GIADA'S KITCHEN
BY GIADA DE LAURENTIIS

Giada's Kitchen - New Italian Favorites
(Clarkson Potter, Publishers) ISBN 978-0307346599

Giada's Kitchen is a collection of California-style Italian recipes that range from healthy everyday meals and a classical trattoria dinner party to dishes that kids can help prepare. Giada de Laurentiis modifies traditional Italian dishes to create lighter, nutritious recipes that reflect her Italian background.

Giada de Laurentiis' 240-page Italian cookbook contains 100 recipes for easy to make Italian meals.

Italian cuisine

Each chapter and recipe in Giada's Kitchen begins with an introduction in which Giada de Laurentiis describes recipe ingredients, when to serve the dish (e.g., dinner party), cooking techniques and what makes the dish unique (e.g., Tuscan Mushrooms is a good appetizer for vegetarians).

Recipe notes add cooking details, like how to toast almonds and serving suggestions (e.g., serve lemon risotto in hollowed-out lemon shells).

Full-page color photos, by Tina Rupp, illustrate completed dishes like asparagus lasagna. Detailed, multi-image pictures depict Giada de Laurentiis preparing her favorite Italian meals.

Cooking Italian food for kids

Giada's Kitchen combines recipes to create menus for a kid's birthday party, an elegant vegetarian dinner, a cocktail party, a summer barbecue and other meals.

The chapter on kid's meals features recipes for children like parmesan fish sticks, chicken meatballs, pizza pot pies and chocolate chip pound cake.

Fresh tomato and goat cheese strata with herb oil. Crispy smoked mozzarella with honey and figs. Apple and thyme martini. Focaccia lobster rolls. Panini with chocolate and brie. Asparagus and zucchini crudi. Baked artichokes with gorgonzola and herbs. Roasted halibut with grapefruit fennel salsa. Chocolate panna cotta with Amaretto whipped cream.