Levana Cooks Dairy-Free‪!‬

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY 29 OCT 2007

Trying to prepare a dairy-free mustard sauce is no mean feat; even trickier is concocting a convincing dairy-free creme caramel, tiramisu or yogurt fruit soup. But this imaginative and beautifully-photographed cookbook contains tricks for all these recipes and more, each written in a friendly, step-by-step manner. That Cold Yogurt Fruit Soup, for instance, is a perfect summer snack: a mixture of fresh kiwis, grapes, honeydew and apples, blended with soy milk and tofu, it's good on its own, but even better, as Kirschenbaum suggests, over a scoop of sorbet. Another soup, Creme of Watercress and Asparagus has a more complicated preparation, but turns out a lovely, subtle puree of fresh vegetables and herbs. Spinach Lasagna is slightly less appealing; it's hard not to miss the milky tang of fresh mozzarella, for which tofu cream cheese is no substitute. But the author, a New York-based kosher cooking teacher and restaurateur, more than makes up for lackluster lasagna with outrageously tasty desserts, including Pistachio Halva Mousse with Maple Sauce, which turns the Middle Eastern candy into a seductive, creamy pudding, and Peanut Butter Chocolate Bars full of crunchy puffed rice; they taste great with a few spoonfuls of vanilla ice cream, and Kirschenbaum, happily, provides a wonderful dairy-free recipe for that too.