Do you have a favourite recipe book or website?

Morning Glory

Morning Glory

Obsessive cook
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Is there a cookery book you keep going back to? Or maybe a recipe website that you use a lot. I think I've 200 plus cookery books but I'm a dipper and diver and if I get interested in an ingredient I'll look it up in many recipe books to compare. I don't follow recipes often. Its the same with websites.

What about you? Do you have a cookery book or website you use a lot?
 
Definitely. There are a handful of cookbooks that we routinely fall back to. One dedicated to vegetarian soups (Soups for all seasons, Nava Atlas), had that since 1994/5 I think. Another called Veggiestan by Sally Butler (vegetarian food inspired by recipes from Persia and the 'stans) Mango Soup by Jenni Malsingh (vegetarian & vegan Indian) and This cheese is nuts by Julie Piatt.

After that the most used is my scrap cookbook known as the blue book (it's a blue hardback lined Banner Notebook).

As for website, the main one I use time and time again is Tasty & Easy Vegan Recipes - Full of Plants .

I've also found that the UK vegan magazine I subscribe to has loads of interesting recipes in out, so they are actually being kept rather than the odd recipe torn out and recycled.
 
Although I don't use them much these days (because I've almost exhausted the recipes therein) Madhur Jaffrey's "Indian Cookery"and Mridula Baljekar's "Complete Indian Cookbook".

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Another favourite is "The Complete Hot and Spicy Cookbook" edited by Emma Callery.

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Websites? I use a multitude but when I find a dish that I like or have adapted to one I like, I write it up on my own website(s) and/or add it to my page on "Food.com".
 
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kaneohegirlinaz said:
I generally look for specific recipes online, compare, and then cobble together my own version.
I will transfer the recipes to a website, Copy Me That, where I can refer back to.
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This is what I do, most of the time, too.

I guess my favorite book about cooking is Ruhlman's Twenty, by Michael Ruhlman. It focuses on twenty techniques that cooks should learn, and then adds recipes that use those techniques.

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CD
 
I think this is the one I've used the most - had it almost 20 years and have cooked well over 40 different recipes from it, many multiple times (most of my cookbooks I think I usually try out a max of 5 before I lose interest and buy new ones - I really should stop that...)

Very accessible, sticks mostly to the classic ways of doing things without getting too fancy, good photos and easy to follow.

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Close second would be this one, for its treatment of how British Indian Restaurants batch cook and prep. I think I've cooked at least 25 of the recipes in here.

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I may or may not be addicted to (cook)books.. This is about half of what I have :laugh:

Cookbooks I return to are definitely the Hairy Bikers books, the Hairy Dieters (The Hairy Dieters - Shop - Hairy Bikers) has awesome flavorful low calorie recipes I like to make. Also their great curries (The Hairy Bikers' Great Curries - Shop - Hairy Bikers) is wonderful, and of course they made a cookbook where my recipe was featured in and my name was mentioned which I posted about on here before. That book is called 'everyday winners' (The Hairy Bikers Everyday Winners - Shop - Hairy Bikers) and the recipe is goat's cheese & apple salad.


Another favorite of mine is Nigel Slater's A cook's book, (Nigel Slater - A Cook's Book) it's a wonderful read and the recipes are delicious. And Nigella Lawson's How to eat (HOW TO EAT | Books | Nigella Lawson) has the same kind of reliable recipes I'm always comforted by and which aren't too difficult to make.

As for websites, most food websites I follow are Dutch so not very relevant for here. But I do like The Pioneer Woman – Recipes, Country Life and Style, Entertainment for American recipes.
 
Whilst I have quite a collection of cookbooks, I don't use them as often as I should and I don't think I've got a particular favourite amongst them.

My favourite cookbook isn't actually mine...its my mum's :happy: As long as I can remember she's had an old Good Housekeeping cookbook....not sure of it's age, but she's had it at least 40 years (probably longer). Its a fat hardback with a green material binding (I suppose it probably had a dust cover at one point, but I've never seen it) and some of my favourite childhood recipes came from that book. My sister and I regularly argue about who's going to inherit it :giggle:
 
Viana La Place "Verdura" and "Pasta Fresca". Madhur Jaffrey´s "A Taste of India" and "Eastern Vegetarian Cooking". Julia Child "The Way to Cook". Armando Scannone " Mi Cocina" (the classic book on Venezuelan cuisine).
 
MrsDangermouse said:
As long as I can remember she's had an old Good Housekeeping cookbook....not sure of it's age, but she's had it at least 40 years (probably longer). Its a fat hardback with a green material binding (I suppose it probably had a dust cover at one point, but I've never seen it)
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There are lots of vintage Good Housekeeping books available for sale (usually very cheaply) - it might be worth a search to see if you can find a copy. I've bought two or three of them in good condition. Just do a Google 'shopping' search for -good housekeeping vintage cookbook. There are some really old ones which are quite pricey too.
 
I have several, however I doubt I will precisely quote the titles,as I am in a cafe, waiting for my daughter to finish her sports...one of my earliest ones was Indian cooking themed, very thin, I bought it while being a student in Germany...a vegetarian one with easy dishes,also bought back when in Germany...a very recent one of very modern recipes by a local chef...and my own handwritten notes in a notebook, probavly since I joined this forum and released my cooking passion to be cultivated and improved...
Oh yes, a cake recipe book, barely illustrated at all, my mom's, no idea what the title was...
Oh well, not much of a helper , am I...
 
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