How Many CookBooks do you Own vs Use? - Page 3

[Essie]

Originally Posted by Coconut Chronicles

I like Madhur Jaffrey's Indian Cooking and Indian Spice Kitchen. Both are excellent and easy to follow.

Thanks so much! I found the Indian Spice Kitchen used on Amazon--score!

[Aeress]

I pulled out the books today and don't have as many as I thought, so I organized them and decided that yes, I can order the Soup Bible as part of my anniversary gift.

How about a stir fry or Chinese cookbook suggestion?

[Coconut Chronicles]

Originally Posted by Aeress

How about a stir fry or Chinese cookbook suggestion?

My two favorite Chinese cookbooks are Breath of a Wok and Land of Plenty. Breath of a Wok is a fantastic all purpose Chinese cookbook. Lots of tips and the recipes are very easy to follow and usually don't require a super long list of ingredients. Land of Plenty is also excellent. It only covers Sichuan style cooking (which can be spicy) but it's comprehensive and very uncomplicated but the recipes are out of this world good.

[journeymom]

I've got 30 to 40 cookbooks and a stack of Cooks Illustrated. Most I use rarely. Some I use a couple times a month. But I use Joy of Cooking frequently. It taught me to cook and it's my go-to book.

I've got a binder with clear sheets for magazine rip-outs, email recipes from my dear departed mom, internet printouts. And I wrote out by hand the recipe for Nestle's Toll House cookies from the back of the package, because I like the recipe but wanted to use other chocolate chips.

Originally Posted by Masel

A stack of internet print outs also tend to have these sorts of substitutions scribbled in on the side. (I started adding dates to these notes which make them sciency and historical. )

I write notes and date them in my cookbooks, too. To me it's a bit of family history and a record of my progress as a cook over the years. I have this fantasy that my daughter or son will 'inherit' my cookbooks and appreciate the history and my accumulated experience and wisdom ( Jan. 7, 1999, too much salt...)

[Village Mama]

http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Asian.../dp/080481791X
This is the Asian cookbook I own that covers 14 countries or so. I have an old version though that you can often find in used bookstores. My parents kitchen burned down about ten years ago along with all of thier cookbooks.... this was one that they replaced... and I bought a copy for myself.

[lucyem]

I only keep the cookbooks I use a lot. I probably have 7-10. The ones I only used a couple of recipes from I copied the recipes out and swapped the cookbooks at paperbackswap.

Online recipes I print out. These days you can often automatically print them into sizes like 3x5 inches. I usually try the recipe first and if I like it I add any notes I need, cut them out, laminate them and put them in my recipe box. Others end up in a binder in plastic sleeves.

[wombatclay]

Well over 100, possibly over 200.

But only 5-6 that get used for actual cooking...much more often I do a google search for ingredient X + ingredient Y + ingredient Z. Mostly DH and I read cookbooks as literature or flip through them as a sort of pretty picture/inspiration thing. I listened to an interview on NPR once where the guy being interviewed had written a book about how people use cookbooks (and how that use was rarely actual cooking guidance)

[seriosa]

Originally Posted by wombatclay

Mostly DH and I read cookbooks as literature or flip through them as a sort of pretty picture/inspiration thing.

Exactly! I have 50-60. Its so relaxing. Occasionally I will cook out of them, but I am a practised cook on my own and don't really need to follow any recipies. I just enjoy browsing them and fantasizing. I do the same with gardening books too!

[Breastisbest2008]

I have begun scanning in all the recipies I like and them save them in files like holiday, chicken, etc. Takes up way less space. I have also started doing this with all the random aticles I pull out of magazines. I have saved a ton of space doing this. And it makes it easy to send to friends.

[bobandjess99]

I own zero, I use dozens. The library is my friend.

[Arduinna]

I have over 100 cookbooks, some of them are heavily used and some of them I've haven't got around to cooking a recipe from. I have a few hundred random recipes that I've accumulated also. I have my most used recipes saved to macgourmet so I have them with me all the time in case I need to know the ingredients when at the store.

[Arduinna]

Originally Posted by Essie

does anyone have a good Indian cookbook? they seem to be either too involved or not what I want to make...

My favorite is 1000 Indian recipes by Neelam Batra because she covers just about everything. The Dance of Spices by Laxmi Hiremath is my second favorite. I love her tandoori recipe.

[ChristyMarie]

I'm so jealous of those with 100+ cookbooks. Wow.

We have probably 30-40. Honestly, for most things we go online for recipes. The cookbooks we do have are very specific and are from chefs who really do not post their recipes online. Or we've bought them because we're doing an entire dinner around one chef or restaurant or such. We use them several times a year for entertaining usually. Sometimes for just us. And I went through a bread baking phase where I used a couple every single day.

And to the PP who said they use the library! DUH! Why have I never thought of that? I use the library for everything else - why have I never looked at the cookbooks? I know what I'll be doing next time I go.

[youngspiritmom]

Recently I've considered photo copying all my fave recipes from all my cookbooks...then putting them into 1 or 2 binders and donating the cookbooks. Hello recipes, goodbye clutter! Now if only I can get the time to actually DO this project....heh heh heh