Last Monday I posted a two week menu plan, since I knew this Monday (aka today) I would be in transit back from the Izeafest conference in Orlando. So I decided that in keeping with my typical Monday theme of menu planning I would share with you my cookbook shelf:
I have another crammed full shelf in a closet in the dinning room, but these are the cookbooks that I use all the time-my “workhorse”, go to in a pinch, have a basic recipe for everything cookbooks. They are:
Mark Bittman How to Cook Everything
Amy D The Tightwad Gazette (it’s not a cookbook but I use the quiche, muffin etc recipes all the time)
Betty Crocker’s New Cookbook (I can’t find the version I have online)
Betty Crocker’s Bread Machine Cookbook
Better Homes New Cookbook (circa 2000 or so)
Better Homes New Cookbook (Old one)
You can also see that on the left there are a couple of issues of “Cooks Illustrated“~which I love but choke at the subscription price for. Also on top is my recipe accordion file-jammed full of the various recipes given to me by family members and printed out from various sites. If a recipe has appeared on this blog, 10 to 1 it is on a piece of paper somewhere in that file!
So what are your “must have” cookbooks?
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My all time favorite is the Moosewood Cookbook. Also love Marianne Esposito’s Celebrations. I had an accordion file like yours and could never find anything, so spent HOURS (or maybe days) sorting it all into categories like beef, baking, etc. Then put them all in three ring binders for that category. Now I can put my hands on recipes in minutes instead of hours! It was worth the initial time investment and $$ for the binders.
The Internet is my cookbook.
Seriously, if it’s not something handed to me on a stained index card from a friend or relative, I look it up online. I never try a new recipe any more without either a personal recommendation from someone whose cooking I’ve had before, or without comparing at least five different versions of it to see what other people have done with it.
PS: Do you have an RSS feed for comments? If so, I can’t find it.
Wow. You shelf looks like mine!
I use “Joy of Cooking” a lot, too, though. It’s not good if you’re rushed for time. But we have a lot of food allergy situations that prevent me from using things I used to rely on – I can’t even use so much as a can of soup or Worcestshire sauce – so “Joy” works well for me because it breaks a lot of things down to basic ingredients, without the shortcuts I miss so much sometimes.
My standby is the new Joy of Cooking, the 1997 version which is the only one not written by the Rombauer/Becker clan. I used to have access to an old Joy, the 1940′s version, which was awesome, it told you how to skin a squirrel, etc. I’d love to find one of those old ones again, mostly for the amazing variety of canning/pickling recipes.
I also rely a lot on the internet, especially when I’m out of interesting ideas and I’m bored with my standard repertoire, but I have searching through all the recipes for the ones that use the kind of ingredients I want to use – for instance, I don’t like using cream of anything soup, I’d rather cook a sauce from scratch.
I’d love to do the binder thing, but I’ve never had the time.
I also rely on the internet. So great when you have a handful of random ingredients, I can almost always find something that works — or is close enough that I can wing it. My other favorite cookbooks are several of the old Cooking Light annual recipe books and two of Ina Garten’s books: Back to Basics and Barefoot Contessa at home. Her food is not always very frugal or very health-friendly, but I get so many great ideas from her. I borrowed “How to Cook Everything” from the library recently to see how I liked it — and it’s now on my Christmas list!
I used to have dozens of good cookbooks. Then I realized that I only used a handful. Most recipes, even if I have the cookbook, get written in my own book of recipes. I cleaned out when we moved and now just have two small shelves (a little over a foot long each) and do as many here have mentioned; use the internet! I also use the library for cookbooks a lot. In fact there is a slow cooker cook book on my end table that has to go back today. I have one venison and one fish cook book that I check out several times a year, and I’ve written down recipes from them! Maybe I should think about buying those…
I love allrecipes.com but you have to read the reviews. My favorite book is the new doubleday cookbook from 1985. Everything in it tastes like my grandmothers. The joy of cooking is also a good one.
I love cookbooks. I love the “Make a Mix” cookbook, I am a fan of the old Better Homes and Gardens books from the forties. The Internet has answered a call to a lot of recipes in my life as well. I use the library for a lot of cookbooks too, like Josie does. I eat a lot of hispanic foods that are based on the area where I grew up that I have never had recipes for, and when I am asked, I have to really try to piece a recipe together!!
I received a couple as wedding gifts that I still use frequently now, 25 years later – the Better Homes one like you have pictured, and another one called American Cooking. But I love cookbooks and will often pick up “new” ones at thrift stores or yard sales for practically nothing. I keep them for awhile, sometimes find a new favorite recipe or two, and then cycle them back to the thrift store eventually to make room for more. I do find recipes online also.
I know that the Cooks Illustrated subscription is expensive. What I wholeheartedly recommend is subscribing to their website instead.
You get everything. And it’s searchable.
And everything includes all of the taste tests they have done for pantry items, spices, canned goods, etc. These taste tests can pay off in thrifty dividends.
Our family was buying crushed tomatoes that were twice as expensive as the Cooks Illustrated recommendation. Considering how much pasta sauce we make from scratch, all the money we have saved has more than paid for our subscription costs.
The cover fell off my Better Home and Gardens (the circa 2000 one in your picture) because I’ve been using it so much this summer, for the recipes and as a freezing/canning reference. When we try a new recipe we sometimes use the web,but we also cross reference between Cooks Illustrated’s “Best Recipe”, Julia Childs’ “The Way to Cook”, Better Homes & Gardens, Betty Crocker (same edition as on your bookshelf), and anything topic appropriate.
Another cookbook in the place-of-honor that is our small kitchen bookshelf: Student’s Vegetarian Cookbook (1997 version). I’m not vegetarian, but the recipes are easy and fast and they have a great chart of “one cup of dry ____ beans needs x cups of water and makes y cups of cooked beans”, ditto for grains.
My favorite cookbook is “Dining on a Dime”, by Tawra Kellam and Jill Cooper. I love it – so simple, so frugal, it’s my go-to cookbook when times are lean and I need a good, inexpensive recipe. Here’s a link to it:
http://www.livingonadime.com/books/doddesc.htm
I bought it for $10 at a book fair when my son was in school a few years back, and bought another copy for my mom because she loved it, too, after looking at mine.
I also love How to Cook Everything, and I refer to the Joy of Cooking all the time. I also like Mollie Katzen’s Vegetables Dishes I Can’t Live Without. Also, it’s not a cookbook, but I have subscription to Everyday Food and I save every issue. They have great recipes every month!
I have that same red and white checkered cookbook (the older one) and love it. I also have a circa-1950 reprint of a much older cookbook called Cooking for Two (OK, there are 8 of us so I have to change the amounts of things) that has the most delicious homemade chocolate cake, pie, cookies, and biscuits recipes that you ever tasted.
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