Classic Pasta Sauces: Great Recipes for the Quickest, Tastiest Pasta Sauces

Recently, the daughter of a friend was about to go out into the world to her first apartment and she was concerned that her rudimentary cooking skills would embarrass her among her friends. I recommended this book to her as a "running start." Anyone can cook pasta and everyone likes to eat it, and it's also pretty inexpensive, so you can hardly go wrong. I'm a fan of big color illustrations in cookbooks and this oversize volume has plenty, both of the process of cooking and of the final product. Some of the recipes probably are a little obscure for many beginners (like hazelnut and coriander with cloves), but there are plenty of sauces that are more basic: Ham with tomatoes and oregano, or chicken and onion with herbs. The basic tomato sauce and pesto recipes also are reliable, and there are interesting variations on both. Both the ingredients lists and the prep times tend to be short, and there are no complicated techniques involved, both of which also make this is a good, non-threatening cookbook for younger cooks.