Rating: 
Summary: Worth the time and effort to prepare
Review: Here are 275 vegetarian recipes from San Francisco's Greens Restaurant. These are recipes that draw on a number of cuisines like Southern France, Italy, Mexico and the American Southwest.All dishes are prepared from scratch so ingredients are fresh and food tastes that way. If you're not sure about vegetarian fare being tasty and filling, these are the recipes to try. You won't be disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: A really good cookbook investment
Review: I bought this book a year or so ago and have made most of the recipes in the book with my boyfriend. Latest: Zuchinni and Pine Nuts in Phyllo, Yellow Squash Soup with Indian Spices, Fresh Tomato Soup with Sage and Parsley Sauce. We regularly make a few other recipes. One thing, we always tinker with recipes but we consistently find her spice alottment bland, and so always double the garlic and add something to nod the heat up. But, what fun would cooking be if you didn't tinker with the recipes? Madison also writes warmly- and she gives good advice on ingredients, and notes on what foods/herbs will contribute to the soup, etc.
Rating: 
Summary: Incredible
Review: I found this book to be very informative and a worthy investment. It made me look at the vegetables in my supermarket in new ways and also how to use up what I have on hand at home. Saved me a ton of money by learning to make stocks out of vegetable parings and omitting meats. Highly recommended!
Rating:
Summary: a vegetarian cookbook even carnivores can love
Review: I have a weakness for buying cookbooks and probably have far too many. Whenever I go to make a meal (7+ times a week) I think that I should use some of the untouched cookbooks with glossy photos, but inevitably I return to the Greens. Even though I eat meat, I don't notice that this is a vegetarian cookbook. With the advent of more varied produce sections in most grocery stores, you owe it to yourself to get this book and use it. You will be eating healthy without even realizing it! There are some wonderful pizza recipes (including homemade crust that is fun to make) and an intriguing spinach soup with Indian spices. The restaurant in San Francisco is also definitely worth a visit; the tempting menu vies with the stunning view of the bridge for your attention.
Rating:
Summary: Greens Cook Book is Top-Notch
Review: I have been to The Greens Restaurant in San Francisco a number of times since 1991, including one special occasion: my best friend's wedding reception in 1996. The restaurant is superb, one of the best in SF and in any city! My husband turned me on to the cook book back in 1992, and since then we refer to it more often than The Joy of Cooking. Our favorite recipes include the mushroom pizza with jack and dry jack cheese, and the mushroom lazagne. These are not beginner's recipes, but the directions are easy to follow if you're familiar with all the standard cooking techniques. The recipes are out of this world! I personally am not a vegetarian, but these recipes take your vegetables and taste buds beyond your wildest dreams. I would recommend this cook book to anyone who likes cooking and eating fine food. If you're looking for easy recipes that take 10 minutes, you'll have to settle for hamburger helper or kraft macaroni and cheese... this is not the place for you! But if you love cooking and love trying new recipes, this is one to add to your collection.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful book! Great recipes for special occasions.
Review: I've tried over ten or so recipes in this book and all were both delicious and easy to prepare, however, if you can't cut or chop vegetables, then don't buy the book and stick to your macaroni and velveeta or have a bowl of cereal instead. This book is for elegant vegetarian cooking and, like the book "Olives Table", is for special occasions and intimate dinners. I learned a great deal while reading this book, especially about vegetables that I don't use on a regular basis (celery root, parsnips, brussel sprouts). I also learned about making thin-crust pizza and a different way of making homemade pasta. The only problem I found was that she uses measurements like "one celery root" etc. Since her restaurant uses organic vegetables, they tend to be smaller that your average supermarket variety. If you know how to read a recipe and figure out proportions, this should not be an issue. If it looks like you've added too much of one vegetable, then you probably have. But not to worry, the recipes are very forgiving. Let's face it, how can you screw up a carrot?
Rating: 
Summary: Not the right cookbook for me
Review: The Greens restaurant in San Francisco was one of the greatest things ever to come along for vegetarians. A true gourmet dining experience where not even the most die-hard meat eater would have a bad experience. Nothing earthy-crunchy here. That said, my title says it all -- don't try this at home. At least not unless you are an extremely experienced cook with lots of time and patience. The ingredients are difficult to work with and the instructions are given only with using them completely from scratch with fancy equipment, for instance, grinding whole spices in a spice mill. No powdered spice equivalents are given. Instructions seem simple, e.g., peel the winter squash and dice it into one-inch cubes, but until you have tried to peel and work with winter squash, you don't realize how difficult and time-consuming it is. I thought I was going to end up in the E.R. The book also doesn't give you any idea of prep and cooking time. I've started out in the afternoon making a meal out of the most uncomplicated sounding receipes in the book, so I'd have plenty of time to relax before dinner, only to find myself still working on the meal at eleven p.m. And most of the recipes are more complicated. Frankly, the results aren't worth the bother. The resulting food is, for the most part, good, but not great. It may be worth it to you if you really love to cook and have lots of spare time, but for the rest of us, there are books on the market that are more helpful and lead to quicker meals that are just as tasty. This one is strictly for the pros.
Rating:
Summary: The Green Way
Review: This book is from the ether. Really great cookbooks draw you into a world that you had not understood before. Many people who love the Marcella Hazan book love it because it includes the comfort foods of Italy they are familiar with, but also has tons of wonderful, varied surprises. This book is kind of similar. There are recipes that you will realize are the province of the vegetarian and are very appealing, and then there are new things to be discovered that will make you feel, upon their discovery, almost ashamed. The first recipe I prepared was for the White Bean and Tomato Soup with Parsley Sauce. I just about lost my mind. I had only recently started using the mortar and pestle for prepping garlic and this recipe made use of that technique to stunning effect. With a piece of crusty bread, it is as fulfilling as anything you are going to find to eat with animal parts in it. I also like DM's 1400 recipe book but this one is more exciting as a cookbook, the other more encyclopedic. The soups section is especially amazing. I've made almost all of them now. Also, as some people may know, many cookbooks have blunt wrong recipes. I haven't had any recipes miss yet from this book.
Rating:
Summary: One of my favorite cookbooks!
Review: This is a really wonderful cookbook. It is vegetarian, but even the entrees are so good that people don't miss the presence of meat. I've never made anything from this book that I (and whoever else I was eating with) didn't *really* enjoy. The recipes as written are pretty much from scratch, and often call for slightly exotic cultivars of vegetables and so forth. I used to live in Pennsylvania, with a pretty decent garden and farmers' markets galore, and with those resources available, I could pretty much just follow the recipes, and the food was truly wonderful. Since I moved to Barrow, many things either can't be obtained, or the price to FedEx them here is ridiculous. So I make substituions with what is available in any grocery store, and the results still taste excellent. There are even some savings in prep time. So, if you don't have lots of time to cook or are worried about exotic ingedients, don't be! This book will work just fine for you too. Favorite recipes: winter squash gratin, white winter vegetable casserole (bet you didn't know parsnips could be really good!), cheese sandwich with smoked chilies & cilantro.
Rating:
Summary: One of my favorite cookbooks!
Review: This is a really wonderful cookbook. It is vegetarian, but even the entrees are so good that people don't miss the presence of meat. I've never made anything from this book that I (and whoever else I was eating with) didn't *really* enjoy. The recipes as written are pretty much from scratch, and often call for slightly exotic cultivars of vegetables and so forth. I used to live in Pennsylvania, with a pretty decent garden and farmers' markets galore, and with those resources available, I could pretty much just follow the recipes, and the food was truly wonderful. Since I moved to Barrow, many things either can't be obtained, or the price to FedEx them here is ridiculous. So I make substituions with what is available in any grocery store, and the results still taste excellent. There are even some savings in prep time. So, if you don't have lots of time to cook or are worried about exotic ingedients, don't be! This book will work just fine for you too. Favorite recipes: winter squash gratin, white winter vegetable casserole (bet you didn't know parsnips could be really good!), cheese sandwich with smoked chilies & cilantro.
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