Six Seasons of Pasta: A New Way with Everyone's Favorite Food by Joshua McFadden and Martha Holmberg

[blue_dolphin]

Six Seasons of Pasta: A New Way with Everyone's Favorite Food (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) by Joshua McFadden and Martha Holmberg was published last week. I received my copy, have given it a good once over, cooked one of the recipes and have a bunch more marked to try.  

The book opens with a dried pasta primer and discussion of his decision to use dried pasta exclusively in the book. The recipes offer a range of interesting ingredient combinations but he also devotes space to “how to” pages for dressing pasta with the basic pestos, flavored butters and whipped ricotta that appear in the front of the book.  There are similar sections for using ragus, making baked pasta dishes and pasta salads so the reader can build on the basics with their own recipes. After the basic sauces, the recipes are organized by season, similar to Six Seasons. Plenty of meat and seafood are used. It’s not a vegetarian cookbook but I think that cooking with vegetables is really McFadden's strength.  In reading through, I thought some of the dishes would be delicious without the pasta, just adding more vegetables. 
 

With a few exceptions, the pasta recipes serve 2-4, depending on how hearty or rich they are.  The ragu recipes tend to make enough for 8-12 servings, and he recommends freezing them in portions appropriate for one meal. 
 

There's one recipe for a Caesar salad and one for garlic bread but other than that, it’s all pasta. 
 

I’ve got several pasta cookbooks that focus on making fresh pasta, so I’m fine with the dry pasta focus. I’m also quite capable of concocting my own pasta dishes without relying on a cookbook but I think I’ll enjoy trying quite a few of the offerings here. 
 

I started with the eggplant puttanesca with fresh tomatoes on p 301 and thought it was quite good. 

 

 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

1 hour ago, blue_dolphin said:

Six Seasons of Pasta: A New Way with Everyone's Favorite Food (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) by Joshua McFadden and Martha Holmberg was published last week. I received my copy, have given it a good once over, cooked one of the recipes and have a bunch more marked to try.  

The book opens with a dried pasta primer and discussion of his decision to use dried pasta exclusively in the book. The recipes offer a range of interesting ingredient combinations but he also devotes space to “how to” pages for dressing pasta with the basic pestos, flavored butters and whipped ricotta that appear in the front of the book.  There are similar sections for using ragus, making baked pasta dishes and pasta salads so the reader can build on the basics with their own recipes. After the basic sauces, the recipes are organized by season, similar to Six Seasons. Plenty of meat and seafood are used. It’s not a vegetarian cookbook but I think that cooking with vegetables is really McFadden's strength.  In reading through, I thought some of the dishes would be delicious without the pasta, just adding more vegetables. 
 

With a few exceptions, the pasta recipes serve 2-4, depending on how hearty or rich they are.  The ragu recipes tend to make enough for 8-12 servings, and he recommends freezing them in portions appropriate for one meal. 
 

There's one recipe for a Caesar salad and one for garlic bread but other than that, it’s all pasta. 
 

I’ve got several pasta cookbooks that focus on making fresh pasta, so I’m fine with the dry pasta focus. I’m also quite capable of concocting my own pasta dishes without relying on a cookbook but I think I’ll enjoy trying quite a few of the offerings here. 
 

I started with the eggplant puttanesca with fresh tomatoes on p 301 and thought it was quite good. 

 

 

 

 

Do the recipes call for homemade dried pasta or storebought dried pasta?

 

[blue_dolphin]

32 minutes ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

 

 

Do the recipes call for homemade dried pasta or storebought dried pasta?

 

I assume it’s storebought but the recipes don’t precisely use that language. 

Each recipe’s ingredient list gives only the weight in grams and ounces and three shape options. The words homemade, dried, storebought or pasta do not appear in the recipe ingredient lists. 
The introduction lists recommended brands of dried pasta, including gluten-free options. 
There are no recipes in the book for homemade fresh or dried pasta nor recommendations for finding recipes.