Martha Stewart’s Cooking School Now a PBS Series Lesson 5 is a culinary master class in the techniques essential to cooking pasta, dried beans, and grains, with 9 video demonstrations to guide you on making fresh pasta, delicious macaroni and cheese, perfectly cooked risotto, and more, along with 19 recipes and dozens of color step-by-step photographs. Making fresh pasta is easier than you might think, and in this lesson you’ll learn how to prepare and cook all the basic pasta shapes, including spaghetti, ravioli, and gnocchi—from mixing the ingredients and rolling and cutting the dough to properly cooking and storing the pasta. This lesson also covers cooking with dried beans and grains, with easy techniques for soaking beans, making fluffy white rice, building flavors with sautéed aromatics, and cooking perfect polenta. Video demonstrations by food editor Sarah Carey will show you how to make pasta, gnocchi, and risotto from scratch. Then, practice your skills with 19 tempting recipes and variations such as Ravioli with Butternut Squash Filling, Tortellini en Brodo, Gnocchi with Basil Pesto, Indian-Spiced Split Pea Soup, and a rustic Cassoulet. Lesson 5 includes the Basics, where you’ll learn about the equipment, knife skills, ingredients, and routines that will enable you to cook with confidence. Color photographs and video demonstrations teach you how to chop an onion, mince garlic, prep and chop fresh herbs, zest and suprême citrus, and more.