The Pasta Friday Cookbook

The book is based on the great idea of having a group of however many people you can handle over to eat dinner for "Pasta Friday." The author explains her reasons for creating it, gives the set of guidelines she follows to keep it manageable, and offers a list of pantry ingredients to have on hand and directions for scaling the recipes up to feed a larger crowd (they're written mostly for 4-6 or 6-8 servings to start).
The recipes are divided into seasons, with 52 pastas (one for each Friday). Each recipe has wine pairings, alternative pasta shapes that would work well, and suggestions of items to serve alongside. The recipes all sound delicious and use a variety of ingredients. There are lots of beautiful color photos of many of the dishes. Each season also has a handful of salad recipes, and there's a section called "extras" in the back with a few recipes for items that would be great additions to the pastas and salads.

I grew up eating a lot of pasta and I still love it. This cookbook appealed to me immediately.
There’s a ton of pasta recipes that I’ve never heard of before.
Everything sounds delicious.
There’s really something for every pasta fan here.
The recipes come with wine suggestions.
The pictures are beautiful and make the food look just as good as it sounds.
I bookmarked about a dozen recipes. I’m planning to make the gnocchi with peas and prosciutto next week. Don’t worry, it doesn’t require homage gnocchi. This is a good thing because every time I’ve made gnocchi I swear I’ll never do it again :)

Pasta dishes are so easy to make and adored by my children. In this book you can find also salad ideas to combine with your pasta. I, personally, love tuna pasta, but won't refuse the rest of the recipes 😀. Thank you Netgalley for this delicious book.

I know we are all pretending not to eat carbs these days but I devour them more desperately than a 30 year old single chick at her younger sister's wedding.

This gorgeously photographed, approachable cookbook will make my pasta itch easier than ever to scratch!
Thank you!

Thank you to Allison Arevalo, Andrews McMeel Publishing, and NetGalley for giving me this digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I love pasta. I could eat it every night of the week if I could. I like to make my own also when I can. This book is a great book of recipes. It is divided into seasons. It has everything from Seasonal Pastas, Seasonal Salads for each of the seasons. I found the serving per person section in the book very helpful (I always make to much), Each recipe has an ingredients listing and easy to follow directions. Some of the recipes are Avocado Bacon Salad with Salsa Verde, Penne Alla Vino, Pappardello with Roasted Pork and Mushrooms, Citrus Salad with Avocado and Celery, Grandma Louise's Noodle Pie, and much more. It has beautiful photos of some of the food that will make your mouth water. An index in the back does help to find the recipes easily. This is a must have cookbook for the at home chef.

Nice tastey recipes for family get togethers. Clear instructions to take the strain of cooking for larger groups.

Beautiful cookbook filled with love, warmth and friendship. Tips on hosting large pasta gatherings at your home are included along with fun anecdotal stories about past Pasta Fridays at the author's house.

My great grandmother was from Italy and she taught my grandma who taught me how to cook Italian dishes. Many of these recipes are similar to family favorites of mine. I live in Indiana and don't have a local Italian grocery store. Many of these quality ingredients are hard to find here and fresh seafood is impossible. I can only dream of pasta al ceppo baked with crab and peppers. Yum.

If you love pasta or would like to host casual dinners and gathering pick up this cookbook. It will become a staple of your kitchen.

Pasta is my favorite food! So getting this book was a no brainer and I was not disappointed. The variety was very good. I would definitely love to buy this book in paperback. I definitely recommend this to anyone who loves pasta. Personally I'd eat it every day!

I love a cookbook that is completely transparent about what it includes, and that is what PASTA FRIDAY is. An explanation of how "Pasta Friday" became a thing in the Arevalo household, as well as a guide to helping you start your own, PASTA FRIDAY makes me think of a combination of weekly family meals and weekly game nights with a group of my parents' friends, which to me is the best of both worlds. I also really liked that Arevalo divided the recipes into seasons (pasta can be so heavy during the summer and it was nice to see some *lighter* ideas/recipes). The final plus in my eyes was that for each recipe Arevalo included win pairings and the different pastas (shapes) that work best with each recipe. As one who does not drink wine at all, but who knows many who do, it is nice to have ideas of works well before going in to a store to buy wine.

This was pretty good from a recipe standpoint, it's always good to find some ways to change up pasta dishes and I bookmarked a few I'm really excited to try here. The lifestyle angle didn't really work for me though. There's a lot of focus on kids, for one, and I can't imagine cooking once a week for up to fifty (!) people, which is the premise f Pasta Fridays. To be fair, the recipes don't demand that, but it felt like missing something of the point.

Still, I liked the way she works vegetables like broccoli and asparagus into these and some good seafood ideas too. And the food photography is amazing!

This is a great cookbook for the pasta fan. It's divided into season and recommends fresh items for that time period to add to your dish. The author also recommends a wine to accompany the dishes along with a couple of recipes for salads. The book explains about the multitude of pastas available and recommends several types for each recipe. 52 recipes with a beautiful picture of each dish. Also shows how to expand the recipe for more people. I received a copy of this ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Pasta Friday is a concise, yet cohesive cookbook for group dinners. Arevalo’s recipes look amazing, and the concept seems great. Her rules make sense and seem reasonable. I particularly like “no accommodations for food allergies/tastes”, and “always clean up the night before”. Although I’m not sure I agree with “No desserts”. But that’s the beauty of this cookbook, it has plenty of room to make it your own.

The recipe section of the book is perfectly broken down by season, with a variety of pasta dishes and salad recipes for each season. I can’t wait to try some of the recipes and host a Pasta Friday of my own.

The Pasta Friday Cookbook was a really fun cookbook, especially if one loves pasta. It's divided into sections based on seasons and there's a bunch of recipes I would love to try, such as Duck Lasagne with Roasted Carrots. I think this book is a must-have for pasta lovers.

The Pasta Friday Cookbook offers over 70 recipes and tips on starting your own Pasta Friday tradition including how to send out invites and setting a limit of people, Setting the tone of the gathering — casual, setting a weekly budget, and overall appearance of your home.

Ingredients used in Preparing for Pasta Friday include Dried Pasta, Olive Oil, Salt and Spices( Black Pepper, fresh herbs, chiles), Cheese, and Canned tomatoes.

Another section shows you how to use these recipes and scale up for the crowd. The author offers a variety of pasta shapes and presents guidelines for the reader to follow.

For the 52 dinners in this book, the author presents 52 different recipes that call for 52 pasta shapes. She encourages the reader to use these recipes for friends and family gatherings. She also recommends three kinds of sauces to accompany the pasta— Tomato-Based Sauces, Meat-Based Sauces, and Cream-Based Sauces.

The recipes are categorized according to the four seasons of the years. Summer pasta recipes include Bucatini with summer corn and Pancetta, Crispy Casarecce with Tuna, Tomatoes, and Arugula. Each recipe is accompanied by the pasta shapes, wine pairing suggestion, and a side dish.

Also included in this book are extras such as Homemade Breadcrumbs, Homemade Croutons, and Salsa Verde.
This cookbook has a great selection of recipes with ingredients that are easy to find.

Thank you to Allison Arevalo, NetGalley, and Andrews McMeel Publishing for an ARC of this book.

There are so many types of pasta, and this cookbook makes me want to try them all! It makes it easy to get the kids involved in trying something new. I doubt that I'll end up cooking pasta for a huge crowd, but if I need to, this book will help. In the meantime, though, we'll cook pasta for the family with it.

We love pasta and love new recipes. Though this book is built around food gatherings, it is an excellent book with many new and easy to make salad and pasta dishes. I especially like all the beautiful pictures to see what the food should look like.

Pasta Friday is an excellent idea to get everyone together to gossip and appreciate their time together while enjoying meals that everyone will love. I've yet to meet anyone who did not have at least one pasta dish on their list of favorites. Plus Allison Arevalo gives us many new, and different types of pasta and then uses them in a dish sure to please even the person who thinks macaroni and cheese is the height of pasta cuisine. My friends and family have already put together a calendar of gatherings to try her recipes and her excellent suggestions for quality time together.

I received this arc from NetGalley for an honest review. Great pasta recipes for big family gatherings along with salad and other dishes. Looking forward to my next pasta night.

I am a pasta addict to say the least. I eat some form of spaghetti or penne 3-4 times a week depending on how much I am exercising/dieting. There are a ton of recipes in here that I am dying to try. I loved how it was divided into seasons. Highly recommend.

*Thanks so much to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book is great! I flipped through and can't wait to try some of these recipes myself. My family is Italian and I am always looking for great and easy meals to feed a crowd. I am a firm believer that every cookbook should have pictures because people eat with their eyes and this book has so many stunning and delicious photos, often full page, that caught my eye. The recipes are laid out very clearly and seem very easy to follow and most of the recipes don't have an overwhelming number of ingredient or use ingredient that would be very hard for me to find. I also really enjoyed all the informative recipe notes and the suggestion of wine pairings.

The first thing that strikes you are the beautiful colour photographs.
I loved the explanation & history of "Pasta Friday" - such a personal, heart-warming introduction into an even more amazing book. That first chapter has a whole bag of useful tips and tricks.
I love the idea of "building a community" through the simple act of cooking - THAT'S what food is all about.
The recipes are well laid-out. I especially like the fact that they are divided into seasons - very handy as you utilize in season produce but also use the weather to influence your choice of dish - hearty or light.
The "Wine Pairings"; "Pasta Shapes" and "Serve With" are a nifty addition too.
I had to Google quite a few of the pastas and some of the ingredients as they are not so well known here in South Africa and a lot of the pasta is not available locally. But the addition of the "Pasta Shapes" with alternative pastas for each recipe becomes very useful in adapting the recipes to suit what's available.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for allowing me the chance to read this book.

If you love pasta and really wanna try some new recipes and new way to do it, this book is perfect for you. I def got some cooking inspiration while reading it and the pictures are really nice. Everything looks so delicious, I wish it would just magically appear on my plate.

There are also some great salad recipes in here and with every recipe comes a suggested wine paring, which I love, cause I never know what wine to pair with anything. The only thing I would have loved was to have a picture for every single dish, but that's just my personal preference.

Yes! Are we allowed to eat pasta again. Fabulous cookbook let’s be neighbors, friends and family and it pasta. Fun, simple to slightly complicated recipes. Many wonderful, and yummy. I’ve made 3 so far and was not disappointed.

Pasta Friday was originally the author’s way to gather friends, family, and neighbors together for pasta and salad at the end of the work week. The evening at her home was a casual and supportive, and from those experiences grew The Pasta Friday Cookbook.

The cookbook is filled with ideas for creating your own Pasta Friday – whether it be just for your family or for a larger group. It includes information on how to prepare, the ingredients to have on hand and how to increase your recipes to feed a crowd.

Organized by seasons, the recipes also include wine pairings, the type of pasta appropriate for each recipe, and suggested condiments (pepper flakes, bread crumbs, etc) that can be served with the meal. Salad recipes are also included with each season.While not every recipe is accompanied by a photograph, the photos that are included are enticing.

This is a very specific cookbook but it should appeal to any cook who is looking for a variety of pasta dishes and how to serve them

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing a copy of this book for review.

I love anything with pasta recipes! If you’re ready to step up your cooking skills, get this book. Great photos and easy to follow.

What a great idea! With social media and a lack of communication with those we care about, Allison Arevalo has come up with an excellent cookbook, The Pasta Friday Cookbook: Let's Eat Together , that gets us together with friends, neighbors, or family for a weekly pasta night. In this cookbook, she not only gives instructions on how to start a group, but what to cook once the group has been formed.

The recipes are mostly simple to make, with easy-to-find ingredients, and easy-to-follow instructions. Everyone loved the Pappardelle with Roasted Pork and Mushrooms, and it is sure to become a standby at our house. Another new favorite is Spicy, Cheesy Shrimp with Lanterne and Breadcrumbs. Zia Bruna’s Spaghetti with Meatballs is also excellent. There are dozens of other mouthwatering dishes in the queue, including Crispy Chickpeas with Cencioni and Sausage, Cannelloni with Swiss Chard, Ricotta, and Béchamel, Bavette with Fiery Shrimp, and Calamarata with Braised Short Ribs and Saffron.

The variety of good, unique pasta dishes makes it so that everyone, no matter what their tastes, can find something yummy to serve on their pasta night. Every recipe so far has turned out picture-perfect, and there have been no complaints from adults, children, or even the picky eaters (they seem to exist everywhere, constantly trying to ruin everyone else’s food experience). One of the best parts about the recipes is that most require only crusty bread and a salad to make a complete meal. Even those who aren’t having a weekly pasta night will definitely want to make these recipes for their own families and friends. While there are photographs of most of the dishes, every dish isn’t pictured, with is unfortunate.

The suggestions for a successful get-together are very good, and anyone, whether a beginning cook or advanced, will find it easy to plan and carry out a simple night filled with friends and pasta.


Special thanks to NetGalley for supplying a review copy of this book.

I have a good friend whose family has a Sicilian background. I think this cookbook would very much appeal to her. This book is traditional Italian food vs the Americanized version found at Olive Garden. I am very much looking forward to trying “Dad’s Famous Roasted Pepper Sauce” as well as the fettuccine Alfredo. The author splits the pasta recipes into different seasons which may help with finding ingredients. She does offer substitute ideas but it may be difficult to find some of the ingredients/pasta in a local grocery. Thank you for allowing me to review an advanced copy.

Great book if you are looking for the quick and easy recipes for dinners. The ingredients are mostly affordable and easily accessible. Great ideas of simple pasta dishes.

I grew up in a 'pasta Friday' home so much of this book felt familiar. A different pasta for each week of the year feels fun & the variety keeps things interesting. Splitting the year by seasons & giving recipes for each is a great way to use seasonal ingredients. I might not agree with the 'no dessert' stance or that the amount of pasta is the same for seven people as it is for 10 but this is a solid effort. I can't wait to try many of the dishes, which range from new twists on old standards to the unusual, such as duck lasagna.

A great family cookbook for meals you can have together, without all the entertaining fuss. Very well laid out with easy to follow directions and nice photos.

The Pasta Friday Cookbook
Let's Eat Together
by Allison Arevalo


With over 70 recipes in this book there is definitely something for everyone! The idea of having one day a week to socialize and to do so using a different pasta and sauce each week of the year is interesting. I have loved pasta since I was three or four and living next door to an Italian woman who made pasta in her kitchen. Anyway, this book was a delight to look through and gave me much food for thought.

Ms Arevalo has given clear cut directions in her recipe and in the first chapter tells why she started this tradition and gives hints on how to be successful should you decide to do this yourself. How much for 2 or 4 or 25 people and how to also figure out how much meat, sauce etc is mentioned. The recipes are set up by season starting with Fall and each season has ingredients that should be readily available. The photography is lovely and made me want to sit down with t he bottle of wine I had brought with me to enjoy a meal with all the others there for the meals.

Thank you to NetGalley and Andrews McMeel Publishing for the ARC – This is my honest review.

5 Stars

This book has 52 pasta recipes, from basic sun-dried tomato to squid ink. What makes it different from other pasta books is turning Pasta Night into a Pasta Party where you invite friends and neighbors and hopefully make it a regular event. This is how pasta should be enjoyed, and the authors do a really fantastic job with the idea.

The book starts with suggestions on how to have your own Pasta Fridays, and it’s a lot more helpful than just “Invite your friends over.” It goes over all the things you’d normally not know until you’ve experienced several disastrous dinner parties. If you read this section first you will avoid many mistakes and I was quite impressed with the information. It really focuses on not going overboard or creating unnecessary work for yourself, and there are several helpful ideas for having kids at the party (which they encourage).

The recipes are divided up within the four seasons so you can enjoy fresh produce in your recipes, and there are salad recipes in each section as well. This was the reason I requested this book. There are endless pasta cookbooks out there, but this one includes the salad that you (and your body) needs when you’re stuffing yourself with delicious carbs. The salads are not complicated, just delicious, and also take advantage of the seasons.

This book picks a specific theme, Pasta Friday, and really sticks to it and covers it completely. I love that it really focuses on keeping things simple. Just delicious pasta, salad and wine, with some bread and butter on the side.

Five stars for some great recipes and sticking to one simple concept completely.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is a great book with easy to follow recipes and good stories to go along with them. The pasta dishes for the most part as easy and I found the different salads a very good touch. This reminded me of when my father and I would cook every Sunday an Italian meal for our family and he would share the different stories of his childhood and grandparents who came over from Italy with me. The main thing is getting back to sitting down and sharing with family and friends and this is what this book gets you to do. A wonderful book.

Thank you Netgalley for my copy of this book.

This book is a great example of a pasta recipe book. It has recipes from easy to hard and follows seasonal ingredients so recipes can be cheaper if needed. Nice addition to anyone's recipe book collection.

Pasta is a staple in our household, as well as when I was growing up. I would make any of these recipes for my family (more like my husband because he is the cook). I can't wait to try many of these soon!
#Pastafridaycookbook #Netgalley

Such a wonderful cookbook with tons of recipes I would love to try. I have tried 2 so far and both my husband and I have very much enjoyed them.

I will be trying more in the future for sure and I have already recommended this one to all my friends.

The Pasta Friday Cookbook: Let's Eat Together written by Allison Arevalo is a wonderful cookbook that centers around a family tradition and how to share the love of pasta with friends and family. As she says in her introduction "Pasta Friday is a life-changing tradition that turns neighbors into friends, and friends into family". I was really inspired by delving into this cookbook about the history behind the tradition of Pasta Friday. She also shares great advice on how you can start your own Pasta Friday and keeping it casual with room for everyone, including the cook, to enjoy the entire event.

The photography by Sara Remington is top notch, and inspires you to use pasta shapes you may never have heard of, and understand the emotions that these gatherings bring out in people. This book is packed with full color photography that brings this cookbook to life!

Recipes in The Pasta Friday Cookbook

There are more than 70 recipes in this cookbook, a different pasta recipe for every week of the year, plus some helpful recipes to offer salad options and other great additions.

This cookbook is arranged by seasons, and you are going to find pasta recipes that you have never experienced, but you can't wait to try! I love peaches, but never dreamed of trying them in a pasta - but the recipe for Pam's Pasta with Sausage, Tomatoes, and Peaches will make you swoon. Other recipe examples include; Bucatini with Summer Corn and Pancetta, Filei with Wild Mushrooms, Lemon, and Garlic, Linguine with Dungeness Crab, Scallops, and Clams, and then in spring you can try Spaghettoni with Red Pesto, Peas and Burrata.  

Each recipe contains a sidebar that suggests Wine Pairings, Pasta Shapes and Serve With ideas to complete the meal.

One thing to note - I was a bit intimidated by the huge serving sizes that the recipes give you, but there is a section towards the beginning showing you how to scale these recipes for a range of 2 people and up to 20-25 people. So no mater who will be coming to your Pasta Friday, you will have the guidance to make the right amount of food. Or - having the option to work in some planned leftovers of these wonderful dishes!

The Pasta Friday Cookbook: Let's Eat Together is an incredible cookbook for anyone who loves pasta, anyone that loves sharing food with friends and family, and/or someone that wants to start their own family tradition.

This book is about family and friends eating together with simple meal and good pasta to suit the seasons.This book opens with some really good information about all things that make a pasta dish delicious. It is followed by some fabulous pasta dishes to serve for summer, fall, winter and spring, all are well written with added information to take your pasta to great. Easy to make and great to share.
I come from an Italian background and I remember the family and friends coming together at a big table, everyone talking at once and get stuck into the pasta, with the little one either with sauce splattered faces or sucking up the endless string of spaghetti, and laughter all around. This book evokes these memories and there should be more of it.

This is a great cookbook for pasta lovers. If you need dinner for the family or a large group of people, this book helps with that. There are many color photos that make the dishes look delicious. The recipes are easy to read and divided into the 4 seasons. In my family we have pasta on Sunday, but we love pasta any day. We also love to have salad before our pasta. This cookbook is great for the home cook and pasta lover to have.

The Pasta Friday Cookbook by Allison Arevalo makes entertaining for a crowd easy with her pasta recipes. The book is divided into the four seasons with pasta dishes and salads. I appreciated that the author included pasta substitutes for those of us living in areas where numerous pasta varieties are scarce. The recipes are easy to follow and go beyond the basic spaghetti. My only problem is that many of the recipes require fresh ingredients (meat, cheeses and vegetables) that I will never be able to find in a local grocery store. For those living in a large city and cooking for adventurous eaters, this would be a wonderful cookbook!

This book has really upped my pasta game. We have pasta at least once a week but got stuck in a bit of a rut making the same few dishes. This book has great recipes and the two I have tried so far have been very successful.

This is a great book for pasta lovers and also vegetarians as there are lots of vegetable based recipes included. The photography in the book is also very good.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for an advance copy of this title in exchange for an unbiased review.

Allison Arevalo has created a community filled with friends and family, with neighbors and school mates, and with pasta lovers of all ages. She and her family host a weekly pasta dinner, and she wants you to do it too. In her new cookbook, The Pasta Friday Cookbook, she walks about how she is able to pull off a weekly gathering of friends and family and then shares 52 different pasta recipes that you can use to start your own Pasta Fridays.

First of all, Arevalo sets rules. She makes a pasta dish and a salad, and that’s it. No appetizers, no desserts (although she does get popsicles for the kids). She doesn’t cater to special diets—anyone who wants to eat gluten-free or vegetarian/vegan can bring their own meals. She does make a big pot of pasta with butter for the kids, but she also encourages them to try the “adult” pasta as well. The clean up all gets done Friday night, so Saturday isn’t spent cleaning up the kitchen. And all the adults bring 2 bottles of wine, and everyone eats and talks and laughs and drinks together.

The Pasta Friday Cookbook is packed with 52 pasta ideas, divided by season. Each week features a different shape of pasta, so with the help of a good local Italian market or the internet, you could cook a different style of noodle every week for a year. She also includes a wide variety of sauces to serve with the pasta, with seasonal vegetables, quality cheeses, a wide assortment of meats and seafood, and a really good olive oil.

It sounds like a lot of work to create a different pasta every week for a group of people, but Arevalo’s recipes tend toward the simple and rustic. She chooses quality ingredients that will be packed with flavor, cooks them simply, and lets the dishes speak for themselves. And she also includes four salad recipes for each season as well as a host of recipe for extras that can be set out to accompany the pasta, like Homemade Breadcrumbs, Fried Capers, Salsa Verde, and Basic Pesto.

She starts with summer (but you can start at any time of the year, of course), with recipes like Bucatini with Summer Corn and Pancetta and Pam’s Pasta with Sausage, Tomatoes, and Peaches. Fall brings heartier dishes like Broken-Up Chicken Parm with Cestini or Duck Lasagne with Roasteed Carrots. Winter offers the filling comfort of Linguine with Dungeness Crab, Scallops, and Clams and Veal Marsala with Escarole and Stringozzi. Spring’s bounty includes Big Fusilli with a Quick Lamb Ragu and Gnocchi with Peas and Prosciutto.

But here’s the thing about the Pasta Friday idea: it’s not about the food. It’s about the fellowship. It’s a chance to build a community, to come together in good times and bad, to support each other and grow in friendship. The Pasta Friday Cookbook isn’t just about creating a great dinner. It’s about making a fuller life for you and your family.

Personally, I’m not sure a weekly pasta night is right for us. But maybe monthly. I do like the idea of getting together on a regular basis with friends and enjoying a big pot of pasta and companionship. At the very least, this has given me a lot to think about. I highly recommend The Pasta Friday Cookbook, both as a collection of crazy and delicious recipes and as a guideline for building a stronger community.

Galleys for The Pasta Friday Cookbook were provided by Andrews McMeel Publishing through NetGalley, with many thanks.

I love pasta, and eating pasta is a staple in our house. We, however, have staple meals that we are always eating, and I want to change things up in the house — some things that we are doing in trying new meals and tasting fresh foods. I love how easy the Pasta Friday book is and how bright the pages are to read. While this book has many pasta dishes like the Farfalloni with smoked salmon and creamy corn sauce that mixes things up, how about something productive like the Linguine with Dungeness crab, scallops, and calms; my son would love it. They also have different sides in the book as well as some salad. The book is divided into the season, and each season has many recipes that you can create. It is very easy to read and simple to make.

I received an ARC in exchange for my review

This is a very approachable, friendly book. I like the format. The fact that it is sorted by season is interesting and very user-friendly.
I love the photos and tips. The recipes are easy to follow. I will be going back to this book again and again.

I love pasta and was very excited to get a chance to review this cookbook. I decided to make the Zero Ricotta Baked Ziti. It was a good choice, as it was super delicious. I’ve never made homemade tomato sauce before, and I wasn’t sure if there would be enough flavor in the sauce. The sauce was awesome, and I loved the fact that she made her sauce in the oven as oppose to a long simmer on the stovetop. The recipe’s directions were easy to follow, and the ziti baked up just as expected. And even though there was no ricotta in it, the dish was loaded with cheese. Fresh grated Romano, diced mozzarella, and fresh mozzarella slices exploded every bite with flavor.

Each recipe has a section showing wine parings, pasta shapes, serve with information, and recipe notes. The author also give a short explanation as to how the recipe came to be. In addition, the book has beautiful pictures and stories showing the food and friends gathering at the pasta Friday get togethers, and many, delicious looking pasta recipes. I definitely will be adding this cookbook to my cookbook collection.

Thanks to Net Galley for a chance to review this 5 star cookbook.

Pastas are for celebration be it a friday night or a simple gathering........ There are number of pasta recipes in this book......

I love pasta more than anything in this world! This cookbook is definitely earning a spot on my shelf. Delicious recipes, beautiful photography.

I love cooking. Especially comforting family meals like italian. Cooking has always been a way for me to destress and still be creative. I love trying out all different sorts of recipes. Great book.

Fun Concept and Delicious Sounding Recipes

This is a fun pasta cookbook built around an interesting concept of the author’s, Pasta Friday. What she does is invite friends and neighbors over for a Friday night pasta meal. So this book contains 52 pasta recipes, one for each week of the year. The book is divided into seasons, and each season has four salad recipes as well. She uses some very offbeat shapes of pasta, but she gives substitution ideas with each recipe. Each recipe also has both red and white wine pairing suggestions. Most recipes seem straightforward and not too complex. There does seem to be a preponderance of meat recipes. I would have loved to have seen more vegetarian-friendly ones. Not every recipe has a photo, but many do. There are also lots of pictures of the gatherings. An introductory section explains the concept, gives you hints for starting your own Pasta Friday tradition, and shares some tips about how to scale the recipes. Most recipes in this book are for 4 to 6 or 6 to 8 people. Even if you don't do the Pasta Friday concept, if you like pasta, you will most likely enjoy these different and innovative recipes.

Terrific! The pictures are beautiful and I enjoyed the stories. I also appreciate that the recipe ingredients are listed in both metric and imperial measurments.

I love this cookbook! The author was a successful chef and restaurant owner who wanted a less stressful life. As part of this, and wanting community, she began hosting Friday night pasta and salad dinners for friends and family. Simple, fun, rewarding. She shows how you can do it too or just make family dinners. With recipes organized by season and beautifully photographed, you will be inspired!

Highly recommended.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this book in exchange for an honest review.

The ideas behind this book are absolutely wonderful. It is a call to gather people around you and make a huge vat of food to feed bodies and souls. While some of the ingredients were on the expensive side for the amount called for (I would have appreciated more of an eye towards budget at points) pasta is, on the whole, an inexpensive and unfussy way to entertain. It has inspired me to launch a pasta Friday, if not weekly, at least yearly.