This book has a pretty good selection of italian receipes and the little stories were such a nice addition.

Rosella shares her grandmother delicious recipes. The book is a pearl in the ocean of cookbooks. Wonderful!

I wish that I'd had an Italian grandmother to teach me to cook like this -- but this cookbook is the next best thing!  My family liked everything we made from here (especially the desserts, of course)!

It would be fun for everyone to have an Italian grandmother, but unfortunately, many of us don’t. There are dozens of cookbooks out there purporting to be written by Italian grandmothers, and some of these books are pretty good. Cooking with Nonna: Celebrate Food & Family With Over 100 Classic Recipes from Italian Grandmothers is one of those cookbooks, but it seems to be a cut above, featuring recipes for the expected classics, and also recipes that those of us who aren’t Italian probably haven’t heard of. The author, Rossella Rago, is the host of a cooking show, Cooking with Nonna, and she has included many of the recipes from guests on the show as well as those of her own grandmother. One Italian grandmother is good, but lots of Italian grandmothers are even better!

The book covers basics such as different pasta doughs and basic sauces. There are also interesting vignettes on the featured Nonnas, making this a cookbook that is also fun to read. The instructions in the recipes are easy to follow and most of the recipes are also easy to make.

I made the Focaccia Bread, Barese-Style first; it was easy (I mixed the dough in my automatic bread machine) and really good. The traditional Bolognese sauce is great, and so is the Zucchini Pie; every recipe I have tried so far has turned out picture perfect. I have a queue and plan to make Oven-Braised Cod with Scallions and Olives, Flourless Almond Torte, and the Gnocchi with Gorgonzola and Toasted Hazelnuts next. There are dozens of recipes that will appeal to almost everyone. These are not the standard recipes found in every Italian cookbook; rather they are unique and there are plenty to choose from.

While there are very nice photographs, it is a little disappointing that there aren’t photos of every dish. However, that should not stop anyone from buying this excellent cookbook. There are enough to make it interesting, and with digital cameras we can take pictures of our own finished dishes. 

Cooks who want to expand their Italian recipe repertoire will benefit from and enjoy this cookbook. 

Special thanks to NetGalley for supplying a review copy of this book.

I received a copy from Netgalley (thank you) for review but that was both a good and unfortunate thing. My electronics just don't like the software needed to review Netgalley's graphic novels and a picture heavy book like this so I couldn't clearly see all the pictures. However, this cookbook is lush with them and with a lot of delicious sounding recipes (I haven't had time to try many yet). I have Italian nonnas on both sides of my family so this really made me think of them (they're both gone now) and all the great memories of cooking with them. I am definitely going to buy a physical copy of this. It's a great cookbook and worth the look.

Grandma's recipe are to be treasured........this book is to be treasured........

In the spring of 2017, I had the distinct pleasure to be able to visit one of my former exchange students at her home in Italy.  While Giulia stayed with us in the U.S., she enthralled us with tales of her "Nonna's" (grandmother) cooking (and wisdom), and made us many delicious dishes that Nonna had taught her. It was wonderful, but meeting Nonna was even better!  My goodness, for someone in her nineties, that lady could cook!  Meal after meal, course after course, for Giulia, her family, her aunts and uncles and their families, and us!  I have never had so many great meals!
So, when NetGalley offered me a chance to read and review this book, I jumped at the opportunity. The author had her own Nonna.  In fact, she jokes that she attended "Nonna's Brooklyn Basement Culinary Academy".  That developed into her idea to start a cooking show, "Cooking With Nonna".  She based the show on her grandmother's recipes. And that led to this book, a collection of 110 recipes from many Italian "Nonna's". 
And what a collection!  There are a lifetime of great recipes to try.  
Rago breaks the book down into sections.  Appetizers, Soups and Salads, Vegetables and Sides, Pasta (OF COURSE) and First Courses, Second Courses, Pizzas Breads and Savory Bakes, Desserts, and Cookies.
So many delicious ideas!  My wife and I have tried several already, and quite successfully.  It gives us great pleasure to cook together.  Hopefully, this book will tide us over for the next couple of years, to a time when my wife retires also, and we make the move to Italy.  I can only hope that we will find our own "Nonna" there!
A great book.  Kudo's to the author for preserving these recipes, before they are lost to time!

I absolutely loved this cookbook!  Being from an Italian family myself, I can definitely relate to all the stories and memories that were shared throughout the book. Inside this cookbook, you will find amazing recipes, pictures, and history!  Highly Recommend!!!

This is an excellent cookbook full of good recipes, stories and easy to follow instructions. For me and I am sure others that grew up in Italian homes some of the recipes are a little different than the ones my family made, and that I still make. Not taking anything away from the book it is always good to see variations on the same dish. I really enjoyed the dessert section with cannoli, ricotta cookies, and ricotta cheese cake, to name just a few. Also a recipe for Struffoli a classic dessert usually made at Christmas. Overall a very good book and the photographs were good as well.

Cooking with Nonna is a fantastic cookbook, and a perfect example of the type I like best; a little history, some wonderful memories, and lots and lots of love.  The experience really is like a cup of sweet coffee and a tray of Italian cookies in Nonna’s living room (served on good china with the little lacy white doilies, remember those?) and listening to all the little ladies of the neighborhood reminisce while Nonna putters round her tiny yellow kitchen, always making a little something extra at the last minute.  The recipes are all tried and true and (lucky for me) basically foolproof.

Just love this book, being from Italian origins, I found this book reminding me of my roots, most of the recipes are similar to the ones my grandfather, mother and father used to cook. (my grandmother was Austrian, that is a different world again). My grandfather was Sicilian, and when he and the family migrated to Australia after WW2, he bought much of his cooking and  style to Australia - I had the good fortune to grow up eating much the same way. 
This book is fabulous the stories of  the various nonnas are very interesting and the recipes are easy to make and pretty authentic. Fabulous photos and a well laid out book, covers from pasta dough, sauces and different courses right up to cake.

I grew up in a small town with both sets of grandparents within 5 to 10 mins walking distance. One set was Italian and the other Hungarian. I grew up on Italian food and when I saw this book reviewed by my Traveling Sister Jennifer I knew I had to grab it. You get the backstory of how this book came about - the author having the Sunday family dinners with the family, nonna cooking, and eventually this cookbook (I naturally advanced this story a bit). 

I grew up having the big family Italian dinners here and there and doing the big Feast of the Seven Fishes Christmas eve meal. (Though I had many more and more frequent Hungarian family meals). So this cookbook was almost a walk down memory lane for me. Reminding me of the many meals that I used to have. As I got older I wanted to cook many of these dishes - spaghetti, making my own pasta, focaccia breads, soups (wedding, minestrone, pasta fagioli, etc), sausage and peppers, cannoli, ricotta cookies, and more - all in this book and all I have made. The recipes are authentic. Very similar to what I remember. The thing about cooking - the easier the recipe, the small amount of ingredients - makes the food taste amazing. And I found these recipes simplistic. Well, all except for shaping certain pastas - come on, WHO really makes their own orechietti (except a nonna).

So I rated this as I liked it. It didn't wow me though. There are some wonderful photos of the food in the book, always a plus. But what I didn't like is not many of the recipes jumped out to me. Perhaps this is because many I've already made similar dishes. I also found a few mistakes in recipes, which really bugs me. (For ex., one pasta dish said reserve 1 cup cooking water, but never said what to do with it. From experience, you add it to pasta to make a nice, low-cal, starchy sauce + with garlic and oil). And I'm a cookbook junkie, so I guess I'm very hard to please with cookbooks. Overall, I'm glad I picked it up. Thanks to NetGalley and Quarto Publishing Group – Race Point Publishing for a copy of this book.

Some of you may know Rossella Rago from her on-line/social-media cooking videos in which she cooks alongside an Italian or Italian-American grandmother (nonna).  This book is an accompaniment to that series, featuring 100+ of the basic Italian and Italian-American recipes she's gleaned from various grandmothers who have been featured on her show.

The recipes cover meals from appetizers to desserts, with step by step instructions on how to make the dish, preparation times, cooking times and yields.  Photos illustrate many important techniques, and show many of the finished dishes.

A few of the dishes may challenge experienced cooks, but this is really a basic to intermediate book.  I expect that the sequel will feature advanced dishes.  Each recipe is prefaced by a short and entertaining introduction by the author.

The filtered images take on a nostalgic feel, which is intentional, and helps to blend the down-to-earth grandmothers with Rossella's at times too-Hollywood style.  The author hopes to create nostalgia for the traditional Sunday dinners she grew up with.

If you didn't grow up with that tradition, the stories from the various grandmothers may inspire you to create the tradition for your own family.  The one page life stories about each grandmother are fascinating slices of immigrant life, in which home-cooked meals equate directly with love.  One grandmother insists:

“You've got love the food like you love your boyfriend.”

I am in love with this book and I highly recommend checking it out!

Cooking with Nonna is an absolute gem of a cookbook! Not only are the recipes heavenly and vast but the food photography is drool worthy. But my favorite part of this book are the stories from varies women (all now Italian grandmothers) who tell of their past, how they learned to cook, and the importance of shared time over a simple or divine meal. Their stories were inspirational as many of them faced incredible hardships and challenges and managed to overcome them. These unique glimpses into their lives was unexpected from a cookbook but I cherished them more than the recipes.

Note: I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

When I was a kid I often dreamed of being from a big family. When my mind conjures an image of this I often think of Italians. It’s not uncommon for Italian families to be centered around food and family. You grow up with plenty of cousins, aunts and uncles, and of course grandparents. These are the types of families where you learn to cook while holding on to Nonna’s apron. Alas, I grew up in a small but loving family. I had no grandparents nearby to impart any life lessons on me and no Nonna to teach me to cook. All that aside, Cooking with Nonna can give you all of the lessons an Italian grandmother would, without actually having one. 

Rossella Rago was on the right track when she decided to make an Italian cookbook filled with recipes from a bunch of Nonnas. I mean, if you can’t trust a grandmother to give you good food, who can you trust? Cooking with Nonna easily offers over 100 recipes from appetizers to cookies and desserts. You’ll learn to make everything from pasta (of course) to beautiful Italian desserts. 

Before you get started on the recipes, there is a section that explains the kinds of cooking tools you might need. Around here, you also get some recipes on pasta doughs, which will definitely come in handy later in the book! I haven’t tried all the recipes, but I would love to try most of them. Usually, I find that I will attempt less than half of the recipes in any cookbook. I think I will end up trying over half of them, because there is something authentically homey about the idea of cooking the food that is passed down by these women in a way that they would have cooked for their families.

The photos of the various recipes are all beautiful to look at and make the idea of cooking those dishes more desirable. The instructions are all easy to follow or seem easy enough, as I have not tried many of them yet. In terms of knowledge of Italian food, Cooking with Nonna is a good starter. Even though these highly experienced cooks are giving out the recipes, they are delivered in a way that is accessible to someone that has never made fresh pasta before. 

The recipes are reason enough to buy this cookbook. That said, the thing I think I most enjoy are the stories and comments by the Nonnas that helped bring this book to fruition. The stories of these incredible women, many who immigrated to America in hopes of finding a better life, are history. They offer the kind of stories that you want to pass down through your family. They are the kind of stories that should be recorded and remembered. Luckily, Cooking with Nonna does that and offers some tasty recipes, too. 

Is Cooking with Nonna Recommended?

I really enjoyed Cooking with Nonna. The pictures are beautiful, the recipes are informative and easy to follow, and the Nonnas are nothing short of charming. When you put it all together you end up with a wonderful addition to any cookbook library. If you’re interested in Italian cooking and want to get as authentic as possible, this is the book you should add to your library!

Cooking with Nonna (grandmother/nanny to us Brits) is a wonderfully written Italian-American cookery book of traditional Italian recipes.  It is full of excellent recipes from a variety of different nonnas the author has contacted and contains lots of colour photography.

There are 9 sections which include an introduction to the author and her nonna, appetizers, soups & salads, vegetables & side dishes, pasta & first course, second course, pizza, breads & savoury bakes, desserts, and cookies. 

The introduction is a good base to get you started as there is tool section,  instructions on how to make two types of fresh pasta, either by hand or using a stand mixer and explains which type of pasta dough is best for the various shapes and finally four different recipes of basic sauces which are then recommended as an accompaniment in the main recipe sections.

Interspersed within the sections are stories from some of the nonna's who's recipes have been included in this book, giving you an insight into their life.  The recipes also have the Italian name, preparation and cooking times, servings and many come with a 'nonna says' tip such as freezing or not to cover crowd a pan. 

I appreciated the way it has the grams next to the ingredients so no conversions were needed.

I received this eBook from Netgalley in return for a honest review.

I grew up cooking alongside my mother, and now my children cook with me, and in this way we pass on a wonderful tradition of cooking.   I have scraps of recipes and one or two ancient recipe books from previous generations of cooks in my family that I treasure. So “Cooking with Nonna” is a superb book that  records favourite Italian family recipes. 

This is not a flashy, coffee table book and some of the photographs are a little dull, but the wonderful authentic recipes make the book special.  I tried the Meatballs and they were delicious, so too were the Potato Croquettes (the addition of cheeses and mortadella gave them so much flavour!)  Simple recipes like the Sausage and Peppers show that often the simplest of recipes can be delicious.  Next on my list is to try Nonna Tina Sacramone’s Lasagne which has an unusual (for me, anyway!) method of rolling up the ricotta to make it easier to spread over the lasagna sheets.  I found this tip, and many others in the book, really interesting.

The book is peppered with delightful anecdotes from the women who contributed recipes – the strength and resilience of these women, and their love of family and food made this a book to enjoy even if you never cook any of the recipes!

 A few editing issues in the book are disappointing. Spinach and Rice Pie calls for 3 eggs, separated, then only uses 2 whole eggs and the recipe for Almond Cookies has 1 cup (200g) …….. in the ingredient list. You can work out that it is meant to be sugar, but this kind of error makes me concerned that there are other more critical errors in the book and detract from what is otherwise a delightful book.

This fantastic cookbook features authentic Italian dishes passed down through generations of famikies. There are full color pictures of most recipes. This cookbook was a project by Rosella to preserve and pass down her Nonna's recipes, but along the way she included other people that have contributed to her television show as well. This is something special as she not only features these Nonna's recipes, but also many of the Nonnas themselves. This collaboration is a small sample of 110 delicious and easy to prepare dishes that are rich in flavor and history.  

The book starts off with a list of essential tools to have in your kitchen, as well as staple ingredients to have on hand in your pantry and refrigerator. Then there is a section dedicated to basic pasta doughs and different varieties of pasta, plus recipes for four basic sauces. 

Each recipe gives a short description and/or a small bit of history surrounding the dish. The recipe categories are as follows:
1. Appetizers
2. Soups and Salads
3. Vegetables and Sides
4. Pasta and First Courses
5. Second Courses
6. Pizza, Breads, and Savory Bakes
7. Desserts
8. Cookies

I would recommend this cookbook to anyone looking for authentic Italian cuisine that is fun and easy to prepare, and of course anyone that enjoys Rossella's cooking show. I received this as a free ARC from Quarto Publishing Group - Race Point Publishing on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.