Full of Beans: 75 Exciting, Tasty Recipes

The recipes are tasty, but a word of warning - many of them are seasoned with "hot" spices, which I had to omit in order to make it palatable for our young children. This book doesn't have any color pictures, which was disappointing. It is also limited in the "types" of beans that it uses - mostly common beans (cannelinni, navy, black, pintos, black-eye-peas, etc.) - not too many exotic-type beans. I love collecting unusual beans, and had hoped to find recipes to use them in, but didn't. These are good recipes for "common" beans, but if you are looking for recipes for the more "exotic" types, this book is limited. I was disappointed with the small size of the book - I thought the price was too high for a small paperback with no color pictures. The recipes have a lot of ethnic variety (Mexican, Morroccan, Indian, Asian, American, etc.) - I wasn't disappointed with the flavors - just expected more for the price. For flavor of recipes, I give it 5 stars. For price, no pictures, and lacking in "exotic bean" recipes, I give it 3 stars.

This is my favorite cookbook, even though I also own Mollie Katzen's excellent Moosewood and EBF cookbooks. I'm a vegetarian, so I do lament that only 41 of Dojny's 75 recipes are vegetarian. But every recipe I've used is a gem. Its advantages over Moosewood include: 1) Katzen is woefully short on bean recipes. As a vegetarian, I can eat far more nutritiously and cheaply with beans at the center of my diet. 2) Dojny's recipe's are reliably tasty. Katzen does have some mediocre ones. 3) Mmm, mmm, I can't believe how good it all tastes!