Demoelt - The Rodale whole foods cookbook : with more than 1,000 recipes for choosing, cooking & preserving natural ingredients

The past three decades have been a period of remarkable change on nearly every front, but perhaps nowhere are these changes more evident than in the aisles of your local grocery store. Where condensed soups, frozen TV dinners, and boxed cake mixes once represented the height of culinary sophistication and convenience (What party was considered complete without onion dip made from dehydrated soup powder and full-fat sour cream?), you now find an inspiring array of organic vegetables and fruits; hormone-free poultry and meats; natural sweeteners; wholesome whole grains and flours; and much more. Our understanding of the role that nutrition and food play in preventing diseaseand helping to keep our planet healthyhas grown by leaps and bounds, too.

Yet all this bounty and variety has given rise to confusion. Should white flourand white rice and white sugar and just about any white food, periodbe banished from our tables? What exactly is agave and can it be used in baked goods? And what, in heavens name, does one do with millet?

This book is designed to answer all these questions and many, many more. It is a compendium of information and recipes created for people who want to prepare dishes that are not only delicious but also free from both artificial ingredients and products that have been more than minimally processed.

Our interest in natural foods stems from a basic Rodale tradition: Natural is better. There is no mystery in that. It is an incontrovertible truth that Nature knows more about the best composition of food and how it should taste than any manufacturer does.

A good cook chooses food in its freshest, least-tampered-with statefresh fruits that are not sweetened, colored, or canned; a freshly caught fish, herbed and broiled, not ground up and pressed into flavorless, breaded fingers; a home-baked, whole-grain, firm-textured bread, not a bleached white, cotton experience. Of course, the natural product is miles ahead nutritionally, plus its marvelous flavor simply leaves any processed, packaged, and additive-laden counterpart in the dust.

Cooking with whole foods also enables the cook to know precisely what she and her family are eating. While processed foods are invariably packed with sodium, sugar in its many forms (including high-fructose corn syrup), and other chemical additives intended to prolong shelf life, natural whole foods, especially organic foods, are free of chemicals and full of wholesome nutrients.

While we all know that we should be including more of these healthful whole and natural foods in our diets, though, many of the books available on the topic fail to address the daily needs of a busy, contemporary family. These days its commonplace for a vegan and an unrepentant carnivore to coexist under the same roof, or for a family of bread lovers to count a gluten-intolerant member among their number. And who has time to consult one book for inspiration on cooking whole grains, another on making good use of fresh produce, and yet another on preparing tofu and other soyfoods? Our intention was to create a basic, comprehensive book that would offer recipes for the broadest possible range of occasions with the broadest possible range of ingredientsa go-to resource whether youre making a batch of chili for the game, healthy treats to stuff in a lunch box, or a show-stopping dessert for a celebration dinner or bake saleall in a healthier, more wholesome vein.

And if you are still consulting that battle-worn cookbook packed with traditional standbys presented to you by your mother (or perhaps even handed down from a grandparent) for the essential kitchen information it offers, you can finally relegate that spattered tome to the giveaway pile. Weve included all the handy guidelines and reference lists you need, from equivalents and substitutions to a foolproof guide to roasting meats.

Of course, helping people eat well has always been at the core of Rodales mission. Our very first magazine, Organic Gardening, was devoted to helping home gardeners create bounteous, productive gardens without the use of chemical fertilizers or pesticides, and one of our most important culinary laboratories (and sounding boards) is the commissary at our own offices.

This is the kind of background and experience that lies at the core of this book. It is the key to our confidence in presenting the definitive natural foods cookbook.

Open this book to any section and you will also find the kind of extensive general reference material and instruction you require from any of the best all-purpose cookbooks. It tells you everything from how to carve a turkey and how big a roast it takes to serve eight, to how to rescue a curdled hollandaise sauce or make homemade bouillon cubes. Dozens of tables provide quick access to food basics and directions to help you master even the most complicated cooking skillssome with step-by-step illustrations! Cooks stumped for new ideas will delight in page after page of marvelous recipes for quick-to-make family meals, dinner parties, no-meat meals, brunches, and low-cost meals. However, we believe the special value of this book is in the extraordinary information and cooking ideas it contains. Part 2: At the Market covers the gamut of certified organic whole foods from your produce to your proteins. Part 3: In the Kitchen shows you the exciting creations youll be able to make with all the wonderful foods youll be discovering.

The Breads chapter focuses on the baking properties and nutritional values of whole grains. It includes a list of suggested whole-grain combinations intended to increase the nutrient value of your loaves and to introduce your family to new flavors and textures in all sorts of breads.

Nuts and seeds contain superior food value, but more than that, they offer a largely unexplored versatility. Aside from the usual, our book shows cooks how to use nuts and seeds in interesting new ways as butters, meals, and milks.

Sprouts, whose value is universally recognized by knowledgeable cooks and nutritionists, rarely get serious attention anywhere these days. We believe, however, that they merit every cooks careful consideration so we devote a full section to sprouting and recipes that feature sprouts.

Sea vegetables, basic to the diets of many sophisticated cultures throughout the world, are a mystery to most Americans. However, the variety and taste appeal of these low-cost, mineral-rich foods are so impressive that we want to be sure youll try them. You will learn the characteristics of various types, how to shop for them, and how to use them in cooking.

Desserts are the biggest challenge for the health-conscious cook. We present practical alternatives to such items as sugar and white flour, and we offer recipes that use nutritious whole-grain flours, natural sweeteners, nuts, yogurt, and fruits as ingredients in irresistible sweets.

Our Beverages section stresses wholesome fruit and vegetable juices as bases for delicious and refreshing drinks. It also presents the opportunity for you to augment your usual coffee and tea drinks to a wide selection of herb drinks that can soothe you or energize you, depending on your mood.

The concept of whole, natural foods is hardly new, and those who were eating and cooking in the 1970s, when the first edition of this book was compiled, may encounter some nostalgic favorites in these pages. But tastes and fashions in food are constantly evolving, changing. As a nation we have developed more sophisticated palates and know much more about nutrition, ingredients, and ethnic cuisineand want to learn more still. For that reason, nearly half of the recipes that comprised the first edition, published in 1972, have been replaced by entirely new dishes to reflect our growing appetites for ethnic foods, and the greater spectrum of produce and other foods available to us today.