Review by Barb & Ron Kroll

Cookbook Title:

Everyday Pasta
(Clarkson Potter) ISBN 978-0307346582 0307346587

Theme:

This pasta cookbook shows readers how to select, how to make, how to cook and how to serve pasta. Giada De Laurentiis provides recipes for pasta and pasta sauces in appetizers, main courses, soups and salads, and recipes for dishes to serve with it.

Sample Recipes:

Baked caprese salad. Goat cheese toasts. Crostini with anchovy butter and cheese. Arugula salad with fried gorgonzola. Neopolitan calamari and shrimp salad. Cinnamon-scented ricotta ravioli with beef ragu. Angel hair pasta with sun-dried tomatoes and goat cheese.

Pork and lemon orzotto. Butternut squash tortelloni with cranberry walnut sauce. Linguine and lobster Fra Diavolo.

Notable Elements:

The introduction to the pasta cookbook includes the history of pasta, top ten cooking tips for never-fail pasta and which sauces go with the various shapes of pasta.

Everyday Pasta also features basic recipes for sauces like marinara and béchamel, flavored oils and vinaigrettes. A crash course on Italian wines helps you select the best red or white wine to go with pasta dishes.

Giada De Laurentiis suggests menus for brunch, birthdays, dinner parties, wedding shower buffets, Christmas and New Year's Eve, game nights and kids.

Tone / Style:

Pasta r ecipes are easy to read with straight-forward instructions. Most of Giada De Laurentiis' recipes are quick to prepare. Readers can assemble ingredients, while cooking the pasta.

Each one- or two-page recipe in Everyday Pasta includes number of servings and an introduction with a history of the dish, substitute ingredients and Giada's personal comments. Sidebars cover topics like dried pasta versus fresh, no-cook pasta sauces and grating cheeses.

Visuals:

Mouthwatering, full-page, color images of dishes, ingredients and techniques illustrate the 240-page cookbook.

Contents:

Introduction
Pasta Go-Withs

• Antipasti and Appetizers
• Something on the Side

Pasta for All Seasons

• Soups and Pasta Salads
• Hearty Pastas
• On the Lighter Side
• Quick and Easy Weeknight Pastas
• Pasta for Special Occasions

Pasta Basics

• Basic Recipes

Menus
Index

Author:

Giada De Laurentiis

Claim to fame:

Granddaughter of movie producer Dino De Laurentiis, Giada trained at Cordon Bleu in Paris, worked in restaurants (including Wolfgang Puck's Spago) in Los Angeles and then started her own catering and private-chef company, GDL Foods. She is author of two other cook books: Everyday Italian and Giada's Family Dinners.

 
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More Giada de Laurentiis cookbooks:

Giada's Kitchen - New Italian Favorites

Giada at Home - Family recipes from Italy and California