From the Cook's Garden: Recipes for cooks who like to garden, gardeners who like to cook, and everyone who wishes they had a garden

From Publishers Weekly
Plowing a field similar to that cultivated by last year's Local Flavors, by Deborah Madison (who provides the foreword here), Ogden extols the pleasures of preparing fresh-from-the-garden meals. Co-owner with husband Shepherd of The Cook's Garden, a popular mail-order seed company, Ogden emphasizes the quality, taste and variety of produce now available from home and farmers' markets. Her recipes exhibit a deft hand in building dishes with complementary flavors, as in Zesty Lemon Cucumber Soup or Herbed Ricotta Gnocchi with Spinach-Arugula Pesto. Ogden really shines with her section on salads, which includes the unusual Warm Spinach and Strawberry Salad and Grilled Radicchio and Gorgonzola Salad. Although the focus is solidly on vegetables, herbs and fruits, non-vegetarian dishes range from the simple Baked Scrod with Fennel and Garlic Croutons to the more complicated Vietnamese Salad Rolls with Chicken and Shrimp, and Salmon in Phyllo Packets with Tomato and Ginger. Ogden frequently recommends difficult-to-find ingredients such as Chioggia (candy-striped) beets for Beet, Apple and Goat Cheese Salad, and black kale for Polenta with Tuscan Kale, but she also advises that the common variety of vegetables will suffice. Since gardening is a seasonal joy, recipes for preserves like Carrot and Orange Marmalade and Plum and Pear Chutney are a welcome addition, as are the homey drawings by Caldecott Award winner Azarian. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Spring's approach brings the promise of planting and another season of garden produce. Ellen Ecker Ogden has written From the Cook's Garden as a guide for those seeking some new ways to use up their garden bounty. Ogden's own immense Vermont garden provides the basis for these recipes, and they reflect thoughtful and tasty ways to produce appealing dishes from the freshest ingredients. Although most recipes offer ease of preparation, Ogden's cold creamy red beet soup with pistachio mousse calls for a base of cider, wine, and cinnamon and tops each bowlful with dollops of whipped ricotta, pistachios, and green herbs. Many of the book's recipes are vegetarian, but a few have fish or meat as prominent flavors. Because gardens often produce more than can be consumed during the harvest months, Ogden closes her book with a section on preserving, both in cans and in the freezer. Mark Knoblauch
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Book Description

Vermont is the home of The Cooks Garden, America's premier organic seed catalogue. Since 1984, The Cook's Garden has been the ultimate source for kitchen gardeners seeking European-style greens, heirloom vegetables, radiant flowers, and pungent herbs. Each winter more than one million eager gardeners await the arrival of The Cook's Garden catalogue, looking forward to reading about new seed varieties as well as reliable classics.

Successfully growing vegetables, herbs, and flowers is just part of any gardening challenge, but what do you do once they are harvested?

Ellen Ogder's recipes are one of the most delightful aspects of The Cooks Garden catalogue. As Deborah Madison, bestselling author of Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone and Local Flavors writes in her foreword: "These recipes, which are entirely guided by the garden and choice of seeds that grow in it, bridge the gap between a dream on a page promised by a seed packet and how the seeds can be used in the kitchen."

Ellen's recipes are simple yet elegant and speak of freshness whether you harvest ingredients from your own garden or select them at your local store -- flavorful soups such as Zesty Lemon Cucumber Soup and Brilliant Butternut Bisque, salad combinations such as Arugula and Roasted Pear Salad, and Leaf Peeper's Carrot and Red Cabbage Salad, main courses such as Savory Vegetables in Polenta Crust or Herbed Chicken with Cider Sauce. Too many tomatoes or pears? Ellen offers ideas for preserving the bounty of any garden.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Vermont is the home of The Cooks Garden, America's premier organic seed catalogue. Since 1984, The Cook's Garden has been the ultimate source for kitchen gardeners seeking European-style greens, heirloom vegetables, radiant flowers, and pungent herbs. Each winter more than one million eager gardeners await the arrival of The Cook's Garden catalogue, looking forward to reading about new seed varieties as well as reliable classics.

Successfully growing vegetables, herbs, and flowers is just part of any gardening challenge, but what do you do once they are harvested?

Ellen Ogder's recipes are one of the most delightful aspects of The Cooks Garden catalogue. As Deborah Madison, bestselling author of Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone and Local Flavors writes in her foreword: "These recipes, which are entirely guided by the garden and choice of seeds that grow in it, bridge the gap between a dream on a page promised by a seed packet and how the seeds can be used in the kitchen."

Ellen's recipes are simple yet elegant and speak of freshness whether you harvest ingredients from your own garden or select them at your local store — flavorful soups such as Zesty Lemon Cucumber Soup and Brilliant Butternut Bisque, salad combinations such as Arugula and Roasted Pear Salad, and Leaf Peeper's Carrot and Red Cabbage Salad, main courses such as Savory Vegetables in Polenta Crust or Herbed Chicken with Cider Sauce. Too many tomatoes or pears? Ellen offers ideas for preserving the bounty of any garden.

Illustrated with full-color woodcuts by Caldecott winner Mary Azarian and packed with topics from Ellen's favorite culinary herbs to favoriteautumn vegetables, From The Cook's Garden offers a year round garden of culinary delights.

FROM THE CRITICS

The New York Times

From the Cook's Garden, [Ogden's] first cookbook, is a handsome production, from Deborah Madison's lucid introduction to the stark woodcuts by Mary Azarian. Ogden's recipes zero in on the freshest possible ingredients. If you don't have a garden when you crack this book open, you'll be ordering seeds by the time you put it down. — Dwight Garner

Publishers Weekly

Plowing a field similar to that cultivated by last year's Local Flavors, by Deborah Madison (who provides the foreword here), Ogden extols the pleasures of preparing fresh-from-the-garden meals. Co-owner with husband Shepherd of The Cook's Garden, a popular mail-order seed company, Ogden emphasizes the quality, taste and variety of produce now available from home and farmers' markets. Her recipes exhibit a deft hand in building dishes with complementary flavors, as in Zesty Lemon Cucumber Soup or Herbed Ricotta Gnocchi with Spinach-Arugula Pesto. Ogden really shines with her section on salads, which includes the unusual Warm Spinach and Strawberry Salad and Grilled Radicchio and Gorgonzola Salad. Although the focus is solidly on vegetables, herbs and fruits, non-vegetarian dishes range from the simple Baked Scrod with Fennel and Garlic Croutons to the more complicated Vietnamese Salad Rolls with Chicken and Shrimp, and Salmon in Phyllo Packets with Tomato and Ginger. Ogden frequently recommends difficult-to-find ingredients such as Chioggia (candy-striped) beets for Beet, Apple and Goat Cheese Salad, and black kale for Polenta with Tuscan Kale, but she also advises that the common variety of vegetables will suffice. Since gardening is a seasonal joy, recipes for preserves like Carrot and Orange Marmalade and Plum and Pear Chutney are a welcome addition, as are the homey drawings by Caldecott Award winner Azarian. (Mar.)

Library Journal