...
Show More
Giada De Laurentiis is responsible for my go-to Tiramisu recipe, but until this cookbook that dessert was the only recipe by her I'd made. That recipe and the delicious looking food on her cooking show set expectations high for this cookbook. The results? Not great.
The organization is fairly well done. There are a few brief sections at the beginning, for antipasti/appetizers and for salads and soups, with the following pasta sections divided by type, i.e. no cook sauces, heavy pastas, weeknight pastas, etc. About 1/2 to 2/3 of the recipes have color photos. The index is well organized. I often questioned why one recipe was in one of the categories over another, such as recipes in the quick and easy weeknight pasta section that took as long or longer than recipes in other sections, but generally thought the categories worked. Additional information is included on the best types of pastas for different sauces, wines, and flavored pastas, but I found the information limited and incomplete.
I didn't make any recipe that I would make again as written. A few were better than others, such as the Baked Gnocchi, the Saffron Orzo with Shrimp, the Rotini with Roasted Garlic and Salmon, and the White Bean Soup. Yet, there were flaws in each. The Saffron Orzo with Shrimp was overwhelmed with black pepper. It is all we could taste. I would make it again but significantly cut back on the salt a bit and the pepper a lot. The Rotini with Roasted Garlic and Salmon was great, except it was significantly under sauced. I'd half the pasta and salmon but keep the sauce amount for the full recipe.
In general, the seasonings were off - not just to our taste but generally. The recipes that called for specific amounts of salt and pepper in the ingredient list were either very salty or significantly lacked. A lot of the recipes I made were 1 note - meaning one flavor overwhelmed the others leaving no depth of flavor. I've long known that adding pasta water to sauce helps make it creamier and adhere to pasta better. Yet, adding water of any kind of is going to dilute your flavors. That's not an issue for a 1/2 cup or so, but as in the case of the Tomatoes and Peas with Capellini, adding 2 1/2 cups of pasta water to the sauce made it near flavorless.
It should be noted that the serving sizes are inaccurate. After making the first few recipes, such as the Tomatoes and Peas with Capellini and the Baked Ziti with Roasted Vegetables, I ended up throwing out a lot of food. The Ziti lists the servings at 6 to 8. After eating 7 sizeable servings out of it, we just couldn't eat anymore. I threw half - yes half - of it out. Most of the servings listed are for 6 (some give 4-6 and others says 6-8), but I found halving the recipes got me closer to 6 or 8 servings that making the full recipe. For example, the Baked Gnocchi lists 6 servings for the full recipe. I halved it, and we got 7 servings out of the half.
I appreciate a few of the techniques I learned while testing this cookbook. Baking gnocchi in the oven in the sauce instead of boiling it and adding to a sauce, for example. I also enjoyed exploring new flavor combinations, even if the results were mixed. It is for these reasons I'm giving this 2 stars instead of 1.
The organization is fairly well done. There are a few brief sections at the beginning, for antipasti/appetizers and for salads and soups, with the following pasta sections divided by type, i.e. no cook sauces, heavy pastas, weeknight pastas, etc. About 1/2 to 2/3 of the recipes have color photos. The index is well organized. I often questioned why one recipe was in one of the categories over another, such as recipes in the quick and easy weeknight pasta section that took as long or longer than recipes in other sections, but generally thought the categories worked. Additional information is included on the best types of pastas for different sauces, wines, and flavored pastas, but I found the information limited and incomplete.
I didn't make any recipe that I would make again as written. A few were better than others, such as the Baked Gnocchi, the Saffron Orzo with Shrimp, the Rotini with Roasted Garlic and Salmon, and the White Bean Soup. Yet, there were flaws in each. The Saffron Orzo with Shrimp was overwhelmed with black pepper. It is all we could taste. I would make it again but significantly cut back on the salt a bit and the pepper a lot. The Rotini with Roasted Garlic and Salmon was great, except it was significantly under sauced. I'd half the pasta and salmon but keep the sauce amount for the full recipe.
In general, the seasonings were off - not just to our taste but generally. The recipes that called for specific amounts of salt and pepper in the ingredient list were either very salty or significantly lacked. A lot of the recipes I made were 1 note - meaning one flavor overwhelmed the others leaving no depth of flavor. I've long known that adding pasta water to sauce helps make it creamier and adhere to pasta better. Yet, adding water of any kind of is going to dilute your flavors. That's not an issue for a 1/2 cup or so, but as in the case of the Tomatoes and Peas with Capellini, adding 2 1/2 cups of pasta water to the sauce made it near flavorless.
It should be noted that the serving sizes are inaccurate. After making the first few recipes, such as the Tomatoes and Peas with Capellini and the Baked Ziti with Roasted Vegetables, I ended up throwing out a lot of food. The Ziti lists the servings at 6 to 8. After eating 7 sizeable servings out of it, we just couldn't eat anymore. I threw half - yes half - of it out. Most of the servings listed are for 6 (some give 4-6 and others says 6-8), but I found halving the recipes got me closer to 6 or 8 servings that making the full recipe. For example, the Baked Gnocchi lists 6 servings for the full recipe. I halved it, and we got 7 servings out of the half.
I appreciate a few of the techniques I learned while testing this cookbook. Baking gnocchi in the oven in the sauce instead of boiling it and adding to a sauce, for example. I also enjoyed exploring new flavor combinations, even if the results were mixed. It is for these reasons I'm giving this 2 stars instead of 1.
