Smoky Cocktail Peanuts, Hillbilly Hummus (made with peanut butter!) and Greektown Dip from Chicago's Greektown.Soulful Simmer Soups is a great chapter that covers the world of beans literally. There are Middle Eastern Bean Soups (Spicy Syrian-Style Lentil Soup), African Bean Soups (Nigerian Seed-Thickened Beef & Shrimp Soup Stew), Asian Bean Soups (Thai Hot & Sour Soups), Indian Bean Soups (Sambar), European (Hungarian Green Bean Soup), and the Americas (Day after Thanksgiving Turkey, Wild Rice & Rattlesnake Bean Soup).Of course there are many chili recipes, curry recipes and a chapter on skillets and stir fries that contains an interesting vegetable hash recipe I want to try.The last chapter has desserts, with Julie's Peanut Butter Cup Brownies that looks good and I never would have thought I'd find in a bean cookbook!I like that each recipe has symbols next to it that states whether it is compatible for vegans, vegetarians, gluten-free diets or has meat in it. That makes it easy for anyone with dietary restrictions or preferences to quickly see if the recipe is for them.The only negative I have is that there are no photos of recipes in the book, but it is a substantial book, and I guess that photos would add to the heft of the book.If you like beans or would like to add more beans to your diet, this is the cookbook to pick up. I can't imagine that there is any information about beans that I would like to know that is not in this comprehensive, 175-recipe book. less

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