"This recipe is simply fantastic! It's dead simple and so flavorful, even without the croutons (I cheated and just made grilled cheese sandwiches with gruyere).

I thought the saffron added a lovely flavor, and I used fire-roasted Muir Glen crushed organic tomatoes. Wonderful. We had it for dinner and I'm packing it in my lunch all week. "

"Simple and simply excellent. Also possibly foolproof. I messed up several times -- over-toasted the almonds, had to mix in the lemon zest and vanilla after the dough had already come together -- but they were STILL delicious. Not teeth-breakingly hard, great flavor. Five stars."

"I didn't see the show, just found this by searching -- it's good, with lots of flavor, but what is with the "broken" spaghetti? Not only did it hurt my hands to break it up, but it flew all over the kitchen during prep and cooking. I must be doing something wrong, but I scanned the comments and looked for a video and couldn't figure out what. It seems to me that the extra cooking time required for risotto is made up in all the pasta-breaking -- or like some have suggested, orzo would be a simpler/faster substitute.

Otherwise though, the flavors were good -- earthy mushrooms, nice nutty crunch from the hazelnuts and zip from lemon in the arugula. I liked the contrasting textures and the richness of the cheese (skip the butter if you must, but the cheese makes a huge difference in this dish. Very good. Next time -- with orzo! "

"I didn't see the show, just found this by searching -- it's good, with lots of flavor, but what is with the "broken" spaghetti? Not only did it hurt my hands to break it up, but it flew all over the kitchen during prep and cooking. I must be doing something wrong, but I scanned the comments and looked for a video and couldn't figure out what. It seems to me that the extra cooking time required for risotto is made up in all the pasta-breaking -- or like some have suggested, orzo would be a simpler/faster substitute.

Otherwise though, the flavors were good -- earthy mushrooms, nice nutty crunch from the hazelnuts and zip from lemon in the arugula. I liked the contrasting textures and the richness of the cheese (skip the butter if you must, but the cheese makes a huge difference in this dish). Very good. Next time -- with orzo! "