Food pics #17...and a question about cookbooks

Runcarla

Been busy, so repeating 'essential' recipes and not much to show. Even bought a box of store cookies due to no time to bake. In a pinch I will make oatmeal cookie dough, but bake it in bar form. #1 Smarties and raisins!

Are you cooking anything special for Valentines Day (or as my sons call it - Singles Awareness Day!)

And a question. How many cookbooks to you have, and what are your top 3?

Please post your food pics.

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7 years ago

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22 replies

Latest reply was from shnnie

rachylou

Veteran

Oh goodness. I’m unrecovered from the holidays, lol. I looked at some heart doilies at the dollar store and ran away...

I have maybe 3’ x 8’ cubic feet of cookbooks LEFT after a purge. More lolz. The cookbooks I keep out are the Joy of Cooking (I prefer the old, but don’t have it) and Meta Givens (also before my time). I don’t quite like the Joy of Cooking, but it’s always a decent place to start. I like Jacques Pepin a lot and am fond of Nigella Lawson’s earlier cookbooks. And I have a stack of Scandinavian cookbooks that I like to leaf thru.

7 years ago

Runcarla

Veteran

Rachylou, 'Joy' is like an encyclopedia and is more food chemistry and an understanding. 'Cook With Jamie' is much the same. These books will give your hints for success and allow you to analyze your failures! My BEST recipes are clipped from magazines, recipes from weekends at cooking schools, or translated from my grannies old recipe cards, or downloaded from the net! Thus the white binder I call 'Secret Family Recipes'.

7 years ago

Anonymous

I collect cookbooks, and read them first before shelving them. (all the way through) . I did a big purge last summer, and am probably down to 50 or 60? Currently, getting use are Oh She Glows (both) , Thug Kitchen ( I use all 3) , and old fave The New Canadian Living Basics , and Love and Lemons. I admit I use pinterest or other internet searches often too . I recently bought the Jamie Oliver 5 Ingredient book, have finished reading it but not made anything yet. I love cookbooks I wish I had more room for them .

For Valentine's Day - I made a Death by Chocolate bundt cake today and announced this was our nod to Vtine's Day in this house.

7 years ago

JAileen

Veteran

I have a lot of cookbooks, maybe between 150 and 200. I like to read them for ideas, rather than for recipes. At one family gathering my SIL said my brother made fun of her for following recipes. I said my husband made fun of me for NOT following recipes!

This is most of them. I have a few elsewhere. I especially like ones with vegetable recipes for the summer when we have a deluge of produce from our garden. The older ones were my mother’s.

ETA three favorites:
Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison
Essential NYT Cookbook by Amanda Hesser
Gourmet edited by Ruth Reichl

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7 years ago

gradfashionista

(website)

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How many cookbooks? I’ve never counted but probably around 20, most of them gifted. I haven’t been relying on them as of late, but the last recipes I used were adapted from Yotam Ottolenghi’s Nopi, and Ottolenghi and Helen Goh’s Sweet.

7 years ago

Staysfit

Veteran

I used to have many more cookbooks than I do now. Like my closet, I honed my collection down to only those I like the best. I have never read any by Jamie Oliver, and it looks like I may need to check his books out. My collection currently includes 104 books. I had arbitrarily tried to limit myself to 100, but the numbers crept up when I added the Ottolenghi books to my collection and the newest Smitten Kitchen cookbook. My books come in several categories, but there is a preponderance of books about baking bread, making cookies, Indian and Mediterranean Cuisine, and Vegetarian and Vegan cooking.

For Valentine’s Day, I will probably make some double chocolate cookies, or maybe some truffles. DH loves Turtles, so I might make the effort to make turtle brownies for him if I have time.

7 years ago

Sara L.

Veteran

Ha, I have the same Betty Crocker cookbook. It's great for basics. I probably have between 20-30. They fit on one shelf and I constantly edit so they don't overflow their space. Lately I get most of my recipes from online and I haven't been using my cookbooks much.

7 years ago

Diana

Veteran

Valentine's day is not really on my radar. Friday is Chinese New Year, so that's my big food celebration of the month. I actually don't know what we're making yet though. On Thurs night (new year's eve) we are going to my in-laws' where FIL will no doubt have cooked up a storm of traditional new years dishes. (For example, noodles are for longevity, fish for prosperity, etc.) The only thing I know I'm going to make on friday so far is tangyuan which are boiled glutinous rice balls (I fill mine with black sesame) that are traditionally eaten as part of new years' celebrations. I usually do plan the week's meals ahead of time (although not what days we're having which meal) but for CNY my husband wanted to cook as well, so I told him to decide and he will go to the chinese market after work and pick up ingredients.

My top cookbooks:
*The Joy of Cooking* for all sorts of things.
*Sunday Suppers at Lucques* by Suzanne Goin - literally everything I've made from this book has been amazing.
(Not sure about #3, there are a lot of books that I like a lot that could fill this spot and it changes weekly, lol.)

We have quite a lot of cookbooks. No idea how many, but a lot. We do use most of them, although there are some that are really mostly eye candy (nothing wrong with that though) and a few (mostly gifts) that are ridiculous.

7 years ago

gryffin

Veteran

Oooh I missed this thread and want to check other's cookbooks. I am vegan but I cook for my family including widowed mom and MIL and Uncle. I have an enormous collection of non vegan, vegetarian and vegan cookbooks. I read them like novels. Top nonvegan cookbooks - anything Ina Garten. I have them all and there is never a 'bad' recipe. Best Baking nonvegan - Alice Medrich her original Cocolat cookbook. Anything all all by Maida Heatter. In certain circles I'm simply known as "the woman who bakes" Vegan cookbooks - Anything by Iza Chandra Moskowitz, Terry Hope Romero, Joel Fuhrman's online recipe collection has some great ones, chloe coscarelli, would be top picks.

7 years ago

Elle

Veteran

My top 3 are Plenty, Jerusalem (both by Ottolenghi) and Field of Greens (Deborah Madison). I think I have about 20 cookbooks but I'm gradually paring them down and just checking cookbooks out of the library. I'm only cooking for two these days so it's easier to try out new stuff.

7 years ago

Anonymous

The Ottolenghi books leave me totally intimidated .

7 years ago

JAileen

Veteran

I made Nigella Lawson’s Clementine Cake for Valentine’s Day. It uses ground almonds instead of flour.

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7 years ago

Emily K

(website)

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Cookbooks!!!! I currently have 37 (which is less than 1/4 of my previous collection--I had to prune deeply!) plus I have a burgeoning 4" binder of clippings and pass-a-long recipes and a 1" binder of go-to recipes. The three books I'm sharing today have each yielded several go-to recipes and that makes them successful IMO. Maida Heatter's Cookies, American Masala by Suvir Saran, and Weber's Big Book of Grilling by Jamie Purviance and Sandra S. McRae. Cook's Country and Cook's Illustrated magazines/website are go-to's for general recipe-crafting advice.

BTW--"Smarties" are something totally different here--sweet/tart powdery candies--I was a little weirded-out to think about them being a cookie ingredient. But your smarties are more like M&M's, I think.

7 years ago

texstyle

(website)

Veteran

Most of my favorite cookbooks are older, often vegetarian oriented or Italian - Vegetarian Italian is one favorite and then another small favorite oldie from Moosewood Restaurant. I have a lot of others - Jacque Pepin's Fast Food My Way (and the second one, More Fast Food My way, lol). Both are great for quick dinner ideas. I have one from Curtis Stone of Take Home Chef fame that has a few nice recipes. I've been cooking most of my life so at this point I don't use as many recipes but I keep some of the cookbooks for reference. I also use Epicurious online.

For last night...we had an Avocado sandwich on multi-grain bread with tahini dressing (made with tahini, garlic, lemon and olive oil), big slices of tomato, some soft cream cheese, butter lettuce, and onion. Wow was it good! And a side of buffalo cauliflower (roasted cauliflower florets dipped in a sauce of melted butter, sriracha

and a splash of lemon.)

7 years ago

Rambling Ann

(website)

Veteran

I joked recently that I could hone all of my books down to 100 favorites, so long as I could keep another 100 cookbooks.

We grow and freeze our own veg, raise our own poultry, buy mostly pastured lamb and beef and are often gifted wild meat and raw goat milk. I've been looking for cookbooks to take advantage of the special foods we have access too. For meat, I am loving all of Hank Shaw's books right now, with his newest on pre-order. John Thorne, Sarah Lee Chase and Elisabeth Luard are other favorite authors. Victory Garden Cookbook for when I grow something that I have no idea how to cook, like rutabagas.

I gave DH The Food Lab by Kenji Lopez-Alt and he's not let me look at it yet, he likes it that much. I need a better Tex-Mex book and can't believe I don't yet own anything by Rick Bayless.

But if I want to cook something right now, I probably turn to the internet. The books are more for inspiration than instruction these days.

7 years ago

Rambling Ann

(website)

Veteran

What I cooked for Valentines: NYT's carbonara with sauteed scallops.

What's in the queue for the weekend: the annual artery-clogging dinner party of homemade goose liver pate on toast, followed by cream of mushroom soup with brie and port, salad (might put some sliced grilled beef on top, depends on how far I have to stretch the soup), chocolate tasting with the rest of the port. It's winter, it's comfort food and I look forward to making that soup all year.

7 years ago

binkle

Veteran

Filet Mignon - my first time! Bought a Lodge cast iron iron pan in order to do the stove-top sear/oven finish, and it worked out beautifully. I used a thermometer, and it was invaluable. Also roasted asparagus and baked potatoes. My sister had gifted us with some Kansas City steaks and stuffed potatoes during the holidays, so the potatoes were not home made. And for a dessert, a spice cake with brown sugar frosting. Sorry, no pics.

The spice cake recipe is from a 1940's cookbook of state fair blue ribbon recipes. One of those old cake recipes that doesn't specify pan type or size. Just gives an oven temp and "bake until done." Bit of a leap of faith, but by comparing other cake recipes with given pan sizes, I figured it would work in a 9x13 (I don't have layer pans).

I enjoy cookbooks very much, especially old ones. Most of my older books are from library sales. I get a new one every year for my birthday or Hanukkah. Maybe 70-80 books? Some are pamphlets from food companies, and those old spiral-bound church lady collections. I enjoy reading them even more than cooking from them! I like Nigella Lawson, Julia Child, Joan Nathan (for Jewish cookery). And my 1970's Joy of Cooking for how-to information.

7 years ago

Barbara Diane

Veteran

Several years ago I paired down to one shelf, although I read recipes online, cut them out of places, go online, watch tv shows, etc. I have tried a lot of new things since a few weeks before Thanksgiving when I realized I was going to make Thanksgiving for the first time.

7 years ago

anne

Veteran

I stopped getting new cookbooks a few years ago (which translates to: asked my DH to stop giving them to me as presents - though other people still do sometimes)
My favourite of those I have is Nigella's How to eat which is comfort reading for me - I love her prose and have since reading her in British Vogue in the 90s. I enjoy reading her quite apart from cooking from her.

I also enjoy reading an encyclopedia of food.

Now, like many of you much of my inspiration comes from internet recipes and I save lots of recipes to Keep.

For print recipes, I like Emily K have binders (4 or 5 I think) of recipes I have copied from various sources (I prefer to get a recipe book from the library, since I'm unlikely to cook more than than a few recipes from it) and also including some precious memories of recipes faxed to me at my request from my mum in my first year of marriage, handwritten recipes from others, recipe cards from special cooking night at church etc.

I haven't been very adventurous cooking of late and have been trying out whole30 recipes

7 years ago

Anonymous

I sold as many of my cookbooks as I could
now just have a few
Joy, obviously
an ancient copy of Moosewood
Victory Garden Vegetable Cookbook by Marian Morash, which if you ever see for sale used is worth it. REcipes might be considered "unhealthy" but the info is well worth it, and adjustments can be made.

Couple Madhur Jaffrey books

7 years ago

Anonymous

I have the Joy of Cooking as well as the Betty Crocker cookbooks. Both belonged to my DH before we got married. He cooked back then and I didn't. I have since learned (it has been 28 yrs) and have taken recipes from these books as well as from the defunct Gourmet magazines and tweaked them to my liking and have created my own recipe book.

My DH's favorite is my slow cooker pot roast in which I substituted cream sherry for water when combing with au jux mix. This is one easy peasy recipe which has always been a hit in my house.

I don't know why, but I can't make a recipe as written. I always have to change something to make it my own and it usually works. I have had many winners a few that my DH said was good, but I don't have to make it again. I have to admit that the Joy of Cooking is educational.

7 years ago

shnnie

Member

Smoked chiken. I would like to try cooking it for me soon. I have found a nice recipe on https://homus.org/how-to-smoke-chicken/ and I can't think about anything else now Have you ever tried such a recipe for you? I think it tastes fantastic, we'll see soon

7 years ago

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