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Title: Quick and Easy: Pasta Recipes (Nitty Gritty Cookbooks) by Coleen Simmons, Bob Simmons ISBN: 1-55867-050-5 Publisher: Bristol Pub Enterprises Pub. Date: March, 1999 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $8.95

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Average Customer Rating: 4.67 (3 reviews)

Rating: 4
Summary: Unlovely but Essential for Pasta from Scratch
Comment: Ignore the Format

If you're like me, you enjoy beautiful cookbooks with full-color photos of every dish, each perfectly prepared, garnished and groomed by a food stylist, and plated on co-ordinating dinnerware. This is not one of those books. This book is not even book-sized, has one photo (the [soft]cover), and feels only slightly more expensive than the pad of Mad Libs you took on junior high field trips. It is, however, indispensible if you're looking to make your own pasta from scratch, especially with the aid of a food processor. Forget breaking eggs into a well of flour and hoping your kitchen doesn't end up looking struck by nuclear winter. These recipes work quickly and well, even in a humid kitchen.

Basic Pasta Plus

The basic pasta recipe is great, especially for lasagne noodles you can custom-cut to fit your pan, but the real reason to make your own pasta is to make flavors you can't readily buy in the store. I've tried the spinach pasta and red pepper pasta variants, both with success. The book also has very helpful instructions for using a pasta machine. You can make these recipes with just a kitchen counter, a rolling pin, and a sharp knife, but I wouldn't recommend it. Unless you're researching traditional cooking or enjoy martyrdom, use a food processor and have your hand-cranked or electric pasta roller and cutter standing by.

Maybe Buy Capers but Don't Change Your Life

Even though making fresh pasta is usually a weekend project, the authors have made quite a stab towards weeknight convenience on the basis that once you've made and dried your pasta, it will keep for several weeks. The book includes many recipes for sauces that can be assembled and cooked in the time it takes to cook your pasta. There is also a section on how to set up a pasta addict's pantry so you can be ready to transform whatever is lingering in your fridge into a quick weeknight sauce. WARNING: Unless you harbor constant cravings for sundried tomato paste and the many permutations of tinned anchovies, this section is a mistake.

Alfredo Only

The majority of the sauce recipes, although fast, tended to be either amazingly oily or very humdrum in comparison with some of the better jarred sauces. The recipes are simple enough to preclude spectacular failures, but most don't justify effort beyond popping the vacuum seal on some Barilla sauce. The exception to this was the recipe for authentic Alfredo sauce, which was both fast and delicious as promised; my dinner guests have quietly asked for this recipe following the meal. The pesto recipe works--with more basil and less oil--but I rail against a recipe that requires major modifications to meet my taste. Alfredo aside, I'd recommend making up your own sauce recipes or checking back issues of Cook's Illustrated magazine.

In short, buy this book for the pasta recipes and the education in pasta making--it IS worth it; make the lovely Alfredo if you're not on a diet; and look elsewhere for colorful sauces and photos to match.

Rating: 5
Summary: Works for kids
Comment: My friend and I are teen-agers and though we can't cook much else, these recipes are what they're advertised to be: quick, extremely easy, and they're delicious too. My parents will even eat my cooking with these recipes. I highly recommend this book, for any level. You won't regret buying this book!

Rating: 5
Summary: Fantastic Pasta Recipes, a must to all pasta lovers.
Comment: Pasta Lovers,

This is one of the greatest pasta cook books on the market today. My father and I are constantly searching for new pasta flavors and this little book is our favorite. My book is so worn and used I have to buy another copy soon. Highlights are the white clam sauce and the meatball sauce.

Try them all with the wine suggestions. You will want to personally thank Coleen and Bob.

Matthew Walsh