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Cookbooks you'd recommend (1 Viewer)

I've never had a cooking question that "The Joy of Cooking" couldn't answer. It's a must own for anyone who loves to cook.

 
I like Nigela Lawson's books. The photography is good and the writing makes everything sound deliciously sexy.

 
The Eunuch Maker said:
I like Nigela Lawson's books. The photography is good and the writing makes everything sound deliciously sexy.
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Just came in here to post "How to Eat" by Nigella Lawson is fantastic.A few of my other favorites are:

The Silver Spoon (Italian)

Saveur Cooks Authentic Italian

Chez Panisse Vegetables

I absolutely love Italian food and learned many a thing from my Italian friends when I was an exchange student. Those first two have authentic Italian recipes that are easy to prepare and absolutely delicious.

The vegetables book has recipes for nearly every vegetable you can imagine, which is great if you do a lot of farmer's market shopping or if you just want to eat more vegetables.

Other than that, I subscribe to Cook's Illustrated magazine, and along with that subscription comes access to their online database of recipes, which are absolutely fantastic. Cook's doesn't accept advertising, and they review various products (chicken stock, chocolate chips, food processors, steak knives) and run them through a variety of tests to determine the best one. They are similarly methodical about their recipes -- testing a chocolate chip cookie recipe 200 times, for example, to get the right mixture of ingredients for the perfect chewy chocolate chip cookie (I have used that recipe many times and each time it's a winner).

I highly recommend checking it out. I think you can pay for the online-only access for $25 or something, but it's worth every penny. I use that site at least once a week for inspiration.

 
Another vote for The Joy of Cooking, especially if you've never attempted preparing a particular dish before. Once you're comfortable with the basic ingredients and the prep and cooking times and such, more targeted cookbooks begin to make sense.

 
Dinner in Minutes by Linda Gassenheimer

This is a great book because it is organized into menus. She also has shopping lists, and the menus are broken down into when you should start cooking which items, so that all comes out properly at the same time. This is very nice for beginners!

 
Joe Bryant said:
Foodnetwork.com is outstanding.

If I could just have one book, (and I have WAY too many) it would be http://www.amazon.com/New-Best-Recipe-All-...7240&sr=8-1

Hands down the best cookbook I own.

If I was going to only own two, this is the other one I'd buy http://www.amazon.com/How-Cook-Everything-...7323&sr=1-1

J
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I have both of these cookbooks, plus many others, but I'm still a terrible cook.This is Bradyfan after using a recipe from "The Joy of Cooking": :hot: :wall: :bag:

 
bdphifer said:
Another great one is Sunset - Easy Basics for Good Cooking. It was originally written in 1982, and it has very good explanations of how to do, as the title says, the basics. Some of the items include lists of different types and cuts of meat and how long to cook them. Very handy.
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:excited: :thumbup: :thumbup: I was going to post this, but couldn't find this "original" one anywhere online easily, so gave up and took a nap.....

Fantastic recipes in here. My mom gave me her old one (er, I borrowed it once and forgot to give it back to her) and she ended up buying 2 more: 1 for herself and 1 for my brother. She wouldn't tell me how much she spent to buy them off Ebay, so I don't have the heart to show her the Amazon prices.

I use this book all the time.

The rice pilaf recipe in that book is the best rice pilaf EVER -- it's always worked perfectly and it could not be easier. The best part? I almost always have the ingredients on hand (1 cup rice, 1 can chicken stock, butter, onion, vermicelli noodles) and it can be modified it by adding fresh thyme and mushrooms, or whatever else you may have on hand (currants, pine nuts, tomatoes, etc.)

 
Joe Bryant said:
Foodnetwork.com is outstanding.

If I could just have one book, (and I have WAY too many) it would be http://www.amazon.com/New-Best-Recipe-All-...7240&sr=8-1

Hands down the best cookbook I own.

If I was going to only own two, this is the other one I'd buy http://www.amazon.com/How-Cook-Everything-...7323&sr=1-1

J
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Just clicked the link and found it's a Cook's Illustrated book of recipes. I cannot recommend enough that magazine or at least the website membership. You can look up ANY of their recipes and they always work and they have great instructions.
 
The Top Secret series is good if you want to recreate dishes from restaurants.

I've actually gotten most of my recipes from allrecipes.com

 
Joe Bryant said:
Foodnetwork.com is outstanding.

If I could just have one book, (and I have WAY too many) it would be http://www.amazon.com/New-Best-Recipe-All-...7240&sr=8-1

Hands down the best cookbook I own.

If I was going to only own two, this is the other one I'd buy http://www.amazon.com/How-Cook-Everything-...7323&sr=1-1

J
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Came in here to post How to Cook Everything by Bittman. Joy of Cooking has been my go to book for years, until I got this one. Now I always turn to this first.
 
Try one of Thomas Keller's cookbooks...The New French Laundry Cookbook or Bouchon. Not for beginners, but you don't need to be an expert either. Keller is one of the best chefs in the world and he describes the steps he takes in meticulous detail. Bouchon is a good one to start with because it focuses on simple dishes done perfectly.

 
The :goodposting: factor is off the chart on this one but this is the best thing I ever did for cooking:

Take a big 3 ring binder and make tabs for all the different kinds of stuff you cook. Whatever works for you. Beef, pork, soups, desserts, Italian whatever.

Then for every recipe, print it out on a 8.5 x 11 normal piece of paper. This is super easy to do with all the Foodnetwork.com recipes. If it's out of a cook book, use a copier.

Punch holes and file in the notebook.

Stash a few plastic covers that are 8.5 x 11 in the back so when you pull out a recipe from the notebook, you can slide it in the cover and place it on the counter. Keeps from ruining it with water splashing on it or whatever.

I'm not normally this organized but this was a HUGE help. You can write down little notes on the recipe when you change up the ingredients or do something different.

All your friends will make fun of you but they'll stop if your food is good.

J

 
MEH said:
Just clicked the link and found it's a Cook's Illustrated book of recipes. I cannot recommend enough that magazine or at least the website membership. You can look up ANY of their recipes and they always work and they have great instructions.
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It's not your normal cookbook but that's what I popped in here to post. Excellent resource on techniques in general, and of course--the recipes. That little trick for tenderizing steaks we talked about a few weeks ago was a good one!
 
Joe's 3-ring binder suggestion is outstanding. My Betty Crocker cookbook (new and revised edition from 1978 (1979 edition, second printing) is a five-ring binder so I use that for collecting all my various copied-from-friends and printed-off-the-internet recipes within the categories that were used in the book originally.

Some non-standard cookbooks I often refer to (Joy of Cooking and Southern Living Slow-Cooker cookbook are my 2 other standards) - linked to Amazon.com pages except "Taste the Good Life!"

Cooking with the two Fat Ladies (Clarissa Dickson Wright and Jennifer Paterson) - an early Food Network show with 2 ladies from England - lots of great lamb, fish and game recipes done in a traditional English style.

Twelve Months of Monastery Salads (Brother Victor-Antoine d'Avila-Latourrette) - a month-by-month guide to making a wide range of salads with seasonal ingredients. Especially useful for when you have a vegetarian visiting for dinner or when you want to do an unusual salad course for a dinner party - also has lots of interesting variations on every-day salads (like 5-bean salad).

Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home (Moosewood Collective) - Another mostly-vegetarian cook book with a great soup section, extensive bean recipes and some nice pasta dishes (some shellfish and fish recipes in here too).

Kill It and Grill It (Ted and Shemane Nugent) - For the carnivore in most folks, this is a great guide for game and wild-caught fish recipes. I also have a Taste the Good Life! Nebraska Cookbook (Leafie Mae's Kitchen, PO Box 233 Kearney NE 68848) that is excellent on wild game and fresh-water fish dishes (especially catfish). I have no idea if this collection of "best" recipes from a variety of Nebraska home cooks is still in print or not.

 
MEH said:
The Eunuch Maker said:
I like Nigela Lawson's books. The photography is good and the writing makes everything sound deliciously sexy.
Click to expand...
Other than that, I subscribe to Cook's Illustrated magazine, and along with that subscription comes access to their online database of recipes...
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Is online access included with a magazine subscription? I subscribe to the magazine, but I thought online access was extra.
 
Gordo said:
MEH said:
The Eunuch Maker said:
I like Nigela Lawson's books. The photography is good and the writing makes everything sound deliciously sexy.
Click to expand...
Other than that, I subscribe to Cook's Illustrated magazine, and along with that subscription comes access to their online database of recipes...
Click to expand...
Is online access included with a magazine subscription? I subscribe to the magazine, but I thought online access was extra.
Click to expand...
Online access is extra. I use both.Everyone thinks I'm a great cook and this magazine is why. Their sister publication Cook's Country is also good.

 
The last time I visited my dad he broke out two tin boxes of 3x5 cards full of family recipes dating from the 1930s through the 70s. Everything's in there, from lard rendering and homemade horseradish to French meat pies (torguere) and recipes for snapping turtle. There must be close to 500 recipes in those files -- including all the ethnic dishes (Polish, German, Scottish, French, French-Canadian, Native American) my siblings and I grew up on.

I offered to type them all out and have them bound into a family cookbook, but Dad wanted to go through them first before handing them over. I don't intend to render any lard anytime soon, though I am looking forward to taking a swing at preparing some of those old-fashioned desserts.

I'll use Joe's "three ring binder" idea for these when I get the chance.

 
JetsFan said:
Gordo said:
MEH said:
The Eunuch Maker said:
I like Nigela Lawson's books. The photography is good and the writing makes everything sound deliciously sexy.
Click to expand...
Other than that, I subscribe to Cook's Illustrated magazine, and along with that subscription comes access to their online database of recipes...
Click to expand...
Is online access included with a magazine subscription? I subscribe to the magazine, but I thought online access was extra.
Click to expand...
Online access is extra. I use both.Everyone thinks I'm a great cook and this magazine is why. Their sister publication Cook's Country is also good.
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:shrug: It used to be included, maybe they changed it ... I guess I should ask Mr. MEH if we've been charged in our account for the online access :mellow:
 
aardball44 said:
The last time I visited my dad he broke out two tin boxes of 3x5 cards full of family recipes dating from the 1930s through the 70s. Everything's in there, from lard rendering and homemade horseradish to French meat pies (torguere) and recipes for snapping turtle. There must be close to 500 recipes in those files -- including all the ethnic dishes (Polish, German, Scottish, French, French-Canadian, Native American) my siblings and I grew up on.

I offered to type them all out and have them bound into a family cookbook, but Dad wanted to go through them first before handing them over. I don't intend to render any lard anytime soon, though I am looking forward to taking a swing at preparing some of those old-fashioned desserts.

I'll use Joe's "three ring binder" idea for these when I get the chance.
Click to expand...
That would be a great idea aard.If there's one thing I've learned about cooking, it's that it's a lot more art than science. I mean I know there's science and physics and guys like Alton Brown do a great job with that. But it's about passion and fun and love of the food. And the reality is that lots of recipes are pretty much the same.

So taking stuff that has a personal meaning like old family recipes is super cool.

J

 
mattyt said:
Try one of Thomas Keller's cookbooks...The New French Laundry Cookbook or Bouchon. Not for beginners, but you don't need to be an expert either. Keller is one of the best chefs in the world and he describes the steps he takes in meticulous detail. Bouchon is a good one to start with because it focuses on simple dishes done perfectly.
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I just received a copy of the Ad Hoc at Home cookbook for my birthday -- it's geared more towards home cooking and doing it well (the techniques and ingredients aren't too crazy). I have to say it's an incredible product, so well put together, chock full of recipes (each of which you might actually want to eat in your day-to-day life), and great essays and tips on becoming a better home cook.

Highly recommended, it's a book I have a feeling I will return to again and again.

 
Does it need to be a book? With paper?

I use to use an older version of MasterCook and it contains both built in "cookbooks", some family favorites, stuff cut and pasted from various sites, and then just about anything else you could want from MAD's Recipe Emporium. I say I use to because the laptop that ran that fried, but it will be back on a new one soon.

The great thing about MasterCook is that you can use it's nutritional information to plan your meals pretty well to balance your nutritional needs.

 
wilked said:
Joe Bryant said:
Foodnetwork.com is outstanding.

If I could just have one book, (and I have WAY too many) it would be http://www.amazon.com/New-Best-Recipe-All-...7240&sr=8-1

Hands down the best cookbook I own.

J
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/THREAD
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Cook's has an excellent three-ring binder style general cookbook - my favorite:The America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook, Heavy-Duty Revised Edition (Ring-bound)

They also make my favorite grilling/barbeque book:

The Cook's Illustrated Guide To Grilling And Barbecue (Hardcover)

 
aardball44 said:
The last time I visited my dad he broke out two tin boxes of 3x5 cards full of family recipes dating from the 1930s through the 70s. Everything's in there, from lard rendering and homemade horseradish to French meat pies (torguere) and recipes for snapping turtle. There must be close to 500 recipes in those files -- including all the ethnic dishes (Polish, German, Scottish, French, French-Canadian, Native American) my siblings and I grew up on.

I offered to type them all out and have them bound into a family cookbook, but Dad wanted to go through them first before handing them over. I don't intend to render any lard anytime soon, though I am looking forward to taking a swing at preparing some of those old-fashioned desserts.

I'll use Joe's "three ring binder" idea for these when I get the chance.
Click to expand...
My sister did this a few years ago, and everyone got a copy for Xmas. I cannot recommend you following through with this enough.
 
Joe Bryant said:
aardball44 said:
The last time I visited my dad he broke out two tin boxes of 3x5 cards full of family recipes dating from the 1930s through the 70s. Everything's in there, from lard rendering and homemade horseradish to French meat pies (torguere) and recipes for snapping turtle. There must be close to 500 recipes in those files -- including all the ethnic dishes (Polish, German, Scottish, French, French-Canadian, Native American) my siblings and I grew up on.

I offered to type them all out and have them bound into a family cookbook, but Dad wanted to go through them first before handing them over. I don't intend to render any lard anytime soon, though I am looking forward to taking a swing at preparing some of those old-fashioned desserts.

I'll use Joe's "three ring binder" idea for these when I get the chance.
Click to expand...
That would be a great idea aard.If there's one thing I've learned about cooking, it's that it's a lot more art than science. I mean I know there's science and physics and guys like Alton Brown do a great job with that. But it's about passion and fun and love of the food. And the reality is that lots of recipes are pretty much the same.

So taking stuff that has a personal meaning like old family recipes is super cool.

J
Click to expand...
Ain't that the truth. Some people can follow a recipe almost* perfectly and it will come out like crap, then you get someone who can glance at a recipe realize what are the key ingredients and measure using a their hand and eye and it will come delicious *almost means if they followed it perfectly than it should have came out perfect.

Either way, I love FoodNetwork.com. It has everything and most recipes are delicious. Like above, I am the type that tries to not follow step by step unless it way complicated.

My last book: http://www.amazon.com/Charcuterie-Craft-Sa...6633&sr=1-1

 
:confused: for me, as I'm trying to cook more. As I've been cooking recently, most of my recipes are online from allrecipes.com or foodnetwork.
 
PolishNorbi said:
Joe Bryant said:
aardball44 said:
The last time I visited my dad he broke out two tin boxes of 3x5 cards full of family recipes dating from the 1930s through the 70s. Everything's in there, from lard rendering and homemade horseradish to French meat pies (torguere) and recipes for snapping turtle. There must be close to 500 recipes in those files -- including all the ethnic dishes (Polish, German, Scottish, French, French-Canadian, Native American) my siblings and I grew up on.

I offered to type them all out and have them bound into a family cookbook, but Dad wanted to go through them first before handing them over. I don't intend to render any lard anytime soon, though I am looking forward to taking a swing at preparing some of those old-fashioned desserts.

I'll use Joe's "three ring binder" idea for these when I get the chance.
Click to expand...
That would be a great idea aard.If there's one thing I've learned about cooking, it's that it's a lot more art than science. I mean I know there's science and physics and guys like Alton Brown do a great job with that. But it's about passion and fun and love of the food. And the reality is that lots of recipes are pretty much the same.

So taking stuff that has a personal meaning like old family recipes is super cool.

J
Click to expand...
Ain't that the truth. Some people can follow a recipe almost* perfectly and it will come out like crap, then you get someone who can glance at a recipe realize what are the key ingredients and measure using a their hand and eye and it will come delicious *almost means if they followed it perfectly than it should have came out perfect.

Either way, I love FoodNetwork.com. It has everything and most recipes are delicious. Like above, I am the type that tries to not follow step by step unless it way complicated.

My last book: http://www.amazon.com/Charcuterie-Craft-Sa...6633&sr=1-1
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This looks interesting. Do you need any type of special equipment (like a drying room or box or something) to make salumi and other charcuterie?
 
Anything by Steven Raichlen but in particular BBQ USA. Of course, this is if you like to grill or BBQ.

 
SteevieG said:
Anything by Steven Raichlen but in particular BBQ USA. Of course, this is if you like to grill or BBQ.
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I have one of this guy's books, and it's very very good. I have heard from a buddy who's had business dealings with him that he's a total nob, though that doesn't detract from the quality of the book I have (maybe it's BBQ USA? It has a ton of international type recipes, so maybe not)
 
Mastering the Grill is a great one for outdoor cooking.

Joy of Cooking and How to Cook Everything are must own cookbooks. Like Alton Brown's Cookbook and also really like Pam Anderson's "The Perfect Recipe" as well. Former CI writer so she takes a similar approach to her recipes. Have a bunch of Food Network chef cookbooks as well from Flay, Jamie Oliver, Batali, Emeril, one of Giada's, and even a 30 Min. Meals one someone got me. Have gotten some good recipes out of all of them.

 
Mad Cow said:
Joe Bryant said:
Foodnetwork.com is outstanding.

If I could just have one book, (and I have WAY too many) it would be http://www.amazon.com/New-Best-Recipe-All-...7240&sr=8-1

Hands down the best cookbook I own.

If I was going to only own two, this is the other one I'd buy http://www.amazon.com/How-Cook-Everything-...7323&sr=1-1

J
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Bought this on Amazon for $22 shipped based on this recommendation. Arrived today and looks amazing. :shrug:
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:whistle: If you like it, subscribe to the Americas Test Kitchen website and you can get every recipe and review. It really is a great resource.J

 
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