Cooking with Rachel by Rachel Albert

Creative vegetarian macrobiotic recipes to entertain guests, dazzle friends, and excite the most discerning palates.

This book is a compilation of recipes which appeal to a wide range of tastes and food preferences. While some of these recipes are strictly macrobiotic, others are intended to be used as fun foods, party foods, and transitional foods. My purpose in writing this book has been to share new recipes, many of which people suggested or had cravings for, as well as to include many favorite recipes from my first book Gourmet Whole Foods, no longer in print. And, I wanted to make adaptations of American and ethnic favorites that are like your old favorites but with higher-quality, lower-fat ingredients and without meat, sugar, or dairy products.
For some people these recipes may need to be adjusted. If you have a special dietary need or health condition you may have to skip over certain recipes. The purpose of having healing foods and fun foods in one volume is primarily to lend variety and inspiration to the experience of cooking, presenting, and enjoying the foods that are available within a broad macrobiotic framework.

This book will show you how to make healthier sandwiches, grain, noodle, or vegetable salads, casseroles, soups, stews, cookies, cakes, pancakes, puddings, pates, dips, snack foods, party foods, and ethnic favorites. This can make the journey to a healthier diet less rocky and overwhelming, and can make it easier to share your new way of eating with friends and family.
In my experiences teaching cooking classes, giving macrobiotic dinners, operating a restaurant, catering, and doing cooking demonstrations, bridging the gap between the standard American diet and macrobiotics has been facilitated by cooking a slightly wider macrobiotic diet and by making more familiar foods and dishes with macrobiotic quality ingredients. In this way we can make macrobiotics more accessible and less intimidating to the curious onlooker, friend, or family member.