Month: June 2019

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I love pesto! I love the simplicity of it all while packed with amazing flavor. Imagine my delight to receive this book to review that is PACKED with recipes for pesto and recipes using pesto!

There is every kind of pesto you can imagine in this delightful little book. From the classic Genovese Pesto to Ricotta and Garden Greens, Goat Cheese, Yogurt and Lemon Pesto and even Peanut Cilantro Pesto, it moves to Fresh Green Harissa, Red Pepper and Walnut Puree, Fennel Chive Butter and more. Mayonnaises, herbed oils, vinaigrettes come next with recipes using these culinary delights rounding out the book.

If you like pesto in any way, shape or form–this book is for you!! It is nearly an encyclopedia of pesto and pesto laced recipes and a true delight to cook from!

I received a copy of this book from Storey Publishing for my honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Authentic Italian cooking–this is right up my alley!! My favorite cuisine packaged in a quality book with gorgeous photographs! It is classic Italian as in a few quality ingredients prepared well. I love the basic brodo recipes, pestos, etc. The soffrito, in my humble opinion, uses way too much olive oil. We made the Tuscan Ragu which uses the soffrito. I kept looking at the recipe for the soffrito and finally decided to cut the oil in half. Honestly, we could have cut it down to 1/4 and it would probably have been perfect. While it was a little oily from too much oil in the soffrito, the flavor of the ragu was out of this world!! It was a huge hit in our family. Let’s just say there weren’t leftovers!

The beginning of this book is fascinating with information, history, tips and more. I love the “Pantry” section! It then moves on to “Ready to Use” which is where you find the recipes for those basic items you would use a lot such as broths, pestos and more. NOW you get to the bones of the book–the recipes!

If you like simple, well cooked food, this is a great cookbook. The reason I dropped it to one star is the heavy over use of oil in the soffrito, and the fact that there are several hard to find ingredients called for. Otherwise, this is a great cookbook.

I received a copy of this cookbook from St. Martin’s Griffin for my honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

My daughter loves to bake. She just turned 17, and is fascinated with cakes, pastries and all things baking. She was teaching herself French, so I thought this would be a great book for her. I was so right! She fell absolutely in love with it!

This book is set up brilliantly in that it builds upon itself. It starts with some essentials, 3 basic batters and moves onto pastry decorating. From there you learn Entrements, then Tarts, Choux, Puff Pastry and Viennoiseries. There are notes, pictures, drawings and more scattered all throughout the book making it a great tool for learning French baking. My daughter was able to easily turn out quality products without any help, just by using this book.

I like to give my highest recommendations to books like this–well written, illustrated and easily followed. This is a great cookbook that I am very happy to highly recommend!

I received a copy of this book from Countryman Press for my honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.