Ruth Ann Manners - The Quick and Easy Vegetarian Cookbook

(To improve a dish and/or speed its preparation)

*Pour various dry measurements into your hand. When you do, memorize how each measurement looks. Eventually, you should be able to get along occasionally without measuring spoons.

*To peel an onion more easily, cut off ends, cut it in half, and peel each half. Better yet, cut it in Quarters.

*Potatoes will bake faster if put in very hot water for 10 minutes and then dried before baking.

*If youve put too much salt in something youre cooking, add raw potato slices. Theyll absorb the salt. When the dish is done, discard them.

*When you double a recipe, dont double the salt. Instead, use half again as much; then taste to see if it needs more.

*One of the best ways to decorate a dish of food is with an edible flower, such as a daylily, marigold, or violet.

*Use an ice-cream scoop for putting batter in muffin tins. A scoop holds just the right amount. Its also handy in forming patties. Then pat down the mound.

*A bit of sugar coaxes out the flavor of a tomato.

*Often, the red tomatoes you buy are red in color only. Treat them as if theyre green and keep them for a week; youll usually find them much improved.

*Use yogurt instead of oil or cream as a thickener. For salad dressing: add 1 tablespoon oil and 3 tablespoons yogurt to teaspoon Dijon mustard, salt, pepper, and 2 tablespoons wine vinegar.

*Dont wash domestic rice. It doesnt need washing and you lose nutrients. To wash foreign and talc-coated rice, put it in a saucepan and tilt the pan while you run water slowly over it. Keep the water flowing until it runs clear.

*The best way to handle leaf lettuce is to wash its leaves and spin them dry as soon as you get home from market. Place in a plastic bag with crumpled paper towels in the bottom. Then store the closed bags in your refrigerators vegetable drawer. The lettuce is then always ready for use. The paper towels absorb excess water that makes lettuce rot.

*Brown rice soaked overnight cooks in about the same time as white rice.

*Barley usually takes 45 to 50 minutes to cook. Soak it for 5 hours or overnight, and it will cook in 15 minutes.

*Put the stems of things like parsley, dill, coriander, and watercress in a glass of water and cover top loosely with a plastic bag. Then store in the refrigerator. Theyll keep much longer. Asparagus keeps better that way, too. Trim off stem ends first. Be sure no leaves are under water.

*The best way to quickly renew the cutting edge of a knife is to stroke it a few times on a steel. Youve seen butchers do it.

*Peel fresh ginger, immerse in a jar of vodka, and refrigerate; it will keep indefinitely. Vodka imparts no taste and is an excellent preservative.

*Always use cold tap water for cooking, never hot. Hot water absorbs lead, copper, cadmium, and other undesirable elements from piping. For the same reason, let cold water run first thing in the morning until it runs fresh and cold. That helps get rid of the elements it picked up standing overnight.

*Firm or regular tofu will work for almost any recipe. Extra firm is good for kabobs.

*When baking sweet potatoes, put foil on rack below. It will keep drippings from going to the bottom of the oven.

*If flour is cold, warm it before using for baking. Cold flour retards yeast action.

*If you want to prepare a casserole ahead of time, bake it for all but 20 minutes of its baking time. Cool; then cover and keep in the refrigerator until 30 minutes before its to be served. Then put it in a preheated oven. In 10 minutes, the chilled casserole will be warm. The next 20 minutes will complete the baking.

*Slice a loaf of bread before freezing it. That way, you can take what you need without thawing out the whole loaf.

*Cheese tastes best at room temperature. Remove from the refrigerator 30 to 60 minutes before use to allow it to warm. Exceptions: Cottage cheese and cream cheese are best when removed from the refrigerator just before serving.

*To peel garlic more easily, put cloves in a dishtowel and whack them with the flat side of a cleaver or wide, heavy knife. A cutting board with a handle is also a good whacking tool.

* A little salt will bring out the flavor of chocolate.

* Before measuring honey, spread a film of oil on the measuring spoon or cup. The honey will slide off easily and leave no residue.

*Head lettuce stays greener longer if its core has been removed. Remove core by striking its end against a hard surface. The core can then be pulled or twisted out.

*Though red lentils are harder to find than brown, they cook much faster than brown, in about 10 minutes instead of 40. You can use the red variety in any recipe calling for lentils.

*To make wooden handles ovenproof, wrap them in a double thickness of aluminum foil.

*Before grating cheese, brush a little oil on the grater with a pastry brush. This will make cleaning the grater easier.

*To convert cottage cheese into a low-calorie cream cheese, put the cottage cheese in a food processor and process with steel knife until smooth. (A dry cottage cheese works better than creamed cottage cheese.)

*A big time-saver is arranging spices in alphabetical order in a rack. Arrange canned goods by type whenever possible.

*You can whip canned evaporated milk if it is very cold. The bowl in which you whip it and the beater should also be very cold.

*Corn silk is best removed from an ear of corn by rubbing with a wadded paper towel.

*Dont automatically throw out food amounts that are too small to save. Theyre often just what you need to thicken a soup.

Reiterated, though no less heartfelt, thanks to all those whose help made The Quick & Easy Vegetarian Cookbook a possibility. And now the same deeply felt thanks go to all our friends and relatives: the recipe developers, tasters, suggesters, the objecters-to and in-favor-ofs, et cetera, et cetera.

Copyright 1978, 1993 by Ruth Ann Manners and William Manners

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of the publisher.

M Evans

An imprint of Rowman & Littlefield

4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200

Lanham, Maryland 20706

www.rowman.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Manners, Ruth Ann.

The quick and easy vegetarian cookbook / Ruth Ann Manners and William Manners.New, rev. and expanded ed.

p. cm.

Includes index.

ISBN 978-0-87131-303-4

1. Vegetarian cookery. 2. Quick and easy cookery. I. Manners, William, 1907II. Title.

TX837.M294 1993

641.5636dc20 93-28789

CIP

Distributed by

NATIONAL BOOK NETWORK

Typeset by AeroType, Inc.

Manufactured in the United States of America

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Still for Tracy, Tim, Jane, Julie, Michael, Jonathan, and Paul

When a friend learned we were writing a vegetarian cookbook, she reacted by writing to us immediately: Too bad to be so lazy, but for a noncook like me a cholesteric hamburger will always be easier to prepareor even to eat rawthan anything needing chopping, slicing, blending, mixing.

Her statement was made fifteen years ago, when there were very few vegetarians, but it can still be regarded as a summation of People v. Vegetarian Cookery. So now, as then, we feel that our book may well perform a public service if it helps make vegetarian cuisine quick and easy. By being quick and easy, this cuisine may also help do away with the desperate need felt by many people for packaged convenience foods, with their chemicals and high prices. Confirmed vegetarians may very well profit in a special way. We hope our recipes will make it possible for them to enjoy dishes theyve desired with gourmet passion but feared to tackle because of their complexity and long preparation time.