[.ca] Twelve Months of Monastery Soups (ISBN 0767901800)

From Amazon.com:
Offer your guests a big bowl of warmth and comfort--stir up some homemade soup! Brother Victor-Antoine d'Avila-Latourrette, author of From a Monastery Kitchen, follows the months of the year with simple recipes using seasonal ingredients. The soup recipes are international as well--try some Polish Pearl Barley Soup in February and Traditional Austrian Cheese Soup in November. Brother Victor-Antoine recommends chilled soups in the summer for refreshment; June's creamy Chilled Carrot Soup features the zest of ginger and lemon, and the Cold Zucchini Soup in August is delightful with the recommended lemon basil. The simplicity of the recipes makes them suitable for beginning cooks, who will learn that a great variety of flavors can be produced just by changing the order in which the vegetables are sautéed or by using vegetable broth instead of beef bouillon. Twelve Months of Monastery Soups is a delicious introduction to the art of soup making. As Brother Victor-Antoine notes, "soup remains a faithful friend during all of life's occasions."

Excellent collection of simple soups:
This cook book has a very good collection of simple soups (mostly vegetarian) that can be made quite easily. They are grouped by month and take advantage of the fresh produce that are in season. One of the great benefits of these recipes is that most of the ingredients are relatively inexpensive and healthy (e.g., carrots, onions, celery, beans). The recipes vary a great deal in taste, although many have similar ingredient lists. A great testiment to the diversity of soup. I have, however, noticed that many of the recipes call for a rather large portion of oil and turn out somewhat greasy. I recommend cutting the oil if it seems excessive.

not reliable:
A few soups are good (e.g., the parsnip soup), but many are quite flavourless. Perhaps useful in a library, but not a high priority. I have made many more poor soups from this book than tasty ones.

Soup never tasted so good:
This book offers an astonishing variety of healthful and tasty soups. Some soups have complex flavors and others are elegantly simple. All the recipes I have tried have been worth making again (and again, and again...) Every winter I make many batches of the book's parsnip soup (parsnips and potatoes accented with curry), and guests ALWAYS rave about it, though they are never able to identify the ingredients! Whether you want to give a gift that's sure to be a hit or simply want to feed your family well, this is the cookbook for you.

Soup is Good Food:
Nothing warms the spirit like a bowl of soup and this book is a special joy -- filled with simple and delicious recipes for the ultimate comfort food. The recipes are organized by the months of the year to emphasize seasonal preferences and produce availability. Turn to January for great hot soups and stews in the cold months, look for lighter choices and some wonderful cold soups in the summer chapters. There are 175 (!) soup recipes in this book, all simple enough to prepare every day for your family and many elegant (yet still easy to prepare) for entertaining. The Vegetable stock in this cook book is the best and most flavorful I've ever tried and I freeze tons of it in four-cup ziplock freezer bags to use in vegetarian dishes. The recipes are meant to be experimented with and the author gives great advice for substitutions and seasoning in the preface. Because of the special emphasis on seasonal availability of produce this cook book is the perfect choice for the kitchen gardener.

Best soup I've ever made.:
I received Twelve Months of Monastery Soups as a gift for Christmas and I love it. Most of the soups have been a big hit for everyone in my family. I highly recommend this book. The recipes are easy with usually only two or three steps for each soup. I have found a couple of soups that I didn't like in here, but the overwhelming majority of them have been excellent. I especially love the Cream of Broccoli and Cream of Asparagus as well as the Potage du Jardin and Spinach Soup. I think I'm going to buy this book as a gift for several of my friends and family, since I think it was a great gift choice for me.