kitchen quote and recipe books

Listography: Top 5 Cookbooks

ByEmma

I love cook books and I love choosing what I’m going to make, planning the shopping list and then finding new successful recipes.  Unfortunately my OH doesn’t really eat indian, chinese, thai etc so that somewhat limits what I can try.

This week’s listography is top cookbooks, and you can find the other blogs joining in here

Here’re mine (in no particular order):

1. Nigella Bites.  This was my first Nigella book and I’ve made quite a lot of the recipes out of this.  In particular what’s turned into my signature dessert Trashy lime cheesecake.  What I love about Nigella is how the recipes never go wrong, even if you just chuck in whatever without too much care.  Brilliantly easy.  I’m also a big fan of her Nigella Express and Kitchen.

2. Jamie’s 30 minute meals.  I’ve got a couple of Jamie Oliver books, but apart from 1 or 2 recipes from each, I find they’ve always had too many ingredients (the gorgeous macaroni in one book being the prime example – must be the most expensive macaroni cheese you could make) and been to long and wordy.  But the 30 minute meals book is great.  I can mix and match what I want to cook, and I’ve worked my way through most of the recipes now (well, at least the main meals).

3. 3 & 4 ingredient cook book.  I love these type of books, generally purchased from somewhere like The Works for a bargain price.  Apart from cupboard staples, they don’t need loads of ingredients and they’re generally really easy to make.  Plus in the back, they have all the nutritional information for each recipe.

4. Rachel Allen’s Bake.  I love baking, and there’s some lovely recipes in here, savoury and sweet.  Scrummy snickerdoodles always go down well.  (I also like her Home Cooking book)

5. Cooks Collection by Good Housekeeping.  Something like 1000 recipes in here, from really basic to more adventurous.  I can always find something in here if I’m running out of ideas.

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18 Comments

  2. I nearly went for the Jamie 30 minute meals myself and then I decided that you would probably need a sous chef to chop and prep everything for 2 hours before you started the 30 minutes 😉

  6. I think Rachel Allen’s Bake is winning at present. Obviously one I need. I really should track down a good four ingredient book as how much of a hash can you make of something with so few ingredients?

  7. Great choices! I completely forgot “Rachel Allen’s Bake” until I saw it in your list, that’s another of my favourites.

  8. I think I might get myself the Rachel Allen book. It seems to be a popular choice. I do also love a bit of good Good Housekeeping cooking (always a reliable meal at the end of it).

    1. It’s good housekeeping – I reckon all those ‘womens’ magazines do nice homely and easy recipes. Most of my everyday recipes I’ve ripped out of Essentials magazine!

  11. I would love the 3-4 ingredients book. I don’t bother with anything that has a directory of ingredients. I also have a Good Housekeeping bumper book but didn’t include it. Mine is from the 1980s and funnilty enough – the food is a bit dated. Sounds incredible but it’s true.

    1. he he, we’ve got a real 70s cook book which my OH was given when the kitchen was done that came with an oven/microwave. It has some classic recipes in, and some dodgy microwave style meals.

  12. The Rachel Allen Bake one made my list too. 🙂 Haven’t got the 3 and 4 ingredient one, but it sounds like something I’d love – a nice, short ingredient list and easy to make! 🙂

    1. That’s what I love about it. I am a bit of a sucker for these short ingredient cook books, and the bonus is you can always pick them up cheaply.

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