Cookbooks: The Ten I Couldn't Live Without
Ranked #13,166 in Books, Poetry & Writing, #492,785 overall
The Best Cookbooks Ever
These are the books that I use regularly to keep my family well fed. Do you see any that look familiar to you? If not, I hope you get some good ideas for what your next cookbook purchase should be!
Bon apetit!
Image used under Creative Commons from LollyKnit
As a child my family's menu consisted of two choices: take it or leave it. ~Buddy Hackett
#10 Better Homes & Gardens
Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook (1930-2000 Limited Edition)
Amazon Price: $2,398.95 (as of 05/31/2012)
This is my basic "go-to" cookbook. I like the reference guides on the inside covers, especially the emergency substitutions! I use this for making such recipes as macaroni-n-cheese, pancakes, and Welsh Rarebit. Of course, I have written notes on the sides for the changes I have made to the recipes. In my edition, there is a wonderful Pastitsio recipe that I make every Christmas Eve for my family. Every kitchen should have at least one red & white cookbook, and my vote is for this one!
I'll bet what motivated the British to colonize so much of the world is that they were just looking for a decent meal. ~Martha Harrison
#9 Cooking in the nude
The Naked Chef
Amazon Price: $5.54 (as of 05/31/2012)
No, he's not suggesting that you be naked while cooking! What Jamie does advocate in this book is good food simply prepared. This is where I got my basic vinegrette recipe and a divine couscous salad that we eat all the time during the summer!
If you ate pasta and antipasto, would you still be hungry? ~Author Unknown
#8 Easy Home-made pasta sauces
Joie Warner's No-Cook Pasta Sauces
Amazon Price: $6.98 (as of 05/31/2012)
This book really gets a workout! Fresh & tasty sauces that don't require you to spend hours slaving over a hot stove. The author recommends using only the freshest ingredients, but I have had good luck using canned (especially if you stick to quality canned products like Muir Glen tomatoes). Substituting canned goods for fresh turns these recipes into something that can be made from my pantry. You still have to cook the pasta though! The recipe to die for: Pasta Alfredo.
There is one thing more exasperating than a wife who can cook and won't, and that's a wife who can't cook and will. ~Robert Frost
#7 How to Cook Everything!
How To Cook Everything: Simple Recipes for Great Food
Amazon Price: $12.49 (as of 05/31/2012)
If I have a cooking question, this is the first place I look. Bittman knows a lot about cooking....for a journalist! That's right, this tome was written not by a chef by a food columnist. It doesn't change how I feel about his advice and recipes though: after all, he was good enough to travel around Spain with Mario Batali and Gwyneth Paltrow! This book is especially good for the newbie chef (great graduation or wedding gift) and has more contemporary recipes than the basic BHG red & white book. This title has also been revised and updated. Favorite recipe: scones.
What cookbook do you like to give as a gift?
Mastering The Art of French Cooking, Volume One (1) (Fortieth - 40th - Anniversary Edition) (Vol 1) by Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle, Simone Beck
"Anyone can cook in the French manner anywhere," more...0 points
The New Basics Cookbook by Julee Rosso, Sheila Lukins
In one spectacular volume, Julee Rosso and Sheila more...0 points
I refuse to believe that trading recipes is silly. Tuna Fish casserole is at least as real as corporate stock.
~Barbara Grizzuti Harrison
# 6 Elegant tuna recipes
Joie Warner's Take a Tin of Tuna: 65 Inspired Recipes for Every Meal of the Day
Amazon Price: $7.26 (as of 05/31/2012)
Not your mother's tuna casserole recipe! This book is chock full of recipes to use that handy pantry staple. Soups, salads, sandwiches and main dishes, all featuring tuna. Tuna Bisque anyone? Or perhaps Tuna Stroganoff. Our current summer favorite: Tuna Nicoise sandwiches - delish!
Americans, more than any other culture on earth, are cookbook cooks; we learn to make our meals not from any oral tradition, but from a text. The just-wed cook brings to the new household no carefully copied collection of the family's cherished recipes, but a spanking new edition of 'Fannie Farmer' or 'The Joy of Cooking'."
~John Thorne
#5 Cooking without a book
How to Cook Without a Book: Recipes and Techniques Every Cook Should Know by Heart
Amazon Price: $8.72 (as of 05/31/2012)
What I love about this book is the focus on tecniques for cooking fast weeknight meals, allowing you to have home cooked meals every night. Suggestions for utensils, ingredients and recipes as well.
How do you cook?
Do you follow a recipe to the letter or do you like to follow your instinct while cooking?
Why reinvent the wheel? I'll follow the recipe thank you very much!
WindyWinters says:
I'm with Cheryl. I try a recipe first, then makes changes; especially with spices & sugar.
CherylK says:
I usually follow the recipe if it's the first time I'm making it. Usually. But after that I will often improvise.
I view recipes more as suggestions rather than rules to follow!
RaiscaraAvalon says:
I never follow a recipe, if I use it I do it more for peeking at the ingredients, then I do my own thing. Works out well. Should cook more often though lmao.
mysticmama says:
I rarely follow recipes exactly, I love making recipes even better
KarateKatGraphics says:
I don't get TOO adventurous, but I do take some liberties ;)
My mother was a good recreational cook, but what she basically believed about cooking was that if you worked hard and prospered, someone else would do it for you.
~Nora Ephron
#4 Tightwad Gazette
The Complete Tightwad Gazette
Amazon Price: $11.00 (as of 05/31/2012)
"Wait - this isn't a cookbook!" you may say. Well, it may not be categorized as a cookbook, but it is full of recipes for the frugal cook. I'm constantly using the universal recipes for muffins and quiche (quiche being my favorite way of using up leftovers!) You'd think I would have the proportions memorized by now! There are many other great recipes, from do-it-yourself-shake-n-bake to making cookies from leftover bread crumbs. The perfect book for the family who is trying to save money!
A fruit is a vegetable with looks and money. Plus, if you let fruit rot, it turns into wine, something Brussels sprouts never do. ~P.J. O'Rourke
#3 Vegetarian cooking
Quick Vegetarian Pleasures: More than 175 Fast, Delicious, and Healthy Meatless Recipes
Amazon Price: $7.48 (as of 05/31/2012)
We are not vegetarians in this house, but we enjoy having meatless meals. This book features great recipes that can be prepared easily on a busy weeknight. My favorite recipe: pasta margherita, and a followup recipe to use up the pasta leftovers!
When we decode a cookbook, every one of us is a practicing chemist. Cooking is really the oldest, most basic application of physical and chemical forces to natural materials. ~Arthur E. Grosser
#2 Science of Cooking
CookWise: The Hows & Whys of Successful Cooking, The Secrets of Cooking Revealed
Amazon Price: $15.98 (as of 05/31/2012)
If you like to read about food then you will love this book! Not just a collection of recipes, but scientific reasons why ingredients work together the way they do. Plus with Corriher's help I can now hard cook eggs perfectly!
I was 32 when I started cooking; up until then, I just ate. ~Julia Child
#1 Julia Child
Mastering the art of French Cooking 50th Anniversary
Amazon Price: $19.49 (as of 05/31/2012)
Sadly, I became fascinated with Julia Child after she passed away. What an amazing woman she was! I loved reading her biography and have more than one of her cookbooks in my collection. However, if you are going to own only one Julia Child cookbook, it must be this one! It was a ground-breaking book at the time of its release, and the sheer amount of energy that was put into its writing is astounding. I am not tempted to try making one of her recipes every day for a year, but I am very eager to try many of these recipes. Right now my favorite is Pommes a l'huile (potatoes in oil). It is a great alternative to mayo-based potato salad & is generally what I bring along to potlucks
My Life in France
The Julia Child story
Learn about Julia Child
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My Dear Reader,
What is your favorite cookbook?
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CherylK Jun 27, 2009 @ 4:47 pm | delete
- Wonderful lens. I have the Quick Vegetarian Pleasures cookbook and love it. I agree about Betty Crocker...would never, ever get rid of my Betty Crocker cookbook.
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sandyspider
Jun 25, 2009 @ 12:01 pm | delete
- Very nice! My first cookbook was and still is Betty Crocker. If I'm not sure how to make something, I will say, "I have to consult Betty."
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julcal
Jun 24, 2009 @ 5:34 pm | delete
- I love to cook and I'm always looking for new resources for great cookbooks. Love this lens!
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mysticmama
Jun 24, 2009 @ 5:27 pm | delete
- wonderful lens, I'm also a big fan of the Betty Crocker cookbooks!
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KarateKatGraphics
Jun 24, 2009 @ 2:22 pm | delete
- Some of Jamie Oliver's recipes I love. The No-Cook Sauce book is on one of my lenses, too :) (on uncooked pasta sauce). My favorite over the past year or so has been Bistro Cooking by Patricia Wells--so simple but so yummy. 5*
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