Cookery books

I love cookery books and have a huge range of them - sometimes I will even take them to bed to read! One I often use is actually one of those weekly magazine type series where you bought and then put them in a book - Perfect Cooking. It was my very first "book" and I still use recipes from it.

I love cookery books and I love cooking!!

My most used cookery book is a loose leaf binder (well 3 actually ) with recipes I've printed off, ripped out of magazines or hand written by/from friends. They are all in separate plastic envelope thingies that get really disgusting.

Isn't it funny that lots of cookery books have only one or two recipes in them that one uses regularly (or is that just me?) Apart from the sainted Delia, the ones I am using most at the moment are 'Nigellissimo' and the Lisa Faulkner one called something like 'From my mother to my daughter' Nigel Slater's 30 minute cook book provides lots of inspiration too.

I still have things like the Bero cookbook my Mum had, but don't use it, and a Mrs Beeton from around 1920 which is good for a laugh.

I have a loose leaf binder too, and a recipe box given to me by and American friend and not much used. The binder used to be so well organised, and now bits of paper float out at random because I haven't put them back properly.

I have Nigella's "Feast" which has several food stained pages, and quite a few of Delia's books - nice and sensible. But, like everything else today, if I want a recipe, I tend to google it. I keep my iPod or iPad in its dock in the kitchen when I'm cooking seriously, the can switch from music to recipe..

BTW, did anyone collect those "Supercook" magazines back in the ??? 60s/ 70s. They used to have a monthly offer of cookware etc which I could never afford...

My ex SIL did ariadne and I copied quite a few recipes at the time. I still make a lemon and tomato relish and a cucumber relish from it. I have three files with plastic pockets into which I put favorite tried and tested recipes. Ones is for soups ,one for mains and cakes and puds go into no. 3 .ive stopped saving recipes- if I tear one out I have to make that week or it gets binned. I have a house full of rubbish.

My baker's bible remains the Be-Ro book. I remember the one we had at home when I was a girl, with a photo of a schoolgirl in a blouse and gymslip, and the legend: Baking days would be dull days for little Marjorie withou Be-Ro. I taught myself to bake from its recipes and still turn to them. Even though it has been reprinted and revised, many of the orginal recipes are still there.

The ones used most are Delia, Nigel Slater, British Bake off and one called Perfect by Felicity Clarke. This last one is a collection of classics, the author tried out various versions of each until she found the 'perfect' scone, crumble, quiche, stroganoff etc. I have found it very useful for improving my repertoire.

OH was given a day cookery course as a birthday present and went off to learn indian cookery, so we are currently being treated to some yummy curries with home made chappattis and dahl. Lucky me!

I have hundreds, I'm addicted to them. But I never cook!
If I have to I grab my mothers prewar copy of Elizabeth Craig

I collect and store recipes from magazines etc. too and they're stored in a ring binder too. And I used to collect those part-works back in the 70s but never had the chance or encouragement to use any of the recipes so I just drooled over the pictures!

I've got a couple of old cookery books from my school days that I didn't give back (naughty!) and they are well thumbed. But nowadays my favourites are a mix of Delia and Nigel with all Jamie's, Rick Stein's, Nigella's, a few hairy bikers and lots of books from other cooks and chefs, some chosen for their photography and some for their recipes. I don't use them all but I do read them often... I also buy digital cookery magazines - Delicious is brilliant and I've used lots of their recipes in recent months. I think I must be obsessed!

My favourite cookery books are ones I bought in my twenties, before I was married. Molly Weir. And Farmers Weekly.

I have a range of cookery books and use all my Delia ones regularly. Her recipes are reliable. I also like Nigella's Feast and Hugh Fearnley-Wittingstall's Meat book.
I bought Supercooks in the 1970's but don't often use them now. I bought them as I decided that collecting them was more sensible than buying other women's magazines!

Crumbs jingle I had a Mollie Weir recipe - wonder what happened to that? Can't remember what it was for

I collected some cards, that had blue tops!, that came every week and then you had to buy the box and the dividers. Still use the one for pots au chocolate! It's in my folder!! I also use a recipe (much adapted) for paprika chicken that came in a book featuring all the Tonight presenters. Crumbs!

yes vegasmags I have tattered Be-ro booklet permanently in the kitchen( other cookery books are in a IKEA bookcase). it is the second or third volume. My other favourite is a Madhar Jaffrey cookery book. I have cooked more recipies out of that than any other.

I also use the basic German cookerybook which is the standard work here and I did use it a lot but not so much now. I did a three years cookery course in the UK in the 60s and we were taught to use a recipie file box. These recipies are used by both my daughters and they have file boxes of their own, the system is unbeatable. You only put well tried recipies in it.

A Marguerite Patten cookery book was one of my few wedding presents in 1970 and has been in constant use for basic recipes ever since. When my son left for university we scoured the charity shops until we found him one. He's a dab hand in the kitchen and also is very keen on any of Jamie Oliver's books. I have a lot of very old cookery books and enjoy resurrecting old fashioned recipes, but also have a card index for favourites.

Supercook - all 112 parts - was published in the mid-1970s. I joined the editorial team when they had reached somewhere about M in the alphabet. There was a major miscalculation about the number of recipes required for the entire series so by the time we got to the xyz issues, we had to invent some very strange recipe titles. The recipes themselves were fine; they just had odd titles. Incidentally, every recipe in the entire collection was tested , including all the tripe recipes, on that occasion in a very tiny kitchen on an extremely hot summer's day!

I had the Cordon Bleu Cookery Course which was slightly before supercook but the cordon bleu bit wore off once I had children. I was a bit appalled when I realised that I've got nearly 30 Italian cookery books (and that's the thinned out version!) but I have got a couple of Delia's and several french ones.

If I could only keep one it would have to be Jamie's Italian because his recipes seem to be closest to what Italians actually cook (and his quick Tiramisu is brilliant if you're in a hurry)

Yes. Marguerite Patten is probably the best of the lot.

I've still got a book from the early 70's called Poor Cook (poor as in poverty stricken, not bad ) it's full of very economical recipes for the sort of continental meals that we were beginning to hear about then.

Bee Nilson's 'Penguin Cookery Book'. I bought my first copy in the late 1960s. When that fell apart I bought another copy and then a third. It is my vade mecum for all the basic information and recipes. I know my way around it and wouldn't be without it.

Like others I am always collection recipes from books, magazines, even online. I try them out and if they work they still get written on an index card and put in an index book. I do however have a spread sheet with them all listed to make menu planning easier.

I have a pink ring binder of recipes I've cut out and used and a blue binder of the ones I haven't used yet. I do have to keep whittling away at the blue binder as I'm always adding to it. Only today I've had a cull of some of my cookery books. There's a full shelf of them and some haven't seen the light of day day for a long time. I love, love, love Nigel Slater's Kitchen Diaries. They're a permanent fixture by the bed. Delia's original cookery course always turns up trumps for basics and I've just discovered Gordon Ramsey's Cookery Course. Really simple tasty recipes that don't need loads of unusual ingredients. We're trying his Minced Beef Lettuce wraps for tea today. In fact I'd better go and make a start.

I have a binder of bits from magazines and recipes friends have given me. My mum had a Be-Ro book and I was so excited to find the latest version. I love all Delia's book because they are so easy to follow and I also use the Good Housekeeping book regularly. I have lots of others that I never use but I do like to look at the pictures! When I was small my mum had a book that showed people having kedgeree and kidneys for breakfast. I thought that was what all posh people ate!

I have Marshall Cavendish part works called Nice 'n' Easy which came as a monthly magazine back in late '70s. Plus a few other cook books.

I can't remember the last time I used a recipe from any of them. Or even opened one of them

I have a copy of The Stork Margarine cook book that belonged to my mum,a must for when you forget the ratio's for pastry and The Dairy Cook book mum bought off the milkman always inspirational for cakes and biscuits.
Of my up to the minute cook books I do love my Gino's Pasta recipe book.

grannyactivist ..... we share the same "bible"
Mine was also a wedding present, around that time, and has been in use ever since for the basics that are too infrequently used to commit to memory.
I was so bereft when my original copy was ruined in a kitchen flood, that I found and bought a copy through Amazon books.

I have made the "rich Christmas cake" every year since my very first Christmas as a new hostess in my own home, and it has never failed .....in fact it impresses sufficiently that I now have to make 7 cakes, for distribution to various family.

kittylester Isn't it funny that lots of cookery books have only one or two recipes in them that one uses regularly or is that just me

Not just you, and a piece of research was carried out which proved that (on average) people only try 4 recipes from any one cookbook!!
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2261941/Celebrity-recipe-books-digest.html