When deciding which recipes to review for the cookbook, Freshman in the Kitchen, the “Toasted Coconut and Lime Biscotti” recipe immediately appealed to me. Spending a summer in Italy among avid biscotti connoisseurs left me impressed with this sidekick to espresso. I was hungry for more, so to speak, and grabbed hold of this recipe review as the perfect way to learn the art of creating uno biscotto. 

At first, I was apprehensive at the thought of working with biscotti dough because I had always assumed it to be totally different from American cookie dough. In reality, biscotti and cookie dough basically look and work the same. The only trouble I had when forming the dough was using the little moisture provided by the eggs and vanilla extract to meld all of the dry ingredients together. Eventually, I learned that working with a spoon was a bad idea so I tossed it into the sink and set about working the dough into two logs with my hands. The results were tremendously better. After that minor dough issue, the baking times were right on and the biscotti themselves turned out with the perfect consistency and texture. I was incredibly impressed with my results!

Even more exciting than getting the right results from my biscotti dough was being able to taste the treats! After bullying the irksome dough into looking like two logs, the nontraditional flavor combination of lime zest and toasted coconut proved worth the effort. The recipe calls for unsweetened coconut but if you are like me, and can only find the sweetened version on your campus store shelves, then go ahead and use it. Even when I used the sweetened coconut, the result was a subtle, not-too-sweet blend of island flavors. 

I highly recommend this recipe for the novelty of the ingredients and the ease of preparing the dough. The touch of sweet in the biscotti pairs perfectly with a cup of bitter espresso. Delicious! When a recipe yields few mistakes on my part, I consider it a keeper. 

I decided to try out the “Angel Hair Pasta with Bacon Cream Sauce and Peas” for my Freshman in the Kitchen cookbook review based on the high amount of cream and bacon involved in this dish. I figured this pasta-concoction would be perfect for my boyfriend, as guys tend to love meals with a high fat content.  I soon discovered why dudes crave fat-laden cuisine. 

The salty, rich, and cheesy quality of the pasta combined with an aftertaste of sweetness from the peas made this dish the perfect answer to a frigid winter Ann Arbor day. When I set about preparing this dish, I had been away all weekend and spent a considerable amount of time enduring freezing weather conditions. When I returned home, I wanted nothing more than to cook a no-fuss and cozy meal to thaw me out.

I was apprehensive when I noticed that heavy cream was a key component of the sauce. In my experience, using cream usually involves spending upwards of 30 minutes tirelessly stirring to thicken the sauce. Thankfully, this was not the case in this recipe!  Frying bacon is quite a simple kitchen task and turned out to be the most labor-intensive job I would have during the cooking-session. My only issue occurred when I set a plastic spatula on a burner that I’d accidentally turned on and had to deal with the terrible smell of hot, melting plastic. Not one of my finer moments.

Other than my spatula mishap, the preparation and result of my cooking turned out wonderfully. My only suggestion would be to add another ½ cup of peas or perhaps throw some spinach on top. The steam from the sauce would have immediately wilted the spinach and not caused any more work. Adding some more green to the dish would have made it more visually appealing as well (not that it needed it though)! It always makes me feel virtuous when I am able to toss extra vegetables in with my meals.