Recipe Book Review: Let’s Eat: 101 Recipes to Fill Your Heart & Home*

Oh, how I love a cookbook!

[Ad-gifted] I know how handy it is to head online for recipes and it certainly has given us access to so many more styles of cooking since the dawn of the internet, but I have to say for me you just can’t beat a book.

Published by Union Square & Co. the cookbook has beautiful photos and I love how you can flip through the pages and just go oo and ahh over which ones make your mouth water, or you have several sticky notes highlighting the recipes you love most.

So, if you love a good cookbook then you will enjoy reading our latest review of Let’s Eat by Dan Pelosi, a known chef on Instagram under the guise of Grossy Pelosi and a bit of a celeb over in the US. I will be trying out a few of the recipes and letting you know what I think about his exciting new cookbook!

What I thought of the book and two recipe trials.

I loved this book – it’s filled with 101 very easy-to-follow hearty recipes that are tried and tested by Dan Pelosi (the author). You will find throughout the book, recipes that he has either discovered over the years or that have been passed down through his family.

I loved how each recipe has a bit of a story to it. It is one of the reasons I chose to make the Gigantic Meatballs for one of the recipe trials.

The story that goes with this recipe is that it is one of Grossy’s grandpa’s favourite makes! So much so that when he calls him and asks him what he is up to – he is generally making these meatballs.

This takes me to my first recipe trial – of the Gigantic Meatballs on page 162 of the book. This recipe for me is very different to how I make meatballs, as his recipe contains a combination of mince beef and mince pork. I rarely eat pork, but I wanted to keep this recipe as authentic as possible so I stuck with the ingredients mentioned.  I suspect you could swap the pork for beef if you wanted, without too much trouble.

The one thing I did leave out were the raisins, which is a Sicilian tradition – but my children and husband just hate raisins so I left them out.  I suspect this would have given the meatballs a jammy sweetness, in contrast to their very savoury meaty flavour (possibly a little like the accompaniment of apple sauce with pork).

They really are GIGANTIC but it is worth the time making them.  I found the fresh basil and mint add a depth of flavour that I wouldn’t normally get from a regular meatball – my kids didn’t like the mint aspect but I absolutely loved it. They were moist and considering the large amount of breadcrumbs used, they were still tasty and meaty.  I used my own homemade marinara sauce, but you can use a store-bought – but make sure it’s a good one.

I would say you only need one meatball per person if you are serving them with garlic bread unless you have a huge appetite!

The next recipe I chose was the Italian Holiday Cookie – the fact that Dan aka Grossy makes Christmas cookies every year was such a similar tradition that we have in our family. We are from North Eastern France bordering with Germany and make Bredele every year.  We start towards the end of November/early December and gift them to friends and family, so I really wanted to try a cookie/biscuit that came from another family’s Christmas tradition.

Well, don’t expect a biscuit/cookie – this makes a more cake/scone-consistent bite. They are very delicious but only keep for around three days iced (unlike many other biscuits I make which keep for a couple of weeks in an airtight contained).  They are very soft and could be made smaller.  But they do make the perfect gifts, in my opinion, perfect for elderly relatives whom you want to give a yummy bite to eat as a treat.

The recipe called for almond extract but unfortunately, I couldn’t find any – if you read the side text to the recipe Grossy says that in Italy this comes in many flavours and most commonly aniseed (which I know from my family is a popular Christmas flavour in continental Europe).  We went for a simple vanilla and it was so good. I can see us making these time and time again and not just at Christmas – they have made the perfect lunchtime dessert for my children’s packed lunches, so we were all very happy with this cookie recipe!

All I would say, is as a Brit using the book some of the conversions to British/Metric measurements is tricky and the over temperature too – but thank goodness for the internet. It just means you need to do a bit of prep converting it before you start making – I do have cup measures in my house so I was able to more easily take on the recipes.

Another factor is some of the ingredients might be hard to get hold of unless you can get to specialist stores. Grossy is writing this book from New York where there are endless stores/food markets and delis to access a wide range of ingredients.  In the British countryside things are a little more limited, but  due to the simplicity of his recipes, you can easily swap out certain ingredients.

Check out the photos for what the food looked like but be sure to have a look at the book as it would be perfect as a Christmas or Birthday gift.  The book is a lovely hardback and will look fab on the bookshelf.  I can’t wait to try out more recipes and spice up my midweek meals with Dan Pelosi’s Let’s Eat!

Where can you buy your copy of Let’s Eat: 101 Recipes to Fill Your Heart & Home?

You can buy the book here on Amazon and it is available at other retailers you can find out more directly from the publishers Union Square & Co.

How much is the book?

The book is currently priced at £20.20. Do check Amazon for the exact pricing as this may slightly differ.

About the Book

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Union Square & Co. 
Format : Hardcover ‏
Number of pages : ‎ 288
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1454946397
Book Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 20.83 x 2.54 x 25.91 cm

About Dan Pelosi

Known on Instagram as Grossy Pelosi, he has been taking the internet by storm since we all went into the collective chaos of 2020. His audience grew and grew along with the popularity of his easy-to-follow recipes which led him to the creation of his book Let’s Eat: 101 Recipes to Fill Your Heart & Home. He loves his Grandpa Bimpy, whose recipes also feature in the book and he shares all the things surrounding food from an Italian-American family. 

About Union Square & Co

Union Sqaure & Co, taking its name from Union Square in NY City has its heart set on publishing books that come with iconic points of view. They want to honour the vision of their creators and provide them with the best in-house editorial team and the highest quality production.

Established in 2022 they are new to the scene but here to enrich the reading world with books that will immerse children’s imaginations and captivate the attention of books for grown-ups. Like cookery books such as Let’s Eat: 101 Recipes to Fill Your Heart & Home, by Dan Pelosi.

They believe that parks like Union Square can unite communities and they hope that their publishing house Union Square & Co can achieve the same through their wide range of books.

Review by : Lex Ward

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