A cookbook focused on pasta, covering types of pasta, techniques for making pasta by hand, and over 25 Italian-style recipes including soups, salads, baked dishes, and vegetarian options.
This is a pasta cookbook by Thomas Kelley, intended for home cooks who want to learn about different pasta types and how to make healthy pasta dishes and pasta by hand. The book begins with an introduction that frames cooking pasta as an art form rather than a science.
The first chapter, Types of Pasta, lists and describes many pasta shapes, dividing them into two main categories: basic flour and water pastas and egg pastas. It explains which shapes pair best with different sauces, such as long pastas like spaghetti for smooth sauces and tubular pastas like penne for chunky sauces.
The table of contents shows that the book includes a chapter on how to make the perfect batch of pasta every time, followed by a large collection of recipes. These are grouped into sections: delicious pasta soup recipes, delicious pasta recipes, and vegetarian style pasta recipes.
The soup recipes include cannellini bean and pasta soup, vegetable style pasta soup, bean and fagioli pasta soup, healthy pea soup with pasta, Italian style egg drop soup with fresh zucchini, Neapolitan style maccheroni soup, broccoli soup with pasta, homemade tagliolini in broth, and a just for kids pasta soup.
The pasta recipes section features quick and easy rotini salad, Greek style tossed pasta salad, healthy spinach pasta salad with tangy ranch dressing, triple cheese beef stuffed pasta shells, filling vegetable and bean pasta soup, flavorful bolognese pasta, all vegetable and cheese baked ziti, classic chicken and farfalle pasta salad, and several others including special pasta alfredo with bacon bits and cheesy tomato-basil lasagna with ham.
The vegetarian style pasta recipes include butter and sage smothered tagliatelle, white truffle tagliolini, classic fettuccine alfredo, and fettuccine with fresh lemon. The book concludes with a final chapter.