Peace, Love, & Pasta

The past few weeks, I have been going through Scott Conant’s new cookbook, Peace, Love, & Pasta, published on September 14, 2021, by ABRAMS Books, and falling in love with his recipes. I thought his recipes would be complicated but they are surprisingly easy and fun. What also impressed me about this cookbook is its range. There is a lot to experiment with, cook, and bake. From seafood to pasta, to dessert, and more (I am madly in love with his section on Turkish bread like the Pide recipe on Page XX), there is something for everyone. I also loved the tone and writing style of the cookbook. It is friendly, wry, and instructive. Conant’s love for his family and food shines throughout the book, and it is as if he welcomes you into his kitchen to cook with him.

I have been working through the book, cooking, baking, and trying new techniques. If there’s one positive thing about this pandemic we’re in, is that I am having more time to cook and bake at home. While baking is my first and best love, cooking has always been a big part of my life. I learned to cook much like Conant’s daughters are learning – in the kitchen at a young age with a beloved family member. In my case, it was my Grandma Lupe, for whom this blog is named. One of the things I love most about this book is how it shows the love of sharing recipes and cooking with children and family. I think that cooking and baking with friends and family binds us together, create food memories and stories, and hearkens back to our earliest ancestors who cooked together in order to survive. Conant’s book reminds us that by being together as a family, cooking, and baking together, we will get through these hard times and whatever the future has in store for us.

I made several recipes from Peace, Love, & Pasta and they were all delicious:

• I made the Rosemary Lentils (Page 154) – easy, affordable, and oh so satisfying. It is a perfect Autumn recipe. Low calorie, healthy, and absolutely delicious. If you’re not a fan of rosemary, then the recipe is flexible enough to use a different herb or none at all;
• Kathy’s Spinach Soup and Chicken Meatballs (Page 49) – this soup is so delicious, delicate, and the meatballs so savory that I will be making this recipe over and over again. It is easy to make and really flavorful;
• Zwetschegenkuchen (German Plum Cake) (Page 224) – the hardest thing about this recipe was learning how to pronounce it properly. It’s a tongue twister. However, the cake is lovely and tastes of the end of summer;
• Spinach, Feta, and Egg Breakfast Pide (Page 194) – It took me a couple of tries to get the egg just right. I baked the pides for five minutes, then added the egg, which gave me that runny consistency I wanted. In my first attempts, I added the egg too soon and got an almost hard boiled result, which was still delicious. The best part of my egg failures was eating the results. The dough was easy to make, keeps so you can make it ahead, the filling delicious and easy. I know these are for breakfast, but I had them for dinner one night and it was perfect.

I have yet to try the pasta recipes but I will and will post about it in the future. I also want to try his incredible-looking clam chowder. There is just so much to this cookbook and I want to try it all but it isn’t going to fit all in one post. It’s one of those cookbooks that you will pull out again and again. Below is a gallery of the recipes I tried thus far.

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*This post is sponsored by ABRAMS Books, as part of the ABRAMS Dinner Party. Opinions, recipe fails, and triumphs are my own.

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