Daniel Holzman & Matt Rodbard’s Food IQ is subtitled: 100 Questions, Answers, and Recipes to Raise Your Cooking Smarts. With years of cooking experience Holzman and Rodbard share many of their cooking secrets.
I, of course, went directly to their advice on baking wonderful pizzas! Despite the many different kinds of pizzas you might want to bake, the authors focus on the importance of the dough. Most people do not have pizza ovens in their kitchen (able to reach over 600 degrees) so some temperature compromises must be made.
The chapter on pasta dishes also drew my attention. I learned by pasta always tastes better in a restaurant–unless you know the secret.
Finding out the strengths and weaknesses of various kitchen tools was useful, too. If you want to become a better cook and prepare more tasty food, check out FOOD IQ. GRADE: A
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Introduction — xi
Misunderstood, undiscovered, overlooked, and underappreciated … ingredients — xxi
Tools and technology — 44
Hacks, technique, and really good advice — 84
Busting some myths — 138
This sounds fancy. This sounds intimidating. What is it? — 194
12 favorite (essential, life-changing) things to cook forever — 238
Weekend cooking projects: is the juice worth the squeeze? — 282
Epilogue — 324
Acknowledgements — 325
Index — 326
My secret for pasta is storebought spaghetti and Ragu! For gourmet style I add ground beef! Top off with parmesan cheese and it’s fit for a king–or at least I like it! And I don’t waste money on books like this! Seriously, a plate of restaurant spaghetti around here costs an arm and a leg! Fageddaboutit!
Bob, a plate of spaghetti with meatballs at Carrabbas runs around $16.99. But, that includes a salad. And, I’m a big fan of Carrabbas’s Blackberry Sangria!
Yeah, we ate at Carrabba’s four or five times in Florida (as there are none close to us). Yum. We use Barilla pasta (whole grain) and Francesco Rinaldi sauce at home. Not available everywhere, sadly, but better than Ragu.
Jeff, depending on the time frame, Diane either makes her own sauce or we open a bottle of Chef’s sauce. Chef’s is a local restaurant noted for its spaghetti sauce. A few years ago Chef’s owners decided to start bottling their famous sauce and selling it in local grocery stores. Whenever possible, Diane and I try to support local restaurants and businesses.
If there’s a Carrabba’s around here I’ve never heard of it.
Bob, Carrabba’s seems to be more available on the East Coast than the West Coast.
I want that secret, George.
Patti, the secret to great pasta is NOT to add olive oil (or any oil or butter) to the boiling water and to add a bit of the boiled water to the pasta just before you add the sauce.
Looks like a worthwhile read. I was one of those “food is just fuel” idiots until my 40s when I discovered how much I enjoyed cooking and it later became one the things that got me through the pandemic. Sadly, I grew up on Hamburger Helper and canned vegetables so it was a big learning process for me and I’m still the only member of my family who doesn’t subsists on heavily processed food. My mom lives off frozen meals from Costco while my sisters eat out for almost every meal.
One really can make great pizza at home with a regular oven. A pizza stone helps but a cast iron skillet or even a baking sheet works just fine. I hope you get some good meals out of this one, George (and cooking for loved ones is always a joy).
Byron, since the Pandemic hit, Diane and I have been doing a lot of cooking and baking at home. I’m at the point now where I prefer home-cooked food to restaurant food (although we do order Take-Out about once a week just to support our local restaurants). I use a baking sheet for our pizza and it comes out yummy!
The Pampered Chef makes (or, at least, used to make) a pretty serviceable pizza stone that would produced a pizza crust of close to restaurant quality. However, I seem to recall them as being outrageously expensive and, according to my mother-in-law, prone to cracking.
My mother was many things, but a good cook wasn’t one of them. She freely admitted cooking was not anything that interested her but she cooked because that’s what a wife and mother did for her family, so I didn’t grow up loving to cook, but once I got out on my own, I realized that I enjoyed cooking and that preparing my own meals helped with save money too. In fact, in a few minutes I’m going into the kitchen to make some beef chili (which, along with a veggie salad, will constitute my lunches for the week).
Deb, our Easter dinner included a lot of delicious food (most of it completely consumed!) but we do have a lot of left-over ham. Diane is planning a scalloped potato and ham dish and her sister Carol is going to use the ham bone for a ham and bean soup since it’s snowing here and the temps are in the 30s!
I hate cooking and am not very good at it anyways, so it is just as well. I make mostly large quantities of chili or some pasta (with Prego). Never ate a homemade pizza that tasted as good as a restaurant one. I Otherwise a lot of frozen processed food for me and an occasional take out.
Steve, we’re lucky we have about a dozen local restaurants that feature excellent Take-Out. We usually order from one or two of them each week to help them stay in business. Our home-made pizza comes close to the local pizza parlor’s quality. But, the pizza edge still goes to them.
I have a simple two-step process when it comes to food. 1) Open mouth. 2) Insert food
Jerry, I love your approach to food…and Life!
You may recall we’re currently in diet mode, so chicken breast, ham slices, green salads, green veggies, no desserts, snacks or treats is the rule here. I wish I could say I was shedding the pounds, but I weigh on Mondays and in the last week lost a measly .2 lb. Sigh. I’ll think of all of you enjoying your pasta dishes and pizza. Enjoy!
Rick, pizza and pasta is only on our menu once a week or so. Like you, we eat a daily plate of veggies and other healthy food options.