Customer Reviews

The Spaghetti Sauce Gourmet: 160 Recipes from Four Kinds of Sauce

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book, in spite of the 2 star review another reviewer gave it, is actually quite useful. I'm no novice in the kitchen, far from it, yet I found recipes in this book to be generally quick, easy, and tasty. And in contrast to many other cookbooks, it doesn't focus on one 'type' of regional cooking - rather, it gives a pretty varied choice, which is helpful, especially if you sometimes feel tired of cooking the same old things. I highly recommend this book.

THE SPAGHETTI SAUCE GOURMET:
A Man, A can, A Plan
160 Recipes from
Four Kinds of Sauce

"Simply unscrew, pour ... and amaze!"

By David Joachim

Reviewed by Marty Martindale

Just the cover of this book will cause you to take a second glance. You find yourself needing to touch its two compartments of spaghetti sauce, soft and squishy punchable, set into the hard cover of the book. Joachim has done your research for you, on all the different types of jarred sauces yourself, even what you can expect to find in them and their different price ranges.

We all know about the many jarred red, tomato sauces, including Marinara and the pinkish vodka sauce. However, Joachim wants to alert us to the conveniences of off-white Alfredo, green pesto and yellow/orange Cheddar cheese sauces also put in jars for our convenience. Then these can be changed up with different bacons, broths, cheeses, prepackaged doughs, greens, chopped produce, premarinated meats, assorted condiments and the additions of certain wines.

Here's some of the varied concoctions one can make with few ingredients, not at all always pasta with sauce:

Shredded Beef Burritos
Sweet and Sour Braised Brisket
Pork Medallions with Port Cream
Roasted Pork Tenderloin with Red Pesto Crust
Pork Rollatine with Raisins and Pine Nuts
Pan-Seared Chicken with Eggplant Sauce
Shrimp Remoulade Salad
Polenta with Saffron Chickpea Sauce
Pesto Tuna Pitas
Butternut Squash Soup
Classic Beef Stew
Roasted Beets Alfredo
Provencal Spinach Pie
Southwestern Corn Pudding

If you know someone who claims they, "Can't cook at all," this book will help them out a whole lot.

You can reach Marty Martindale at:
Food Site of the Day (dot) Com.

While the book did present a varied array of recipes, my husband and I were disappointed that there were not more actual SAUCE recipes. Guess we should have read the title more closely. The book does, however, give the reader a choice of using their own homemade sauce or (gasp!) jarred sauce when following the recipes in the book. We have only tried one recipe thus far, so will have to reserve judgement until we've experimented with a few more.