Editorial Reviews:
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The best-loved and most-admired of all America’s television cooks today, Lidia Bastianich, now gives us her most generous, instructive, and creative cookbook. The emphasis here is on cooking for the family, and her book is filled with unusually delicious basic recipes for everyday eating Italian-style, as well as imaginative ideas for variations and improvisations.
Here are more than 200 fabulous new dishes that will appeal both to Lidia’s loyal following, who have come to rely on her wonderfully detailed recipes, and to the more adventurous cook ready to experiment.
• She welcomes us to the table with tasty bites from the sea (including home-cured tuna and mackerel), seasonal salads, and vegetable surprises (Egg-Battered Zucchini Roll-Ups, Sweet Onion Gratinate).
• She reveals the secret of simple make-ahead soup bases, delicious on their own and easy to embellish for a scrumptious soup that can make a meal.
• She opens up the wonderful world of pasta, playing with different shapes, mixing and matching, and creating sauces while the pasta boils; she teaches us to make fresh egg pastas, experimenting with healthful ingredients–whole wheat, chestnut, buckwheat, and barley. And she makes us understand the subtle arts of polenta- and risotto-making as never before.
• She shares her love of vegetables, skillet-cooking some to intensify their flavor, layering some with yesterday’s bread for a lasagna-like gratin, blanketing a scallop of meat with sautéed vegetables, and finishing seasonal greens with the perfect little sauce.
• She introduces us to some lesser-known cuts of meats for main courses (shoulders, butts, and tongue) and underused, delicious fish (skate and monkfish), as well as to her family’s favorite recipes for chicken and a beautiful balsamic-glazed roast turkey.
• And she explores with us the many ways fruits and crusts (pie, strudel, cake, and toasted bread) marry and produce delectable homey desserts to end the meal.
Lidia’s warm presence is felt on every page of this book, explaining the whys and wherefores of what she is doing, and the brilliant photographs take us right into her home, showing her rolling out pasta with her grandchildren, bringing in the summer harvest, and sitting around the food-laden family table. As she makes every meal a celebration, she invites us to do the same, giving us confidence and joy in the act of cooking.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:  
Summary: Good reference book for motivated cooks!
Comment: I have three of Lidia's books. I don't use it from cover to cover, but what I do use from it are winners. This book gives me what I need to make my own homemade pasta easily. She gives many combinations of flours to make pasta from whole wheat, chestnut, chick pea (gluten free), and other flours. I have made sev'l desserts and other dishes as well. The "Shrimp and Scallops Gratinee" is awesome, simple, elegant, and a 'make-ahead' dinner I go to for no-brainer entertaining. Some recipes may seem to need a bit more perseverance, aimed at the intermediate to advanced cook, but there's something for everybody. Because Lidia is so thorough in her books, it may appear complicated and "textbook-like," but don't let that put you off. This book is a valuable reference addition to my cookbook library.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Very enjoyable, great recipes and photos of Lidia's family
Comment: Recipes that are easy to follow and a great variety. I gave this as a gift to my sister that's not easy to please and she loved it. This book is one you could sit back relax and even enjoy reading.
Customer Rating:
Summary: I love this book!!!
Comment: I have owned this book for a year, and it is one of the very best cookbooks I own (and I own many - used to have a cook book of the month club membership years ago). The pages now are dusty with flour, and stained a bit with my too-happy cooking efforts. The recipes here are DELICIOUS. I'm Polish heritage and my husband is French-Lebanese (and a professional chef), so we do not always agree on food - haha. But we completely agree on every single recipe I have made from this book: "Seconds, please!" This book makes it all so easy. I have made numerous recipes from this book for my family and for parties, always the response is the same, "Oh my god this is so good! I want some more. How did you make it?" Then I tell them about this cookbook.....
Thank you, Lydia!!!!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Tons of great, easy recipes
Comment: I gave this cookbook to my busness partner for his birthday and he loves it.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Solved the puzzle
Comment: This cookbook is awesome! Not only did it solve the problems I was having when making pasta (that EVERY pasta recipe should have covered!), but it is also full of EXCELLENT recipes for the sauces to finish the pasta and vegetable recipes that are simple but fabulous! I've cooked a long time and collected hundreds of cookbooks, but this one is at the top of my favorites!
Nancy - Madera Canyon AZ
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