Pasta Salad: 50 Favorite Recipes

Dedicated entirely to pasta salad's many charms, Lauterbach's appetizing cookbook gives readers a reason to start eating carbs again. Pasta salad usually brings to mind gummy macaroni and processed mayonnaise, but Lauterbach, whose other salad-themed books include Potato Salad and Chicken Salad, offers 50 innovative interpretations, such as Orecchiette and Roasted Butternut Squash with Honey-Ginger Dressing and Peaches and Pasta Salad with Mint. Her hearty and colorful Radiatore Beef Salad with Horseradish Dressing is a one-dish supper that's a delicious way to use leftover steak, and her quick Pepperoni Pizza Salad is chewy and cheesy, a certain kid-pleaser. Lauterbach even makes pasta salad luxe with a Music Festival Lobster dish, a lush combination of lobster meat, tarragon, pasta shells, and homemade mayonnaise. Her recipes are all clearly written, beautifully photographed, and accompanied by charming anecdotal essays - about the restaurateur who came up with a special salad or the church potluck to which the author brings a new pasta salad every year. The book also includes a helpful guide to pasta shapes alongside instructions for blanching vegetables, toasting seeds, and whipping up vinaigrettes. The only weak note that Lauterbach hits is her recipe for Pippette and Surimi""Louis""; surimi is that sickly-sweet crab substitute made from processed fish. Why not use real crab? Otherwise, this book is a winner, making an old picnic staple seem new.