Favorite Cookbooks

[KSUViolet06]

I would say my grandma, but she can never tell me HOW MUCH of something to put in a certain dish. She is southern and doesn't believe in measuring cups/spoons/etc (never used them).

So the convo goes like this:

"Granny, for that gravy, how much flour do I need?"
"Just a lil bit"
"How much is that? Cup? half cup?
"Darlin' I don't know. I've been making this for 50 years and I never measured it before."

lol.

[aephi alum]

I love to cook. When my husband and I redid our kitchen, I had a small bookcase built in for all my cookbooks.

My go-to cookbooks are:

- Curries Without Worries by Sudha Koul (because I love Indian food)
- Master Recipes by Stephen Schmidt (I took a cooking class from him once - the book emphasizes the idea that you can take a "master recipe" like chicken with white wine sauce, and vary it by deglazing with lemon juice instead)
- The New Basics Cookbook by Julee Rosso and Sheila Lukins

I have a bunch of recipes that my mother has written out for me. I also have a subscription to Cook's Illustrated (thanks Mom - I got my love of cooking from her), and I get the Penzey's Spices catalog. I go through each magazine and catalog and cut out the recipes that interest me. I also come across recipes on web sites like epicurious.com, and I print them out. I started out with one small binder and a few sheet protectors that I pinched from my office's supply room - I'm up to three large binders and I buy my own sheet protectors. The sheet protectors help me avoid the problem BraveMaroon mentioned, where the paper gets water or oil on it and the recipe becomes illegible - I just wipe off the plastic.

[AGDLynn]

Originally Posted by KSUViolet06

I would say my grandma, but she can never tell me HOW MUCH of something to put in a certain dish. She is southern and doesn't believe in measuring cups/spoons/etc (never used them).

http://www.surlatable.com/product/id...a-001b2166c2c0

Tad Smidgen Pinch Dash measuring spoons

[SMTTT]

Originally Posted by KSUViolet06

I would say my grandma, but she can never tell me HOW MUCH of something to put in a certain dish. She is southern and doesn't believe in measuring cups/spoons/etc (never used them).

So the convo goes like this:

"Granny, for that gravy, how much flour do I need?"
"Just a lil bit"
"How much is that? Cup? half cup?
"Darlin' I don't know. I've been making this for 50 years and I never measured it before."

lol.

I'm convinced we have the same grandmother I can't learn any of her recipies unless I'm there helping her make it to make a mental note of all the measurements. She's always saying, 'a handfull, just a tad, a litte bit, a pinch, or a good bit' and is never specific either. But somehow, granny's food will always turn out better then mine Gotta love Gran.

[honeychile]

I'm a firm believer that any cookbook, Junior League or otherwise, that has a woman's name at the end of each receipt is going to be the best you'll ever get. Only an idiot signs her name to a bad receipt! One of my favorites is one I picked up at a church bazaar while on vacation: Just Three. Every receipt is comprised of three ingredients, plus any common spices.

If you can get someone older to give you a cookbook, you have made a true friend! Let the cookbook open at will, or notice where the stains are - those are the better receipts.

Obviously, I collect cookbooks. The Better Homes & Gardens Pink Plaid Edition gets another vote from me, as does the 1970's Betty Crocker - perfect for the beginning cook. PS: the Betty Crocker has a whole section on tea sandwiches!

[AlphaFrog]

I tend to get my recipes online, and have had good luck with allrecipes.com and The Food Network's website...however, I've had terrible luck with cooks.com. I've only had two or three recipes from there turn out well. Some of their recipes don't even make sense - I made a bread using directions from there, and while I knew 3 Tbsp of salt sounded like waaaaaay too much, I did it anyway. It probably should have read 3 tsp....which brings me to my next point: 3 tsp = 1 Tbsp, and I've noticed that recipes that don't know their conversions and say 3 tsp instead of 1 Tbsp generally don't turn out well.

[KSUViolet06]

Originally Posted by AlphaFrog

I tend to get my recipes online, and have had good luck with allrecipes.com

I LOVE that site.

[MysticCat]

Originally Posted by AlphaFrog

I tend to get my recipes online, and have had good luck with allrecipes.com and The Food Network's website...however, I've had terrible luck with cooks.com.

Originally Posted by DTD Alum

My favorite thing to do however is get on Epicurious.com.

NPR's "Morning Edition" this week is doing a series on the chaging book industry in the digital age. Yesterday it was about e-books and the local bookstore, today it was about interactive books for young people (books with associated stuff on the web, like The 39 Clues or The Amanda Project), and tomorrow:

Cookbooks in an internet/app world.

[nittanygirl]

Originally Posted by MysticCat

Cookbooks in an internet/app world.

The internet & apps have made the distribution of recipes so easy.
It's awesome how easy it is to find a recipe for something.

As for apps, I had a menu planning project to do last semester with a friend (a DG! I just had to share since this is greek chat) & she found one of our very much applauded recipes by searching through an app on her blackberry

[MysticCat]

Originally Posted by nittanygirl

The internet & apps have made the distribution of recipes so easy.
It's awesome how easy it is to find a recipe for something.

Without question. (Though I'm a semi-luddite -- I have no device that uses apps.)

I'll be interested in the what the story says. The difference to me is that the internet and apps can be great for sharing recipes, but recipes alone don't really teach you how to cook or bake.

[AZTheta]

Originally Posted by honeychile

I'm a firm believer that any cookbook, Junior League or otherwise, that has a woman's name at the end of each recipe is going to be the best you'll ever get. Only an idiot signs her name to a bad recipe! One of my favorites is one I picked up at a church bazaar while on vacation: Just Three. Every recipe is comprised of three ingredients, plus any common spices.

If you can get someone older to give you a cookbook, you have made a true friend! Let the cookbook open at will, or notice where the stains are - those are the better recipes.

Obviously, I collect cookbooks. The Better Homes & Gardens Pink Plaid Edition gets another vote from me, as does the 1970's Betty Crocker - perfect for the beginning cook. PS: the Betty Crocker has a whole section on tea sandwiches!

Me too. It's my guilty pleasure. I have had to hide some of my stash, and I've started letting go of some of them, reluctantly. That said, I'll recommend Marcella Hazen for Italian cooking. She's my Bible, and I grew up in an Italian household.

[MysticCat]

Originally Posted by honeychile

I'm a firm believer that any cookbook, Junior League or otherwise, that has a woman's name at the end of each receipt is going to be the best you'll ever get. Only an idiot signs her name to a bad receipt!

The problem is that some people have very different ideas of what is a good recipe. I've found some real clunkers with the poor, delusional woman's name attached.

My favorite might be the Fig Newtons that are sliced and rolled in confectioner's sugar. My wife and I still laugh about that one, from a church cookbook.

[AlphaFrog]

Ok, I'm going to go ahead and spam for my friend, LeAnn's blog, because she is an awesome cook:

shecooks.org

And, MC, she's doing a Tenore CD giveaway today!

[AnchorAlumna]

The only thing I like about the BH&G cookbook was the table of measurements and list of substitutions in the very back. I was making a stew out of it early in my marriage and called her to ask what bay leaf was. "Bay leaf? Where did you get that from?" she said. When I told her, she sniffed, "That's a Yankee cookbook! Only put part of that bay leaf in, and take it out before you eat! Better yet, don't use it at all!"

But mostly I found Betty Crocker much easier to a follow, with more detailed explanations of mysterious methods. I still occasionally refer back to Betty!

Southern Living, Cooking Light and several other publications share a recipe site, www.myrecipes.com. I love reading the comments on recipes on the Web sites. Especially when people complain that they don't like it, and then list all the things they substituted!

Another good site I found was Christy Jordan's www.southernplate.com, which started as a blog. She has just published a cookbook and has been featured in several magazines. Southern favorites, good explanations, even videos of how to prepare dishes. She also offers links to a number of other good food blogs. Christy is not gourmet, but you can feed your family well and pretty cheaply, too.

[QUOTE=MysticCat;2011697My favorite might be the Fig Newtons that are sliced and rolled in confectioner's sugar. My wife and I still laugh about that one, from a church cookbook.[/QUOTE]
Don't knock it 'til you try it, my friend!

[agzg]

Originally Posted by AnchorAlumna

The only thing I like about the BH&G cookbook was the table of measurements and list of substitutions in the very back. I was making a stew out of it early in my marriage and called her to ask what bay leaf was. "Bay leaf? Where did you get that from?" she said. When I told her, she sniffed, "That's a Yankee cookbook! Only put part of that bay leaf in, and take it out before you eat! Better yet, don't use it at all!"

You're supposed to take it out before you eat - the cookbook says that (at least every stew recipe I've tried from the BH&G cookbooks say that).

I'm confused.