Pasta has always seemed like an also-ran for me, unless we're talking about my mom's. This cookbook reminded me about how delicious and satisfying well made pasta can be, and why it's something worth sharing with friends.

In my honest opinion, everyday should be pasta Friday, there is enough of a variety of pasta and pasta related condiments to be enjoyed each day of the week and not be bored. This cookbook is filled with many recipes and beautiful food photographs.

The recipes are delicious and easy to make. My family and I have had fun making them. The salads are yummy but the different pasta especially the gnochetti are the stars of the show and favorites of everyone in the family.

This cookbook had some really great recipes. The recipes were easy to understand and not too complicated for the average cook. I enjoyed the illustrations and look forward to making these recipes for years to come.

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.

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.

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.

Pasta! So many delicious looking pasta recipes that seem easy and not intimidating. Great pictures. I enjoyed the wine suggestions.

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.

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

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 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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

Foolishly forgot to download this book before it was archived.

Unfortunate because it looks like a winner!